“The only devils in this world are those running around in our own hearts, and that is where all our battles should be fought” Mahatma Ghandi.
It was this quote from Mahatma Ghandi that captured Woodford Folk Festival Organisers’ hearts as they worked on a festival theme this year according to Festival Director Bill Hauritz.
Last night Woodford Folk Festival organisers launched the 2013/14 Festival theme and poster ahead of their programme launch in mid October. The theme for the 28th festival, facing our fears away aims to explore our inner monsters and recognise them for what they are: the manifestation of our fears.
“Each year we’ve looked for a central festival theme that helps us envisage how our ceremonies and indeed programming will take shape. Finding universal themes and applying these to festivals is not easy” said Hauritz. “We saw some wonderful children’s drawings of their monsters and Ghandi’s quote seemed to pull it all together for us” he said.
Throughout August, Woodford Folk Festival enlisted the help of the Sunshine Coast and Moreton Bay Regional communities to create the very special Monster Project which saw hundreds of children’s monster drawings exhibited in Woodford and on the Sunshine Coast in September. Eventually, three children’s monsters will be brought to life as giant six metre puppets to be unleashed at The Monster Parade at the festival.
Bill Hauritz spoke at the closing of the Monster Project exhibition at Mooloolaba Surf Club on Thursday where the festival officially launched its poster and announced the festival theme. “I think we’ve themed the festival this year with some serious ideas but in the context of not taking ourselves too seriously” he said.
Explaining the theme Hauritz said, “We seem to increasingly live in a world of blame rather than one of responsibility. We get scared into living a disempowered existence rather than a joyful way of life. Living in a bad news world can create our monsters and fears which bring us down.”
“We wanted to explore the notion of ‘loving our inner monsters to death’. If we could do that we might live in a world of adventure and exploration like a child’s mind pondering the wonders of the universe. We see the festival as the perfect playground to explore these ideas. We’ve observed that artists challenge what has become the ‘norm’ and facing our fears is the best way to destroy them” said Hauritz.
Each year, the Woodford Folk Festival poster is a piece of artwork which festival devotees and art lovers rush to purchase due to its imaginative and intricate design, vivid colours and creativeness.
This year’s stunning poster features a procession of people and their monsters passing through a beautiful living and growing heart – it’s a porthole to a place of aspirations and celebrations, the Woodford Folk Festival, and a visual representation of this year’s theme.
Woodfordia’s General Manager Amanda Jackes has described the poster as “the best yet” from a series of six by artist Gavin Ryan. “Gavin has really excelled himself this year, we’ve always been happy with the posters he’s done as the sales of them reflect, but we expect this year’s poster to be a sell-out” she said.
Ryan is Woodford’s resident graphic designer and illustrator and has been designing the poster since 2008. Ryan is a regular designer of stamps for Australia Post and has worked on a number of commissioned works as well as his own artworks. Of this year’s poster he said “It’s been the most challenging one I’ve done to date. Getting through the idea that at the festival we can love our monsters away while capturing the joy and energy of the event itself hasn’t been easy but I’m really pleased with the final result this year and Gandhi’s quote was the key.”
Festival posters are for sale at www.woodfordfolkfestival.com and at selected newsagents.
