Culture Days weekend filled with notable events
It’s Culture Days weekend across Canada, across Ontario, and here in Cambridge, Kitchener and Waterloo.
I mentioned the Culture Days “hubs + corridors” program back in July, when the prospect still seemed a long way off. The hope then was that we’d see “an experimental run of our long-awaited LRT system” as a “corridor of corridors” for Culture Days 2018.
That’s not happening. Maybe next year? I’m happy to report, however, that at the Commons Studio, where I work, we were able to organize a media arts hub of sorts, drawing on the co-operation of colleagues, neighbours and partner groups.
If you happen to be within easy reach of the Kitchener Market area between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. today, drop by and see us at 256 King E.
You can sample some of the Studio’s shared learning programs, including a new initiative called “Adventures in Sound” that we’re working on in partnership with our friendly neighbourhood community radio station, CKWR FM 98.5.
The KW Film Network and Studio D20 women’s media arts collective will be showing some of their work.
The Inter Arts Matrix contribution to Culture Days 2018 is “Concrete Poetry Mix,” a handson activity that allows the participants of all ages to create a graphic and sound interpretation of a poem using the “Euphonopen,” an instrument developed here in Waterloo region that translates drawing to sound.
That’s happening in the Fresh Ground Community Space adjacent to the Studio, where you can also check out the hand made crafts at Community Market Day.
At the Green Door Arts Space behind us on Market Lane you can get a glimpse of the classes and workshops they’ll be running this fall.
Across the street from the Studio at 185 King E., the Art District Gallery is offering “Working Artist Day” for Culture Days 2018. Here you can watch live painting demonstrations by member artists and find out more about being part of an artist co-op.
Meanwhile, back down the block at 243 King E., the visual art show organized in conjunction with Doors Open Waterloo Region a few weeks back remains open. It’s not an official Culture Days event, but “Memories of Utopia,” an exhibition of architecturally themed work by five regional artists curated by Laird Robertson of NEO Architects Inc. is on view Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. until Oct. 20.
If the Kitchener Market neighbourhood is out of your way, you can explore offerings in another precinct. The culturedays.ca “events near me” function has a nifty feature that allows search by postal code, with the results listed in order of proximity from where you happen to be.
The arts in Cambridge are especially well represented, led by a rich array of offerings from the Cambridge Centre for the Arts and the various Idea Exchange branches. A quick tally revealed more than twice as many listings in Cambridge as in Kitchener.
The City of Waterloo also has a very strong showing. If you do the search from the east (or south), as I did, listings for the Mary Allen Studio Tour (MAST) dominate. That’s because every studio included in this venerable event (it predates Culture Days by more that two decades) is listed separately.
MAST 2018 runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. today, and from noon to 4 p.m. on Sunday.
Farther up the road, a spectacular new event called Lumen begins to dominate the Waterloo Culture Days calendar.
The spotlight here is on lightbased new media, media art, and projection-based installations. It is an invitation to “explore the city through a new lens — one that illuminates Waterloo through art and technology.”
Lumen takes place tonight from 6 to 11 p.m., in various uptown locations organized under five zones: Waterloo Public Square; Erb/Caroline; Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery/Train Station; Waterloo Park/uptown Waterloo, and the temporary parking lot at Bridgeport and Regina where Kid Koala spins his magic at 7 and 9:30 p.m.