Animating Places: A new festival phenomenon?

Artists are engaging in a wide variety of activities that support the idea of place-making. Artists-led and commissioning strategies are animating public spaces as never before and a new phenomenon is emerging for festivals around the globe that capture the essence of place. This chapter suggests a working prism of the triad place-people-purpose as a useful lens through which to see the events unfold and constitute an area of work that defines place-animation as a self standing area of investigation and innovation.