Between Rising announcing its program last year and the festival opening this week, the headliner Florentina Holzinger went from being art-world-famous to internet-famous. Her Venice Biennale exhibit Seaworld Venice – a satirical theme park featuring naked women suspended in filtered urine and doing doughnuts on jetskis, and a room of human poo – made headlines worldwide and flooded social media.
This week she brings her performance art – and a lot more poo – to Melbourne, in A Year Without Summer, which is her take on a musical. It follows on from Sancta, her controversial opera featuring roller-skating nuns, crucified naked bodies and a lesbian priest performing mass; and Rising’s 2023 headliner, Tanz, which brought flying motorbikes, body piercing and blood to the ballet.
