AN innovative new festival, Make/shift, will make its debut in Fremantle this September to share, debate and create ideas in building better futures.
Organised by Good Together and Berlin Creative the festival runs for two weeks from September 4-18 with 19 public events such as quiz nights, film screenings and artistic endeavours, to a conversation series which discusses topics like AI, democracy and inequality.
Good Together co-director Matt Berry says Make/shift is an opportunity for ordinary people who are worried about the direction our futures are heading in to get involved in big conversations like climate change, AI, the housing crisis and cost of living crisis.
• Make/shift is hoping to bring a better future.
“We wanted spaces where we could talk about bigger, more ambitious, more creative responses to the big challenges that the world is facing at the moment,” Mr Berry said.
“We’re not a big fan of the futures on offer at the moment. There’s just a story of doom and collapse.”
Good Together co-director Joni Sercombe says the festival aims to create a sense of community among like-minded individuals to combat feelings of loneliness and powerlessness.
“Rather than feeling like the world is going to end, people have a sense of really concrete hope in the kinds of things they can get involved in,” Ms Sercombe said.
“There’s so many unknowns and challenges coming at us that we don’t necessarily have the answers easily packaged up.”
Berlin Creative creative director and co-founder Richard Berney sees Make/shift as the beginning of the future by giving us the chance to get inspired.
Engage
“The future is what we make it. We decide what tomorrow is going to be. It’s not fait complete, it’s not done. It will be what we create,” Mr Berney said.
“You have to engage and confidently speak your mind about what you want the future to be. Whether or not it’s an easy road doesn’t actually matter. You just need to be a part of it.”
“Sitting back and just letting it happen is not living. Being a part of a festival of conversation and beautiful ideas is what it means to be alive and part of a community.”
The Next Economy economic change program director and guest speaker Katherine Trebeck encourages people to “channel their inner three-year-old” to ask “why, why, why”.
“We need to not take symptoms of economic challenges at face value. There are a huge number of people sleeping in tents. Europe is on fire. England is experiencing unprecedented levels of drought.
“All of those are symptoms of an economic system that treats people and planet as inputs to the economy rather than an economic system that is designed to serve the needs of people and planet.”
“Anyone who thinks that business as usual is the best we can do or who thinks it’s naïve to ask or think about massive changes in the economy are taking us into a blind corner.”
Make/shift festival is not only a festival of discussion and debate but incorporates art and culture to explore the depths of community togetherness and creativity.
Community engagement practitioner and artist Chrissy Wilson is holding a collage workshop at Make/shift which focuses on splicing together pieces of our existing future and reimagining a better one.
“Collage feels very relevant to how we create better communities. We can’t necessarily control everything that’s happening in the world, but we can make some space to imagine what we want more of and that’s where I think creativity has a really important role to play,” Ms Wilson said.
Full program and tickets at www.makeshift.site
by IMOGEN WALSH