‘I’ve lost track of exactly how many times I have been directly involved in SALA [South Australian Living Artists Festival] since I graduated,’ says this year’s feature artist, Adelaide-based Julia Robinson. She reckons it’s between six and eight, spanning solo exhibitions, panel discussions, talks and awards. ‘SALA is a broad church and even if you aren’t exhibiting there are so many ways to be involved, support your peers and immerse yourself.’

The festival has been running since 1998, expanding gradually to cover the whole state and month of August, showcasing artists at all stages of their careers from the emergent to the acclaimed and established. More than 600 venues, from sheds to shops to wineries, will show work from more than 7000 living artists to thousands of eager viewers.

This year, Robinson has been chosen as the festival’s feature artist, an honour which comes with an invitation to feature work on the SALA poster and programme, as well as to exhibit. Robinson has created a brand-new installation, Split By The Spade (partly inspired by Andrew Michael Hurley’s 2019 novel Starve Acre), which continues the threads of folk horror and lore that run throughout her work.

Featuring her trademark motifs such as historical costuming techniques and found objects, the installation includes a gallows tree, a fallow field and a burial site, ‘conjured in the gallery space as a series of textile apparitions,’ says Robinson. She has a long-standing fascination with ‘narratives around death, decay and renewal’; this manifests itself in different pieces, as uncanny figures and body parts, fabric and wire animals, rutting deer shrouded in fabric and embroidered smocks with scythes for hands. A monograph (published during SALA) will unpick some of her recurring themes and reflect on Robinson’s body of work.

She credits her British heritage for much of her fascination with horror and folklore. ‘My paternal grandparents lived in Manningtree, where infamous Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins imposed his reign of terror,’ she says. ‘And my maternal grandparents lived not far from the sites of the notorious Red Barn Murder [in Suffolk, 1827] and the trial of William Corder. These dark histories were part of the fabric of my upbringing.’

But for all the talk of death in Robinson’s work, SALA is, and will always be, a place to celebrate the living. ‘The early impetus for founding SALA was the disproportionate attention given to deceased artists over living ones,’ says Robinson. ‘Artists who are living and working today need recognition and support; we need to feel seen and to know that our work connects to the current cultural zeitgeist.’

South Australian Living Artists Festival, various venues, South Australia, Thursday 1–Saturday 31 August; main picture: Sam Roberts.