Welcome to South Australia’s History Festival
As cooling autumnal tones spread across South Australia, it is time to do a little digging - as in our gardens - so too in our past! For the month of May every year, hundreds of community and collecting organisations and thousands of volunteers across the state proudly strut their stuff with offerings to entice the curious, to tantalise the easily bored - and to treat audiences with ways of knowing about our world. Be you a resident or a visitor, we welcome all with curious minds and an interest in the past and how it can help us to reimagine our future.
No-one on the planet has avoided COVID-19 or its impacts - from infection to lockdown to iso-mode to vaccine, double vaccine, to booster and - beyond. This once in a century global pandemic has befallen planet earth and the impact has been profound. It will be stuff of documentary and fiction, faction, poetry, theatre film and music for decades to come. Around the world, individuals and families have been given pause to reinvent how we connect and do leisure - and how and through what means we connect. History has been given a whole new reason for being. Not since the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1919 wrought havoc on a world weary of The Great War have we shared a fate as common humanity.
In 2022 we approach our History Festival with a sword of Damocles hanging over our heads - the Russian Federation’s expansionist invasion and war crimes being committed against the peace-loving peoples of Ukraine. Steep rises in fossil fuel energy costs are breathing inflation into a world economy where excess currency has been printed to respond to the crisis in workplaces and supply chains. International travel for most people has been suspended as an option and so we look closer to home for our recreation and our entertainment. Domestic pets have assumed a new priority for millions of Australians as we adapt to working from home and then returning to the office. A quiet workplace revolution has become reality with more flexible workplace arrangements for non-essential frontline workers. The long talked-about work from home revolution has become reality.
"The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there." So runs the famous first line of L.P. Hartley's novel, "The Go-Between." While this phrase has been much used by academics in diverse contexts, it certainly rings true in an age of COVID. So - let’s each of us think about doing things differently. We can all reimagine our priorities differently. Life can be painfully short for some, while more of us than ever before will live longer and live better than our forebears. I invite you to take first temps on your journey and have regard for the past and how it has shaped our present.
Thus, our chosen theme for your 2022 History Festival - ‘RE-IMAGINE’. There are multiple interpretations of this theme - ‘reimagine life getting back to normal’….’reimagine a slower world’…..’reimagine our obsessions with international travel’…..‘reimagine a more compassionate and caring community where everyone knows and looks out for their neighbours - and reimagine doing with less. Whatever your lived experience within your own past - we each have permission to regroup and re-prioritise our lives to do things differently to before.
At the History Trust of South Australia we take seriously the challenge of our mission to ‘give the past a future - now!’ But this does not mean everything needs be serious - humour is a human right! Levity is a virtue - and so too are compassion, curiosity and celebration.
Help us make this 2022 South Australia’s History Festival memorable – you are the stars of the show!
Onwards & Upwards!
Greg
Greg Mackie OAM is the Chief Executive of the History Trust of South Australia.
South Australia’s History Festival runs from 1 to 31 May 2022
Full program available now from Foodland Supermarkets, local libraries, community centres and registered venues and at historyfestival.sa.gov.au.
Check out the other History Festival content in WeekendPlus:
- South Australia’s History Festival is back in 2022!
- Top picks in Adelaide city
- Top picks in regional South Australia
- 5 Ways to Wellbeing
- North Adelaide FC celebrates 100 years
- Overland Telegraph Lines celebrates 150 years
- The Long Flight Home – SA’s Vickers Vimy
- Open Doors to History
- Family friendly events to explore together
- Get involved in the Penfolds History Hunt
- Competition: Win tickets to ‘Lockdown! How We Quarantined Before COVID’ tour