STORY WEEK ‘21
Catch the ongoing events from Story Week ‘21, including the APS National Final 2021 Livestream.
VIEW ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF COUNTRY
STORY WEEK PROGRAM
GUEST CURATORS
HANI ABDILE
"Story Week is a time where all brains collide to create and share. For me personally stories are powerful on their own, they are courage with wheels, they are knowledge which is the core of every step we take. And sometimes I can't describe the understanding and perspective that we gain when a festival like this takes place. ... What I love about living in Australia - its river of stories, some hurts more than others but they all smile while they have a hunger for change. At the most challenging times stories are able to bring laughter and conversions to our communities. This year has been out of its head, lockdowns which edge the artists closer to the cliff with all the uncertainty that covid brings. Being part of the guest curation team has been a great pleasure, having the opportunity to sit down via phone or ol’ mate zoom with fellow artists to reflect on life and our mutual passion for poetry art. My mission is to grow platforms like this because literature is the best documentation of history."
MEL REE
"Storytelling is the oldest form of education. I am privileged to live, work and play amongst and with some of the most raw, talented, necessarily unapologetic and inspiring artists who use spoken word and poetry as a vehicle to deliver vital messages that help us to understand this human condition, that take us from strangers to community by simply sharing profound ... collective truths. It is my pleasure to curate artists whom I respect deeply, whose work has transformed me and moved me in ways only art can. It is even more so of a pleasure to continue to work with Story Fest, Word Travels and Australian Poetry Slam, whose existences undoubtedly offer themselves to the rise of the collective conscience, to the opening and celebration of marginalised voices, and thus, ultimately, to the Revolution! From the most difficult of circumstances artists will always rise up in exciting, newly imagined ways, this is precisely what has happened here, Story Fest is a festival like no other! Thanks to Covid (can’t believe 'm thanking Covid but it’s true) Miles Merrill and his creative team have envisioned new possibilities for audience and artist engagement. Just as Squid Game (if you haven’t seen it you must) created a new kind of realm for delivering exquisite television viewing, Story Fest has imagined multifaceted, unique ways of sharing stories. Please, read the festival guide, then read it again, then invite yourself, your family and friends to take part in new kinds of realms where stories and human connection gather in unlikely spaces. "
AWESOME BLACK
"Awesome Black are incredibly excited to partner with Word Travels as First Nations Creative Producers and specifically on the curation and delivery of the 2021 Story Week. Creating programs that centre authentic First Nations voices and stories is an honour for us, it is what we love doing, it is the very core ... of who we are as an organisation. Brooke Scobie and Tully De Vries have worked closely with the Word Travels team and our communities to feature artists whose voices need to be heard, who need to be listened to."
