Locals urged to support Biennale

THE CONTINUED lockout of Melbourne visitors from regional Victoria has sparked a plea from organisers of the ninth Ballarat International Foto Biennale for locals to come out in droves to support the “very affordable” world-class event.

This year, for the first time ever, visitors to the festival can buy either a single day pass – midweek $18, weekend $24, or a three-day pass – $30 to $36 – that includes entry into the Linda McCartney: Retrospective exhibition, as well as unlimited entry to all core program indoor exhibitions.

Festival artistic director Fiona Sweet said with “potentially many people who can’t come because they’re locked down”, the renowned event cannot rely on “what would normally be quite a big audience from around Australia.”

“I encourage our local community, which extends to all the regional towns as well, to buy a ticket,” she said.

“What’s really interesting is that there’s a beautiful sense of pride when you go to see something in your own town – that’s what I love about doing things here in Ballarat.

“It’s also very rare that you can have an exhibition anywhere in the world right now, not just an outdoor festival on a billboard, but actually being able to intentionally walk into a space to see the works.”

With the image of coronavirus lockdowns still fresh in everyone’s collective memories, Ms Sweet said festival organisers were working hard to make the events COVID safe.

“We’ve put in place some really clever COVID strategies for the festival and because we didn’t have it last year, at the heart of the lockdown, we had a lot of time to really consider what we were doing,” she said.

“We have more people in the program, I thought there might be fewer, but in fact, more people want to be exhibiting because they’ve had less opportunity to.

“There’s such a broad appeal. When you buy that ticket, there’s 12 exhibitions for the price of one.”

Tickets and more information on the exhibitions available at ballaratfoto.org.