Monsoon fest takes show, artists online
Fifth annual event pivots from live to virtual experience with art, interviews and more
As “Ano Pandemia 2020” keeps on keeping on, arts and cultural festivals have gone virtual with varying degrees of success.
Live-streaming seems obvious. Lectures, performances and even slide shows can all be conveniently packaged into a presentation you can watch from the comfort of your isolation on screen.
But art exhibits seem a bit more intangible in the digital format. Taken out of the context of being presented in a single space that can be viewed as you choose, curated art shows seem more like online shopping.
Recognizing that this is, in fact, not too far from the truth, the Monsoon Festival of Performing Arts put its popular visual art exhibit up on its website as the Monsoon Marketplace. By putting the participating artists’ work under the banner of the event, the festival is able to show support for the work and also add value.
“Any festival happening this year had a vision, a plan and sought funding while reaching out to artists to participate only to have to pivot on a dime when the pandemic arrived,” said Gurpreet Sian, the South Asian Arts Society and Monsoon Festival executive director.
“Some things work every bit as well in the digital realm, such as our limited attendance professional workshops, and others needed complete rethinking.
“So what we chose to do with our visual arts was to bring the artists all together under our marketplace banner to sell for the month and to add value with unique interviews with each participating marketplace artist — Sandeep Johal, Paint2Paper Studios, Jessie Sohpaul, Jag Nagra, Guntaj Deep Singh, Anumation, Sunroop Kaur, and Sahil Mroke — to talk about their artistic process and about the pieces of art they have made available.”
These interviews can be seen on the Facebook page or YouTube channel.
Nagra took time to talk to Postmedia News about how she approached exhibiting and participating in the event:
Q
So how have you adapted exhibiting into a virtual construct?
A
Honestly, the last few months have gotten me used to the fact that life is different now. This is a good way to get the creative community involved in the festival and expand the scope of who views — perhaps buys — the work. It’s not a big change for me as someone who sells online via my website anyways.
Q
Your work seems to run the gamut of fun things such as brightly coloured homages to great high-tops to more pointed images in support of such contemporary content as #blacklivesmatter. Is part of the new reality making art that is current?
A
Any time you go online on social media for the past several months, the topics under discussion are the pandemic and #blacklivesmatter. It would be impossible to ignore that and not speak on it. If I don’t have the words, I certainly can make a visual statement about my feelings to reflect contemporary reality.
Q
I notice that there are also pieces around skateboarding and some really cool customized Skevik Skis. Did you mountain-test your creation?
A
I don’t ski. But a company in Vernon that collaborates with B.C. artists contacted me to do last season’s skis. My partner was threatening to try them out, but I told her that she can only look at them and they stay mounted on the wall.
Q
Given this hasn’t been a massive transition for you to sell on the Monsoon Marketplace rather than your website, do you think it’s going to be a new normal?
A
I think that the community aspect of being at an opening or launch and setting up a booth and interacting is obviously missing from the experience. That is too bad, but I’ve been selling online for awhile and it’s pretty normal.
Q
OK, I’ve looked at your website, looked at your art and I don’t understand your bio. Why are you described as a
“sandwich artist”?
A
Oh, because I used to work at Subway and the job description was sandwich artist. So that is how my art career started, so I include it.