Backbone is celebrating its final Backbone Festival in the East Brisbane Bowls Club with a spectacular large-scale production that lays the groundwork for a bold new future – I, The Ark.

Together, performers and audience will undertake a visual journey of heightened sensations, utilising all areas of the Bowlo — inside and out on the bowling greens — with the building coming to life (quite literally!).

Devised by an eclectic group of Brisbane creatives and facilitated by Joey Ruigrok van der Werven, an expert in large-scale site-specific installations, I, The Ark is a fierce acknowledgement that it is the community that travels with the organisation.

Join Backbone to shout from the rooftop that from destruction brings renewal, and from the rubble the phoenix shall rise!

“In the dark of night, when fire erupts and water floods
What do we take, and what do we leave behind?
When do we hold on, and when do we let go?

We are vessels of our vestiges
Vehicles of our own creations
Remnants
Fragments
Echos

Holders of our own precious artefacts
Archeologists of our experiences, uncovering, recovering, reliving.

Set the night aflame.
Keep what serves you, burn the rest.
And from the ashes grows flowers.
Saying goodbye wasn’t meant to be easy.

Together we scream:
I, The Ark
I, The Ark
I, The Ark

Peace be with you, scum.”