A part of the 50 Years of Arts OutWest Celebrations in 2024, VISION 20/50 was conceived as a space to imagine and articulate an optimistic, ambitious and radical future for the Central West, for arts and culture, and our world.

Using the frame of a region-wide arts Festival set in the year 2050 as the vehicle to explore this, this hypothetical, aspirational event positions artists as engineers of our future, and centres the extraordinary ability of artists to create worlds of limitless possibility. 

We invited artists from the region to participate in workshops that prompted them to open their minds to what the future could hold for their practice and for the region. Following these workshops with Creative Director Adam Deusien and Arts OutWest Staff, artists were invited to submit an EOI for a hypothetical idea of an artwork that could only be made in the year 2050, and that spoke to an optimistic vision for our shared future. 

Ten artists (with 9 projects) were selected from the EOIs, creating a Festival program of works ranging across artforms and location, that together articulated a powerful possible future for the Central West, and celebrated the role of art making and artists in our communities.

These ten artists worked for 3days with futurist and artist Ana Tiquia in a residency in Bathurst, exploring futuring methodologies that expanded the scope and potential of their ideas. 

Following the residency the artists developed their concept, and collaborating with the VISION 20/50 artistic team, conceived of a way to somehow capture the heart of their concept in both photograph and text. The results of a three-day studio workshop at the Creative Studio at Charles Sturt University make up the material you can see here on the Festival program website. 

The VISION 20/50 Festival Program was officially launched in December 2024 at Keystone 1889 in Bathurst. Using the format of a Festival launch function, this moment celebrated the vision of the nine artists, launched the VISION 20/50 website, and invited audiences to time travel with us, into a future where artists help create a world we want to live in.

The VISION 20/50 project proposes a vibrant world where arts and culture help create connection, celebration and transformation, all conjured through the mighty creative will of artists. Many of the ideas inside this hypothetical Festival are well within reach, and each offers our community a pathway to not only imagining but creating a world where arts and culture continue to unite us, challenge us and excite us.  

We hope this website endures as a first step towards realising this future.