By arts editor HELEN MUSA

Canberra artist Sophie Dumaresq is taking an unlikely travelling companion to one of Australia’s most unconventional arts festivals, an animatronic shark named Baby.

Dumaresq is among more than 200 artists participating in Cementa26, the four-day contemporary arts festival that aims to transforms the former cement town of Kandos in the NSW Central Highlands into a sprawling landscape of creative experimentation.

Her work, What’s in a Postcard?, sees the artist attempting to drag her handmade shark up Mount Baldy overlooking Kandos in the hope of sharing a sunset with the mechanical creature.

the performance, already seen at Canberra Art Biennial two years ago,  grew out of Dumaresq’s childhood fear of sharks, her fascination with her favourite film and the knowledge that the Kandos region was once covered by an ancient inland sea.

The work captures the spirit of Cementa, a festival that has helped reinvent Kandos from an industrial town built on cement production into a nationally recognised centre for contemporary art. Every two years the town’s streets, paddocks, waterways, shopfronts and abandoned buildings become exhibition spaces, with artists encouraged to break free from traditional gallery settings.

This year’s event is curated by Sebastian Henry-Jones, who says Kandos itself is central to the experience.

“There are no white walls telling you where the art begins and ends,” he says. “The whole town becomes part of it, and you never quite know what you’re going to find around the next corner.”

Creative director Alex Wisser, who moved from Sydney to Kandos in 2013 and co-founded the festival, says the event has become a powerful force in the town’s transformation. Once known for producing the cement used in major Australian landmarks including the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House, the town now attracts artists and visitors from across the country.

Festival highlights range from audiences creating their own floating soundscapes in Kayak Orchestra at Ganguddy, to an immersive installation inside a car packed with subwoofers and roadkill imagery, a bright pink composting toilet turned artwork, and musical performances among the Wollemi Standing Stones.

Cementa26,  Kandos, NSW, September 17 to 20.

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