RISK
Metro Arts 2008 | Umber Productions
Set in the state forests just north of Brisbane, RISK examines the lives of young people living in towns that live ‘between’ – between the city and the bush, between Friday night and Monday morning, between olds that come and go, between teenage dreams and schoolyard pregnancies and youth detention.
They’re a liminal space, those forests, a place where rules don’t apply and identities can be shifted. Acworth was drawn to them driving to the coast to see family. The forests went on forever and the service tracks captured stories of burnt out cars and dogs coming back with bits of bodies in their mouths. Here, anything can happen.
RISK captures the desperation to get out, to move on to something else, that is felt by so many of us –and it’s all the more desperate for Quinn, just out of ‘juvie’, coming home to find his mum beaten by his step-dad and his mate leaving with dreams of a much brighter future… of course, Quinn said yes, of course he did. But it wasn’t that simple.
It takes a great effort to leave behind who you are.
RISK was produced by Umber (now Assembly of Elephants) as a part of Metro Arts 2008 curated season and was supported by the Queensland Government, through Arts Queensland.
Greg Clark’s extraordinary set and Chris Tollefson’s evocative lighting stand as a testament to their brilliance and ability to work with minimal budgets and achieve greatness. Paid secondments were offered to 2 QUT students, engaged as stage management crew – and these relationships are ongoing.
