Progress Festival

Monash University Performing Arts Centres (MPAC) is thrilled to announce the return of Progress Festival, a biennial festival of ideas and performance which will delve into the theme of connectivity, examining the benefits and challenges of living in a highly connected world.

Progress Festival is a public event that fosters dialogue among artists, thinkers, researchers, and academics. Utilising the resources and great minds of Monash University it explores the trajectory of society, our species, and the planet. The festival's theme this year is connectivity, examining its impact on us in so many ways. Through the natural world where our interconnected world shapes landscapes, climate and organisms, and via technology where interactivity is a blessing and a curse. Remote access, easy collaboration and transformative educational opportunities have changed our lives for the better, but corporate surveillance, financial contagion and social media polarisation are real threats.

Raki opens the festival with a particular focus on First Nations’ approaches to connectivity, where the idea of interconnected nature, life and spirit offer new paradigms. Many western thinkers, artists and institutions are increasingly seeing these paradigms as offering potential solutions to some of the problems that arise from our interconnected world.

Join us for this and more at the Ian Potter Centre for Performing Arts!