first comes spring then comes....

....well... not fling! In this case.... 'First comes Spring, then comes fffff....estival! 

Yes. It's the beginning of Sydney's Spring art festival season and it all kicked off on September 8 with the opening of the MCA's Primavera exhibition, which this year went walkabout.

Rebecca Baumann, Improvised Smoke Device, Primavera 2011, MCA

Every year the Museum of Contemporary Art showcases a handful of emerging artists that are been invited to exhibit in Primavera by a guest curator. This year the guest curator is Anna Davis and she has chosen a very diverse group of artists, under the age of 35, to exhibit their wares around The Rocks precinct, as the MCA is still undergoing major renovations to its home in Circular Quay. But the museums loss is The Rocks' gain, as more art in the historical Rocks area means more points of interest to a suburb of Sydney that is in desperate need of life and vitality! 

In the last few months The Harbour foreshore authority + Arts NSW have been trying to breathe new life into the back streets of The Rocks with The Pop up Project, a 6 month arts program that has seen galleries such as Gaffa, and designers such as Trent Jansen and Henry Wilson set up open studios to the public. If you would like to get a map and have a look at these pop ups click onto this site here... and get walking!

The Primavera artists are also easily located using a map too...so have a look at this and this! It's the perfect weather for a tour around the city to participate in all these amazing art events. Its all free and all open to anyone with a good pair of walking shoes and alittle bit of time on their hands.

And speaking of time... a third Spring arts festival opens this week with the annual art+about festival  kicking off on Friday (23rd) with a huge free concert in Martin Place! The festival then continues on for exactly one month with so so many events, exhibitions, workshops and talks that you just have to pick up the program and have a read, as there are too many amazing things for me to mention! 

One thing I will say now is that I will be helping with  the Happy Talk weaving workshops and I am very excited to be getting involved! But ill talk more about all that soon...

Happy happy Monday to you...x