About the Format Collective - Adelaide, Australia

About the Format Collective

Format Collective is an arts collective based in Adelaide, Australia.

We focus on community, participatory culture, creating critical mass, and making our city an exciting place to live in.

We put on arts events in and around Adelaide such as the annual Format Festival (including the Academy of DIY, Adelaide Zine Fair & the Street Dreams urban art festival), the art show Big!, Renew Adelaide, and the alternative text workshops called Big Words. We are now also running the Format Zine Shop in the centre of Adelaide city.

Want to keep up-to-date? Read our blog! Join our Mailing List!

We survive on your appreciation.

Format Festival

The Format Festival is a DIY / artist run festival in Adelaide, comparable to This Is Not Art in Newcastle and Next Wave in Melbourne. The aim is to make a two week event that blurs the point between arts and activism. The festival began in 2007, led by Joel Catchlove and Ianto Ware, who effectively overran an attempt by Rino Del Zoppo to set up a new writing festival and turned it into a DIY one instead.

If you'd like to know more, have a look through the last couple of festival programs here:

Big!

"Art should be fun, brash and involve a paddling pool filled with jelly."

On June 3rd Format teamed up with 2% to put on a one night only show for emerging artists called Big!

There is a place for art that asks us to quietly extricate ourselves from our busy lives and reflect. There is also a place for art that comes with two PAs, seven projector screens, fourty-odd artists and their egos, plus just the right amount of pandemonium.

Street Dreams.

Building on the success of 2009’s ST5K festival, the Adelaide urban art community returns with Street Dreams. This four-day festival, running concurrently with the Format Festival during the Adelaide Fringe, is a celebration of all forms of street art and graffiti.

For the community at large, it is a chance to investigate and appreciate the work done by these artists. For the artists themselves, it’s a chance to feature their work, and to discover new legitimate spaces and unique methods in the art of getting over.

But don't take our word for it, check streetdreams.com.au

Format Zine Shop.

Where: 15 Peel Street, Adelaide.
Open: 3 PM to 6 PM Mon-Fri.

Format, with support from Merge magazine, have opened the doors on their very own zine retail outlet. With the best of Australian and international zine publishing (over 350 titles!) assembled by Sam Rodgers and Ianto Ware, the store is open to the general public right now – unless you’re reading this outside opening hours.

If you’d like your zines stocked at the shop contact Sam Rodgers at or bring them into the shop.

Format Blog.

Read more Format ramblings...

Format Press.

Format Press is the publishing arm of the Format Collective, an artist run production house based in Adelaide, South Australia. Format Press was founded in 2009 with the goal of producing quality publications written and designed by people outside the mainstream publishing industry.

For more information and a full list of titles published, head over to the Format Press page.

Renew Adelaide.

Renew Adelaide is a non-profit, artist run initiative in Adelaide which, following the lead of Renew Newcastle, believes artist and community run spaces have the power to transform cities. We aim to fill empty spaces and disused buildings in and around the city of Adelaide with artist and community run ventures, with the minimum possible cost to those involved. We're currently in our very early stages. If you think Adelaide needs more of this sort of thing, please get in touch by emailing Brigid Noone or Ianto Ware.

To support Renew Adelaide, join the Facebook group!

Links.

We've had a lot of help from our friends to get where we're at right now. Here are some of them:

Friends and people we like

Renew Adelaide

Renew Adelaide Facebook Group

Sponsors