Fest focus on environment

Everything that is old is new again at the Vancouver Street Festival this weekend.
That is the chosen theme for the annual street event that celebrates all the Great Southern has to offer. Upcycling, recycling and relearning old skills are what the organisers want attendees to think about as they head to Vancouver Street.
While addressing the environmentally friendly theme, local talent is set to impress all who head to the festival on Saturday.
City of Albany arts development officer Emma Davis said one of the main aims of the festival was to highlight Great Southern artists and the work they were doing.
“At the Vancouver Arts Centre we have so many different user groups that have a focus area on a particular skill, and we found that some of these are skills that everybody used to know, and now we have only got small groups of people that do them,” she said.
“I didn’t realise when I moved here how much there is on offer, and I am sure there are lots of people out there who haven’t discovered it yet.
“It is nice to give the rest of the community a chance to see that there are still people doing these things and they aren’t as difficult as you think it is.”
There will be 20 stallholders, walks, artists’ talks, the Great Southern Art Award exhibition, two stages and an array of roaming street performers.
Local spinning and weaving groups’ work will be on display, as well as the community garden group, which will teach people how to make new plants from old ones.
Ms Davis said some exciting performers would take to the stage. “We have Bella Fasolo, who is only 17, and she was the Fairbridge Festival finalist from Albany,” she said. “The roaming street performers from Southern Edge Arts, and contemporary dancers in the Presence of Wool are going to be really exciting too.”
The festival runs from 11am-4pm. Visit albany.wa.gov. au for the full program.
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