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The Fringe Visual Arts Program.
 The
Fringe visual arts program is simply huge - so huge that taking
a pen to the guide and drawing rings around what interests you
is going to leave an impossibly long list of events spattered
around city and metropolitan Adelaide. Instead, develop a keen
eye for the Fringe signage and you will find visual arts events
at the pubs and clubs you drink in, the shops in which you buy
lunch or get your haircut, and almost anywhere you are walking
in the city during the next month. Better still, grab a Fringe
by day guide and follow one of the walks they've mapped for
you.
One of the great things about the Fringe is the artists that you unexpectedly happen upon - quite literally at the fringe of the big ticketed events. Look out for roving visual performance artists; amongst others The Group, a London based shock performance group that has been going strong since 1981.
 Kinetic
artists will be at various Fringe events drawing and painting
the action live. Their work will be exhibited at the club Jive
on Hindley Street. Similarly, Sue Wicks will be cartooning at
the Fringe Hub which is based at Adelaide Uni. But rather than
being just a spectator or subject of the art, try playing the
game 'I Like Frank in Adelaide' that UK mega art stars Blast
Theo ry are developing in the Fringe Hub.
Obviously much of the visual arts program will centre on the Hub. An entire floor of the Union building is being transformed into a gallery for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander visual artists working in urban and regional South Australia. The philosophy of this exhibition is reflected in the title given to the gallery, Ngapartji Ngapartji which means "giving and receiving" or "sharing" in Anangu Pitjantjatjara language.
Also at the Hub is Freshbait, work from specially selected local emerging artists and Hearsay, which features work from a community cultural development program John Turpie and Siv Grava have conducted with the refugees of Baxter Detention Centre. At a personal level it will offer insight into the hearts and stories of individual refugees while in the wider scheme of things being positive but still polemic and political. Similarly, with the exhibit 'Brik' nearly 300 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people will be each represented by a single painted canvas - these will then be joined together like the brick walls that imprison them.
When visiting the Fringe Lounge on the Barr Smith lawns you'll be blown away by the floor. It consists of a hundred panels painted with the stencil and street art of around a dozen local artists. The Lounge will also feature artists' talks at 7pm each Monday.
Next door in the South Australian Museum photographic artist Leah King-Smith is one of the more internationally renowned visual artists exhibiting with the Fringe. The SA Museum will rock as a venue with exhibits from Craftsouth, a show of contemporary Iranian painting, and film and computer exhibits.
Beyond the city you can have a beer and ponder suburban pub culture at the Wheatsheaf Hotel in Thebarton, where six female artists present their show 'Quarter Acre Block'. The Institute in Port Adelaide has numerous shows, as does the Pepper Street Gallery in Magill, and you'll find fringe visual art as far out as Hahndorf and the McLaren Vale.
If you are partying in the West End, you can take"a journey through the bowls of popular culture" at Mojo. And more graffiti stuff at Forest-one and Area 101 which will be showing "Melbourne's freshest street artists."
In the East End, Higher Ground (176 Pulteney St) is a place to go - day or night. A couple who have run similar venues at the Edinburgh Fringe have turned the old UQ2 pool hall into a bar, club, theatre and gallery. Lots of visual arts stuff happening and developing at this location. And if you are travelling between here and the hub or the Umbrella Revolution/Regal tent at the East Parklands, be sure to check out projections after dark in Synagogue Place.
James Strickland
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From Top: Quarter Acre Block Artists
@ The Wheatsheaf; Dallas Crane by Fran Cullen, Kinetic.
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