Regional Arts Fund Project: OpenField Arts Festival

16/04/2026

The 2025 OpenField Arts Festival of contemporary art and events took place in Berry over three days and nights (12-15 June), with support from the Regional Arts Fund, an Australian Government grant administered by Regional Arts Australia (RAA) and Regional Arts NSW (RANSW).

The festival was a huge success and had an enormous impact on the local community, providing employment to regional emerging and mid-career artists, an opportunity for the community to gather and focused support for local First Nations creatives.

One artist said, “Thank you for the opportunity to be part of OpenField, I am getting flashbacks of the lovely conversations I had with people, strangers and peers from all walks of life. And I loved hanging out with the other artists too. I look forward to being in touch and what you do next!”

The organisers (Lenka Kripac, Amelia Ramsden, Fleur Townley, Julie Ward, Zar Bingham, Andrea Christie-David, Odetta De la Vega and Anne-Valerie Slater Saulnier) reflect on the event, and its impact below:

Berry was in need of a free, high calibre, arts event in the town, so the inaugural festival was launched in 2023. Last year, funds raised through the Regional Arts Fund assisted in enabling OpenField to present a multidisciplinary festival encompassing work across media including painting, ceramics, performance, installation, and video, curated by a curatorium of local and visiting curators, installed in 14 non-museum Council venues and outdoor community spaces across the town with free exhibition entry.

OpenField brought energy and cultural output to the streets of Berry for the duration of the festival, resulting in a lasting arts infrastructure for future events and programs in the town. Despite a strong artistic and culturally engaged community, there are currently no permanent venues for contemporary art, live music, theatre or cinema in the town itself. The festival was an exciting and moving experience for the community, and survey data shows increased ‘off season’ visitation to the town and very positive feedback. The local community were engaged through the town’s immersion in the festival, with opportunities for residents to interact with art in many forms; to volunteer, participate and collaborate.

The festival was of high calibre, both in execution and the quality of work exhibited. It involved a total of 155 artists, performers and public program participants, presented a free and ticketed public program featuring artist talks, two panels, four workshops, an activation, three evening events, an art parade down the main street of town and a First Nations program including a hub where visitors could drop in and participate in art-making activities, hear storytelling, buy work from First Nations makers, and attend a panel talk and concert. OpenField recruited 90 volunteers, attracted approximately 4,000 visits across all the festival venues and sold over 600 tickets to our paid events.

OpenField was produced by a group of local creatives (Lenka Kripac, Amelia Ramsden, Fleur Townley, Julie Ward, Zar Bingham, Andrea Christie-David, Odetta De la Vega and Anne-Valerie Slater Saulnier) who worked as volunteers across all aspects of the festival planning and execution. The festival was curated local and contracted curators (Lenka Kripac, Amelia Ramsden, James Gulliver Hancock and First Nations Curator, Amanda Jane Reynolds), who liaised closely with artists, producers, installers, the OpenField committee and stakeholders to develop the program of events and exhibits.

Fourteen new works were commissioned and installed alongside twelve existing works loaned from galleries and artists. A cabaret and burlesque night, and a curated music program of three local and visiting DJs were presented.

We engaged with local First Nations artists and community and were proud to present a significant First Nations program including a welcome ceremony with First Nations singers and a Welcome to Country, a panel discussion and concert, the inaugural First Nations Hub, curated by Curator and Artist, Amanda Jane Reynolds, which was open for the entire duration of the festival for workshops, yarning, art-making, a community participation ‘Story Cloak’ artwork and sales of local artists’ work. Our main exhibition also featured work by two participating First Nations artists – Amanda Jane Reynolds and Amethyst Downing.

The First Nations panel was facilitated by Amanda Jane Reynolds, and featured participating OpenField First Nations Artist, Amethyst Downing, as well as poets, advocates and storytellers Bee Cruse, Tash Brunhuber and Lou Glover. The panel was attended by more than 100 people and was concluded by a concert by acclaimed First Nations Violinist, Eric Avery. The ‘Story Cloak’ was presented to the people of Berry by Amanda, and as a direct result of OpenField, it is now on loan to the Berry Museum for public display.

OpenField enabled a mix of emerging and mid-career, local, regional, and visiting Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists to showcase their excellence alongside one another in a curatorially cohesive way, responding to the theme ‘RE:Place’ and assisting them to connect with new audiences. It also provided an opportunity for the local community to witness such excellence and inspiration in their own town.

The community and creative outcomes of OpenField are clear, therefore, and RANSW is proud to have supported such a wonderful event through the Regional Arts Fund.

Learn more about the festival and stay updated on future events here.

Cover Image: ‘Without A Trace’ performance by Kenneth Lambert at OpenField Arts Festival, Berry, 13-15 June 2025. Photo by Ainslie Macnamara. 

Image: Visitors to the Pavilion as part of OpenField Arts Festival, Berry, 13-15 June. Photo by Andrea Christie-David.

This project was supported by the Regional Arts Fund, part of the Australian Government’s Arts and Cultural Development Program managed by Regional Arts Australia and administered by Regional Arts NSW in NSW.