Adelaide Festival of Ideas

The Adelaide Festival of Ideas (AFOI) fosters the public promulgation, discussion and critique of culturally and socially relevant ideas from South Australia, Australia, and around the world. It has been held every two years from 1999 until 2013, over a period of three or four days. From 1999-2010 it ran in July, and since 2011 it has run in October. From 2016, the AFOI will be an annual event.

Description

The AFOI offers contemporary civil society the highest possible level of intellectual debate across conventional boundaries and demarcations of disciplines, agendas and cultural norms with the aim of challenging the fragmentation of public knowledge. It is not held captive to any particular ideological, political or commercial agenda.

The program is built around an extensive array of speaker presentations, interviews and panel discussions that are mostly free to the public. The high-level discussion and public debate offered by AFOI intends to be as engaging and entertaining as it is provocative and challenging. To maximise engagement, public access to activities held within the AFOI is free of charge wherever feasible, with the aim of attracting and engaging a diverse cross-section of the community as active citizens rather than paying customers. The AFOI recognises the considerable additional benefit gained from real-time, shared-space discussions of new ideas in a moderated context with a live audience.

Background

Founded by Greg Mackie and Phillip Adams, the AFOI first ran in 1999, and then every two years after that until 2013. From 1999-2009 the AFOI was produced under the auspices of the Adelaide Festival Corporation. The 2011 AFOI was auspiced by the South Australian Department of the Premier and Cabinet - Cultural Development Group, and the 2013 AFOI was produced under the auspices of The Adelaide Film Festival Corporation, all with significant baseline funding from Arts SA. However, after this funding ceased late in 2014, the AFOI was relaunched as a non-profit incorporated association in 2015 in order to present the AFOI in 2016 and annually thereafter.

From the inaugural 1999 event, the AFOI program grew steadily from 28 sessions involving 27 speakers, to 88 sessions and 132 speakers (including session chairs) in the 2013 event. Each AFOI has an overarching theme within which the sessions are programmed. Typical themes include: "Hope and Fear" (2003), "Pushing the Limits" (2009), "Planning for Uncertainty" (2011), and "The real value of ..." (2013).

Each AFOI is dedicated to a prominent South Australian who has had a significant impact on the development of ideas across a wide range of domains, be they geographical, intellectual, cultural or social. Dedicatees include Lowitja O'Donoghue (2003), Frank Fenner (2009), Barbara Hardy (2011) and Paul Davies (2013).

Previous AFOIs: Themes and keynote speakers

2013: "The real value of..."

The 2013 AFOI ran in conjunction with the Adelaide Film Festival. Clearly, there was an appetite for deep and civil discussion of ideas and issues that was slaked by media and political debates that run on the rocket fuel of polling and instant communication. Speakers were asked not to respond to the loudest current concerns but to think about what matters more abidingly in their fields, and to discuss ‘the real value of…’

The 2013 AFOI was dedicated to Professor Paul Davies, physicist and science communicator extraordinaire.

2011: "Planning for Certainty"

The 2011 AFOI was devoted to the proposition that we can plan with reasonable probability to shape the improbabilities that confront us as individuals or a community. We can have better debates – then therefore build better cities, cultures, democracies, products, and environments. We can confront the future intelligently, imperfectly – learning and adapting as we go.

The 2011 AFOI was dedicated to pioneering environmentalist, Barbara Hardy.

External links

• Adelaide Independent News 16 Oct 2015
• Adelaide Festival of Ideas
• Sandra Sdraulig