This year’s South Australian Living Artists Festival will feature a record 4917 artists, with new program additions including a weekend dedicated to open studios.

The SALA program, released on Saturday and available online now, includes a liftout listing 75 studios that will be open to the public on August 10-11 and at various other times throughout the month-long festival .

“It’s a chance for you to go into the work spaces of artists and talk to them and find out about their practice; it’s like so going into their inner sanctum,” general manager Penny Griggs says. “You get to see how they work and where they work.”

There will be 502 exhibitions across the state from August 2-25, from the city to venues in regional areas such as the Fleurieu Peninsula, Clare Valley, Barossa, Riverland, Limestone Coast, Yorke Peninsula and Flinders Ranges.

Griggs, who was appointed general manager last year after the departure of Penny McAuley, told InDaily she was excited to see her first SALA come to fruition.

“The festival has a great profile and is really loved, so it’s really a matter of sustaining that.”

She says SALA is this year collaborating with the new Word Adelaide festival (August 15-18) on a number of events that celebrate both art and conversation, including a word-art tour and a conversation with ceramicist Stephen Bowers at the State Library exploring the intrinsic relationship between words and art.

“Throughout the festival there will be artist talks and conversations, so that also fits into the Word Adelaide concept of conversation and celebrating conversation.”

The 2013 program also features a series of tours – from a Bring the Baby art tour of baby-friendly galleries to Beer and Brushstrokes tour combining boutique brews and art – plus a new closing weekend event called SALA on Show at the Unley Shopping Centre and adjacent Soldiers’ Memorial Garden next to Unley Shopping Centre. It will feature a pop-up gallery with works for sale, 20 artists in residence and live entertainment.

The winners of the annual SALA awards were announced on Friday night, with photographer Marc Bowden taking out the Advertiser Business SA Contemporary Art Prize for the most outstanding work in any medium. Bowden won the prize for an image titled Trellis, one of his hikari 505 series of photos taken from a shinkansen (bullet train) in Japan travelling at about 300km/h.

The works, which will be exhibited at Atkins Technicolour in Kent Town during SALA, seek to explore the issue of urbanisation and its effect on nature and our relationship with the natural environment. “In this series, nature appears abruptly and transformed at first, is then simplified, and dissolves before disappearing into a vaguely recognizable urban mise en scène,” Bowden says on his website.

Full list of SALA award winners:

Adelaide Central School of Art Professional Development Award for artists working in any medium. Winner: Therese Williams

Atkins Technicolour Photographic Award for Artists working with photo based artwork. Winner: Wayne Grivell

Centre for Creative Photography Latent Image Award for an emerging Artist using Photography. Winner: Gabriella Szondy

JamFactory Award for artists working in jewellery, furniture, ceramics, metal, glass, fibre & textiles. Winner: Kim Thomson

OZ Minerals Copper Sculpture Award. Winners: Warren Pickering + Anna Small

Adelaide Review Special Artist Award. Winner: Henry Stentiford

Rip It Up Young Artist Award for 18-30 years in any medium. Winner: Amy Joy Watson

The Austral Hotel Emerging Artist Award for artists who have had their first solo exhibition in the past five years. Winner: Jacky Murtaugh