I started working on the Outsiders Festival idea because of the frustration I found everywhere in trying to find venues for the SALA show in 2008. I realised then how many people are making art with love and passion, mostly for themselves. Since then, a lot of things have happened. One was that I started hosting the Outsiders group on Redbubble, as the cheapest option to host images from potential interested parties. The group now has more than 400 members and an unmanageable number of images, it includes established artists, trained and untrained artists, disabled artists and outdoor photographers. At the same time I had a very negative reaction from the arts fraternity in Australia about the name of what I was trying to do. I've asked repeatedly Redbubble to allow me to change the name of the group to Visionary, or to register a Visionary group, but it was all too hard to them. So I got stuck with the name. I am a person that rarely gives up (most of the time I had to be fired to leave) so I took the cross and went further. I am now less than two months before the event that I have publicised as much as I could from my almost non-existent income and it is way too late to change the name.But what's in a name?As I said somewhere else, replying to this comment: "I just don't think that I personally could contribute enough to society by being an artist." This is where I belive we are all making a mistake. We have an obligation to change the way society sees artists, especially now that manufacturing has moved elsewhere. Yes, sport is important, yes TV is important, but it is totally unacceptable for the human beings to be so de-humanised as to ignore the wonders of the human brain. Accept it or not, we are all outsiders and it's time to stand up and fight for our rightful place in society. It is symbolic that the war is fought by an unemployed immigrant outsider, but I trust that in the end there will be light. What is sometimes disheartening is that fellow artists keep trying to denigrate our efforts. We might not be doing everything right and we would love some help rather than just being ridiculed or ignored. Regarding the understanding of the word outsider (“'outsider' art by definition is art that is created without formal training, with disregard to it's commercial potential and for the sake of the activity itself.” – as someone said once) - I agree that is one definition. In this day and age it is though very hard to stay between those boundaries. Take Jungle Philips for example. In theory he is an outsider, but if we take the above understanding of the term, he is not, as he is actively promoting his work starting from his colourful fence to his facebook presence. Not to mention that this year he has obtained a grant to help his practice. Strictly speaking, an Outsiders Festival using this definition cannot exist, as the people who could take part, once taking part would automatically be disqualified.
