Art’s Birthday is an annual exchange-art event celebrated on January 17th by a loose collection of artists and artist organizations around the world. This year we are joined in with a party in UpStage at 10am European time, 10pm NZ time on Sunday 17 January (find your local time here).

We had a rousing game of Oblique Strategies, made Lines mandalas and danced to the cyber DJ; the drinks flowed and nibbles crumbled about; the party’s over now but you can still access the stage here.

“Art’s Birthday was first proposed in 1963 by French artist Robert Filliou. He suggested that 1,000,000 years ago, there was no art. But one day, on the 17th of January to be precise, Art was born. According to Filliou, it happened when someone dropped a dry sponge into a bucket of water. Modest beginnings, but look at us now.”