The organisers behind FESTA 2016 have just released their programme for the Christchurch biennial festival that will take place this Labour weekend, running from 21 to 24 October.

The theme for the 2016 festival is We Have the Means, which celebrates urban creativity and regeneration and highlights resourcefulness – making the most of the means available to us, in terms of our people and reusable materials. 

There are over 30 events to participate in that are open to all, from speaker sessions, dinner and dancing and workshops through to city-making tours and the live-making of artworks. Kids can get creative by making a costume from reused materials or at a Gap Filler workshop where they can help make a colourful kinetic installation from upcycled paint cans.

Other highlights of the festival will include a village of temporary shelters (designed and fabricated from waste materials), where skilled craftspeople undertake high quality crafts that are zero waste in nature; a hands-on activity for kids where they create ‘mutant monsters’ from the parts of old toys and a pop-up restaurant in a bespoke pavilion where diners encounter the full food system. 

The SuperWOW disco will transform the Dance-O-Mat into a disco for one night, and the closing event will be PechaKucha Night, featuring festival participants in its popular, catchy presentation style.

On Saturday 22 October, Christchurch’s biggest, most creative street party will take place with FESTA’s headline event, Lean Means, a spectacular temporary city, which will explore the sustainable ways we could regenerate our city with a night of colour, light and people.

In an international collaboration involving Dutch creative director Jos de Krieger of Superuse Studios and students from seven leading design and architecture schools from across Australasia, inner-city spaces will be transformed with imaginative installations fabricated from reused ‘waste’ materials. This temporary city will be packed with food, music, performance, markets, a wearable art parade for kids, a night market and much more.

View the video below and for more information on the events, see the FESTA website.