Splendour's Weird and Wacky Arts Program

While the lineup for Splendour 2012 is once again the number one cause of premature heart attacks across the nation (scientific research is still catching up to this), it’s not just the music that has us test packing the car every weekend.

The Splendour Arts Program will run over all three days of the festival, and according to curator Craig Walsh, “it’s the installations and unexpected art encounters throughout the site that help create such memorable festival experiences”. We couldn’t have put it better ourselves. From randoms painting our faces with glitter to bizarro burlesque acts, Lord know we love our weird festival shit.

Aiming to be a vehicle for young and emerging artists, the program covers areas of visual arts, theatre, dance, design, installation, architecture, digital media, sound, text plus even more creative pursuits. Firebugs will rejoice at 'Let’s Get Metaphysical', a giant fire-powered structure that will emblazon those words across the night sky, burning natural gas continuously each night of the festival.

Fell in love with that person you tribal danced in a teepee with at 5am? We don’t blame you. Make it (not quite) official at Andy Forbes’ performance/installation piece, 'The Art of Marriage' - an experiment in joining the souls that utilises voodoo, science, witchcraft and super glue (BYO pre-nup).

If you encounter a sparkling creature that asks you to make an offering to its skin, don’t worry - everyone else can see it too. Justin Shoulder’s sound/sculpture piece, 'Gala', will have people questioning the contents of their last beverage every day at 2pm and 6pm.

James Dodd will scatter bus shelters around the festival site for his installation piece 'Waiting', while Clemens Behr will trip us out with her installations that use recycled materials and geometric forms to create subtle confusions between 2D painting and 3D objects. Like we won’t be confused enough already.

We know you want to Smash some Pumpkins and take zoomed in photos of Lana Del Rey’s lips, but be sure to take a break from the music and check out all that is weird and wonderful about the Splendour Arts Program too.

For more information stop by splendourinthegrass.com.

WORDS: Sally Tabart