This is Not Art 2012

Overview

In and around Newcastle this weekend This Is Not Art (TiNA) makes a window into the world of up and coming and too-strange-for-main-stage performance, music and prose. TiNA is a has been a hybrid of a number of festivals in its time. This year it's three: the National Young Writers' Festival, Critical Animals and the Crack Theatre Festival. New ideas, new performers and new shows all get a chance to shine in a free festival that connects you with arts, artists and writers who you might never otherwise encounter.

It's a four day deal, owning literary highlights like Women of Letters, the NYWF Spelling Bee and even a Younger Young Writers' Program. Critical Animals shows off Walking the Digital City and Bodies in Distress (from the intriguingly-named Centre for the History of Emotions at UWS), while straight stories get a look in with a series of three late night readings the NYWF Festival Hot House Show and Tell and the In the Dark.

On the performance side, Crack offers Impossible Plays, some time with Achilles at Home and the Toilet Show, a play made from graffiti on cubicle walls. Not to mention a word with Concrete Playground's own Editor-in-Chief, Rima Sabina Aouf, talking on digital critics in the panel I've Started a Blog… Now I'm a Critic.

This year's This is Not Art is camping-free, so alternative accomodation suggestions are on the website. Image by owlandowlet.