Sugar Mountain Festival to Award Emerging Visual Artist with $7,500

One of the things that sets Sugar Mountain festival apart from the rest is its equal love for musical and visual arts. This year’s event saw glitter gods Confetti System create a blinged backdrop for musicians like Two Bears, Banoffee and Chela to performance against. Other highlights included the main stage’s inflatable set design by Abby Portner, and a Leif Podhajsky installation. For 2016, Sugar Mountain are taking it a step further, and today have announced the inaugural Sugar Mountain Art Prize.

Held in collaboration with University of Melbourne’s Victorian College of the Arts, where the festival takes place, the prize will help launch the career of one of the school’s graduates—and have their work seen by thousands of festival-goers. VCA teachers will put together a shortlist of students, who will be presented to a judging panel made up of Melbourne art stars Melissa Loughnan (Director of Utopian Slumps), Simon Maidment (Head Curator of NGV), and Pete Keen (Creative Director of Sugar Mountain).

The winner will be announced in November and will receive $7,500 to go towards creating a large-scale work specifically for the festival and supporting them in the early days of their career.

Sugar Mountain takes place on January 23, 2016. Line-up coming soon! Check out their website for more information.

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