Overview
Walking around Brisbane is a great way to enjoy your own backyard, see the local sights and get in some exercise. For a 17-day period between Friday, June 24–Sunday, July 10 this winter, doing just that in Brisbane will also allow you to engage with a series of interactive installations. They're called 'curiocities', and they're part of the returning Curiocity Brisbane festival, which focuses on the interaction of science, technology, innovation and the arts.
If this all sounds familiar — and not just from past years — that's because Curiocity Brisbane was meant to take place back in March during this year's World Science Festival Brisbane. Then the wet weather got in the way, the broader fest moved online, and Curiocity decided to hold out until later in the year. While this event loves toying with all things digital, it can't actually go virtual and have the same impact.
Peruse its program and it's easy to see why that's the case; giant artworks aren't quite the same when you're only seeing them through your computer or phone. So, in 2022 — across a longer festival in its new dates, too — Curiocity Brisbane will feature physical spaces that are designed to ignite the senses, as spread across South Bank, the Cultural Centre, the Goodwill Bridge, the Brisbane City Botanic Gardens and the Queen Street Mall. That gives you plenty of places to head, as well as a trail filled with 20 artworks to mosey along.
Standout installations span Acknowledging Place, which asks participants to sit and consider an Indigenous perspective of caring for Country; public sculpture OHCE/ECHO, which captures your portrait and embeds it in the work; and The Wandering Birds Have Returned to the River (Even Bernice), featuring imaginary giant bird nests made out of repurposed and reusable consumer goods.
Other Curiocity must-sees include Luminous Threads, which combines embroidery with modern fibre optic technology; Mirage Project [Iceberg], which uses stereoscopic photography to inlay an iceberg from Antarctica into South Bank; and light and soundscape In the Air, a time-lapse piece that uses data from Antarctic ice-core samples to map changes over the past 400,000 years in a half-hour music and light show.
Evanescent, Curiocity 2021, Markus Ravik
Curiocity Brisbane will pop up around the city between Friday, June 24–Sunday, July 10. For further information — or to get tickets from Monday, May 16 — head to the World Science Festival website.
Top images: Evanescent, Curiocity 2021, Markus Ravik.