Creativity and design festival Semi Permanent will return to our hometown of Sydney this May 25th-27th 2022, celebrating two decades since our launch. Taking place at arts precinct Carriageworks as part of Vivid Sydney 2022, we’re excited to present our biggest, most dynamic program to date, coupled with an enhanced visitor experience of workshops, panel discussions, performances and installations.

“Twenty years ago, we had this sense that as things increasingly moved online that the value of shared in-person experiences would become even greater, and though we’ve really embraced digital events, these past few years of separation have again made us yearn to be together in a room — listening, learning, sharing ideas,” says Murray Bell, the founder and executive creative director of Semi Permanent. “For our 20th anniversary, it feels right to be returning to our home of Sydney and to have a program that reflects the breadth, scope and excitement of the creative and design industries today.”  The talent lineup for the Sydney 2022 event brings together a diverse mix of visionary talent in creativity, technology, and design. Each year, Semi Permanent takes the opportunity to explore a universal idea that most aligns to the challenges and opportunities of the time. For 2022, the festival’s 20th anniversary, it introduces the platform ‘PERSPECTIVE’. “2022 is a demarcation in the evolution of both our purpose and our organisation,” says Murray Bell. “A milestone like this triggers a moment of reflection, imploring us to look back on our achievements and mistakes as the things that helped shape where we are today. It begs us to look forward, too, challenging us to think about where we might be in another 20 years’ time. And after two years in which our lives were disrupted by the pandemic, so too have perspectives on the future completely shifted.” Fittingly, the year marks the 50th anniversary of art critic John Berger’s seminal television series and essay, Ways of Seeing, which exposed the hidden ideologies that exist in visual images, arming generations since with the tools to understand and dissect imagery. At a time when traditional binaries are being dismantled – whether sexual, political, cultural or creative – the year ahead seems a timely moment to reassess the lens that we place on our past, present and future, and to make room for new and varied perspectives.