Only in existence since 2011, Sugar Mountain has quickly built a reputation as Melbourne’s coolest small-scale music and arts festival. Once again championing Melbourne as the musical, cultural hub of Australia, the lineup and curation only grows bigger and better every year. The 2015 event was particularly ridiculous – alongside Aussie greats like Kirin J Callinan, Midnight Juggernauts, Oscar Key Sung and Rat & Co, were Listen Out-performers Odesza, Iceage, Body/Head (Kim Gordon and Bill Nace) and, unforgettably, Nas performing Illmatic in its entirety.
How they can top that with the 2016 lineup? Your guess is as good as mine. But it’s coming real soon, so we won’t have to speculate much longer.
The 2016 event is set to take place on January 23. One of the proudest aspects of the event is its basis for creatives – specifically, visual arts. This year, the Sugar Mountain Art Prize, valued at $7500, is to be awarded to one particularly outstanding student from the graduating class of the University of Melbourne’s Victorian College of the Arts, where the event is to be held. Not only will the artist get the chance to work with curators to create a unique piece of large-scale artwork for the event, but the prize will continue to support the new graduate in their first days as a real, live, professional artiste.
The 2016 judging/curation panel includes Director of Utopian Slumps, Melissa Loughnan; Head Curator of the National Gallery of Victoria, Simon Maidment; and Sugar Mountain’s Creative Director, Pete Keen, who says that this award “isn’t about showcasing tomorrow’s potential greats. It’s an opportunity to shine a light on Melbourne’s great young talent of today.”
The winner will be announced this November, ahead of their art being displayed at the January festival.
For more details, check out the Sugar Mountain website and social pages:
www.sugarmountainfestival.com
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