a micro arts festival in the most unique places
MICRO GALLERIES LIVE
An Annual Micro Festival
14 days
Live Works, Open-Air Galleries, Positive Disruptions and Engagements.
100+ artists
From around the world contributing a diverse range of work including experimental, interdisciplinary, new media, visual, sound, text and performance.
8 festivals
Across 4 continents, over 8 years.
1.9 million
Artists, participants and online engagements.
MG Live Elements
MG Live works closely with a community who are some kind of "creative need" to reclaim public spaces and reactivate them as creative playgrounds and open-air galleries that are free and accessible to the local community. Bringing together international and local artists, the festival features work that aims to celebrate the community, address local and global issues, and kindle positive change and solutions.
Open-Air Galleries
We fuse fine and street art into the urban-scape, crating a labyrinth of public art galleries on the street, free and accessible to all.
Live Weekend
A curated weekend full of live, new media, installations and experimental works,
Artist Residency
Select MG Live participating artists do a deep-dive into a local/global issue in an incubator-style environment, and create a public response.
Workshops
Free workshops for the community led by MG Live participating artists.
Tours
Free tours of the open-air galleries in the local language and English are presented by local historians/artists/performance artists as a way for visitors and local community to find new and accessible ways into the works.
Think Tanks
MG convenes think tank grups to address local and global issues on a deeper level.
" I am drawn to working with Micro Galleries because they are a fierce and fearless activator of public space—creating shared experiences in the places we live in together."
Adam Kuby, Installation Artist, USA
How it works
We Select a Space
Either a community approaches us or we invite a community to work together with us. This is usually at least 9 months before our festival date.
We Select a Theme
Each MG Festival has its own theme that connects local issues with a global conversation.
Partner Organisations
We do a callout for partner organisations and team members to join us in realising MG Live together. After all, they know the community and culture best!
Meet the Community
We spend a lot of time in the community we want to work in. We don't want to take over, we want to learn, share and grown together. At this stage, we meet with leaders, business, artists, neighbours of the community we will be working within and ask them what they want to see, explore and enjoy.
Identify Our Galleries
We work together with the local communities to identify the spaces and areas we will transform together.
Local Artist Callout
We shoutout to the entire host community for local artists to bring their practice, knowledge and ideas to our festival.
Curate the Space
We take all our MG Collective and local artworks and curate them throughout the open-air galleries in a way that will take the community on a cool creative journey.
Curate the Live Works
We come up with an incredible opening weekend full of live works, including liver performances, talks, screenings, projection art, night tours, artisan markets and a massive micro opening night!
Artist Residency
2 weeks before opening night we all converge on the community we have been working with, and we kick things off with an incubator-style artist residency within the community.
Production Week
1 week before the opening night, we install all of the works. There is live painting, workshops, artist talks and loads of late nights and cups of coffee with the community.
Opening Night
A roaming series of live works, projections, performances, music, food, community.
Live Weekend
All our team, artists and live works in action along with tours of the festival and its artworks.
Collapse
This stuff is HARD WORK! But we love it, the people and artists we work with, the communities that teach us so much and the online following that give us loads of love.
We roam all over to the places and people we think need, and deserve art the most.
Take a micro look...
MICRO GALLERIES LIVE
2021 / TO BE ANNOUNCED
Micro Galleries in Your Town
Feel your town needs a little shake up and some positive social change? Contact us! If we can't get there, we can introduce you to our latest project – Micro Galleries IN A BOX.
Our most recent Micro Galleries in Kathmandu!
If you're keen to make change in your community, let us know. We are always open to new partnerships and possibilities!
The Down-Low on How We Are Aiming Up-High
Here's some inside-goss on what people are saying about what we do.
Bridging Gaps
"There's a gap between society and art galleries, especially in the field of contemporary arts. Micro Galleries offers a bridge between society and contemporary arts in a very unique way."
Kianoush Ramezani, Caroonist, Iran/France
Kianoush Ramezani, Caroonist, Iran/France
Art Matters
"I believe projects like this show that that art matters in our daily life and contributes a big amount to improving the public's lives - not to mention the amazingly wonderful supportive of artist community Micro Galleries builds and engages in in each country. As an artist I feel truly excited and inspired by Micro Galleries."
Ika Vantiani, Collage Artist, Indonesia
Ika Vantiani, Collage Artist, Indonesia
Enabling Communities
"Please do it again! We loved every bit of it, it was exciting, refreshing and renewing. Thank you Micro Galleries for enabling a community to get so excited about making, viewing and thinking about art. Weeks later people are still making very positive
comments to me about the event."
Daniel Jones, Artist, Australia
comments to me about the event."
Daniel Jones, Artist, Australia
Learn and Be Open-minded
"People in my town want the world to learn about and be open minded about South African townships; to learn about how Langa is growing and to help prevent things that are overpowering my community. Our art can help this."
Feni Chulumanco, Artist, South Africa
Feni Chulumanco, Artist, South Africa
Meet Our Past Friends and Partners!
We've had some incredible partners over the years who have helped us bring art to people and places that need and deserve it the most.
Join the Team!
We are a team of highly skilled volunteer creatives from around the world, striving to curate a better future. If you are interested in joining the ranks, sharing your skills, developing capacity for those in vulnerable spaces and joining our tribe, shout out!