Artists look to a brighter future

By Tania Martin and Ed Merrison
Tecoma resident Jarek Czechowicz, Melinda Whyman from Belgrave, Upwey artist Joy Serwylo and Upwey-based acrobatic outfit the Pyrobats will all be contributing their talents to this year’s Sustainable Living Festival at Federation Square between Friday 17 and Sunday, 19 February.
The three-day festival is the largest sustainability event in Australia, drawing together a wide variety of displays, exhibits, art works, performances and demonstrations to inspire a sustainable culture.
Now in its seventh year, the festival will incorporate the key themes of sustainable living, covering topics such as transport and energy, future cities, education and green building and design.
The festival will involve numerous displays and demonstrations from non-government organisations, commercial organisations and community groups.
On the festival’s main stage, the Pyrobats will treat festival-goers with routines entitled Concrete Jungle and Forever.
Concrete Jungle focuses on finding a balance between progress and parkland while Forever takes the audience on a journey through forest, fire, nature’s force and regeneration.
Mr Czechowicz, a music and meditation teacher, will present an interactive workshop called Peace Music.
Ms Serwylo and colleague Hanni Ron will host a children’s program about recycling old books into creative art and Ms Whyman will coordinate numerous presentations and performances.
Mr Czechowicz, who will be taking part in the event for the first time, said the festival helped to create a vision of a better future and was a good forum for sharing ideas.
“Every part of the system we have in place is open to change and improvement, especially if a large number of people participate in that improvement,” he said.
Mr Czechowicz said the music workshop was aimed at focusing peoples’ minds on creating an improved future.
“I’m presenting a program of music and meditation to help people to refocus and relax, even in the midst of busy activity,” Mr Czechowicz said.
The Sustainable Living Festival runs from 17-19 February from 10am to 6pm at Federation Square.
Admission is free and the full program is available at www.slf.org.au/festival.