ARTS PROGRAMS

Mrs VLAHOS (Taylor) (14:48): My question is to the Minister for the Arts. Can the minister update the house about what is planned in Adelaide's arts scene during the winter months?

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Ageing, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Arts) (14:49): I thank the member for her question and I acknowledge her strong interest in the arts scene in Adelaide. Adelaide's arts calendar will remain busy this winter with a wide selection of performing and visual arts activities.

The 12^th annual Cabaret Festival will open on Friday 8 June and will run until Saturday 23 June with a program of 43 shows. There will be 110 international artists and 194 Australian artists, including 110 from within South Australia. Ticket sales, I have been told already, are very strong and many shows are expected to be sold out, which is normal for the Cabaret Festival.

The annual South Australian Living Artists Festival will also run from 3 to 26 August, which will promote a diverse range of local artists in venues right across the state. It is an outstanding festival which has grown very strongly over recent years. It is run in conjunction with a series of 11 South Australian Living Artists Festival awards. Categories include photography, contemporary craft and design, and sculpture. There is an award recognising artists with an intellectual disability or organisations specifically supporting their development, an award for a recent graduate, plus the newly introduced Austral Hotel Emerging Artist Award.

This year, the 13^th South Australian Living Artists monograph will be published, featuring the work of photographer Mark Kimber. This publication serves as a great marketing tool for an established local artist on the verge of a major international career. So, I commend Mark on that success.

The fourth biennial Adelaide International Guitar Festival will be held in the Adelaide Festival Centre from 9 to 12 August, offering a series of concerts, master classes, hands-on workshops and late-night club sessions—another great event in Adelaide. There will be 41 events in the festival program, including one world, three Australian and five Adelaide premieres. Passionate guitarists of any age are encouraged to apply to perform in the '15 minutes of fame' open microphone sessions to be held in the Space Theatre. I invite members opposite who feel that they might have such talent to take advantage of that opportunity.

Little Big Shots, the International Film Festival for Kids, will be in town from 12 to 14 July at the Space Theatre in the Adelaide Festival Centre. That offers the best in local and international children's features, shorts, animations, documentaries and child-produced films.

The Art Gallery of South Australia will mount winter exhibitions featuring colonial paintings and 19^th century South Australian gold and silver, as well as contemporary works using the visual languages of the street, including paste-ups, stencilling and aerosol painting. Winners of the annual Waterhouse Natural History Art Prize will be announced on 20 July, with an ever-popular exhibition of the finalists' works to be displayed at the South Australian Museum from 21 July to 9 September. If that is not enough, at Carrick Hill, in the member for Waite's electorate, I believe it still is—

Mr Hamilton-Smith: It is, yes.

An honourable member: You guys wanted to sell it.

The Hon. J.D. HILL: No, we didn't. Not true. An exhibition of Russell Drysdale drawings—

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. J.D. HILL: It's not true. I never wanted to sell it. At Carrick Hill, an exhibition of Russell Drysdale drawings will continue until 17 June, celebrating the centenary of this major 20^th century Australian artist. All of those events are available to the public and I encourage members of parliament to go and have a visit to some of these places and see some of these events. There is outstanding talent from right around the world and, of course, also from here in South Australia.