SHINING A LIGHT ON ARTISTS
Lumière kicks of seventh year tonight.
Now in its seventh year, Lumière will be definitely giving Cape Bretoners something extra to chew on this year.
A group of pre-festival events will held to address issues around food security and community building, highlighted by a community meal in Inverness.
“On Tuesday, September 19 (tonight), there’s going to be a pasta sauce making workshop and it’s part of a wider food communities project collaboration with Cape Breton University’s Co-operative Studies Club,” says Lumière spokesperson Sarah Roth. “That’s basically folks coming together making pasta sauce together.”
The food-making cafe will take place from 6-8 p.m., at the A Better Bite Community Kitchen, 37 Nepean St., Sydney. People will gather to make tomato sauce for the Lumière Arts Festival’s Food/Communities Project, part of a wider project organized by Cape Breton University’s Co-operative Study Club that examines issues around food security and community building. On Wednesday, artist Tonia Di Risio will hold a pasta making workship at the Inverness County Centre for the Arts in Inverness, starting at 1 p.m. The free workshop will teach participants to make the pasta that will be combined with the sauce made the day previous in Sydney for a pasta supper at 6 p.m.
“The idea is to bridge industrial Cape Breton with the west side of the island in a food-related project,” says Roth.
It’s just the beginning of what promises to be one of the busiest weeks art-wise this year. Thanks to some extra funding support from Canada 150, they were able to add some additional events to this year’s festival, says Roth.
An opening reception will be held at St. Patrick’s Museum, 87 Esplanade, on Thursday, and everyone is invited. Later that evening, at the Highland Arts Theatre, a series of Canadian short films will be screened at 7 p.m., followed by Jem Cohen’s “We Have An Anchor” at 8:30 p.m.
“This film is basically a love poem or an ode to Cape Breton,” says Roth.
Cohen’s documentary-based, interdisciplinary project is based on footage gathered in Nova Scotia and Cape Breton over a 10-year period. A question and answer segment will follow the screening.
On Friday, Lumière artists will speak about their work and their artistic processes during the Lumière Artist Talks session at St. Patrick’s Museum, 6-8 p.m. It will feature Tonia Di Risio, local artists Mel Kearney and Nelson MacDonald and Halifax-based artist collection, “At The Reception.” This is a free event.
And it all leads up to Saturday, for the Lumière Art-At-Night event, which runs 7 p.m. to midnight. The day starts at noon when a series of community lantern workshops are held throughout the municipality, including Membertou Youth Centre, New Waterford Library, McConnell Library, all starting at noon and WW Lewis Memorial Library, Louisbourg, 2-4 p.m. The evening includes 37 art installations and performances spread throughout Sydney’s downtown spaces. The day ends with an after party starting at 11 p.m. at Flavor On The Water.
For Roth, this year’s festival promises to be the best one yet and she thinks the audiences will find something interesting to see.
“We’re very pleased,” said Roth. “We’re attracting a great mix of professional and emerging artists as well as community groups and then local, professional and emerging artists. We have folks from away, folks from here and it’s going to be a great mix of performance, installations, a lot of theatre this year, poetry — I think it’s going to be really spectacular for audiences this year and they’ll enjoy it.”