By: Iris Baguinon, Marketing and Communications Assistant.

When I was looking for a field placement for my program at MacEwan University, I came across an ad about the Works to Work Summer Internship. At that time, I had a very little knowledge about The Works, so I did my research about the internship and read some articles about the organization. 

There was something about the mission and vision of The Works that drew me to apply for the marketing and communications assistant position. However, it
took me about two weeks to finally send my application. And why? Because I did not feel equipped enough to be accepted since I have minimal experience with visual arts and design. Fast forward months later, here I am at The Works writing media releases, planning social media posts, flipping through local newspapers, calling media outlets – and having so much fun!

My six weeks working at The Works has been such a rewarding experience. I am learning a lot from my amazing supervisors and most notably, from other interns. Through this excellent program, I have gotten to know all of these inspiring and interesting people. Coming from all different age groups, cultures, beliefs, backgrounds, and walks of life, I get to hear about many
different experiences and life stories. It is an honour to be part of this year’s Works to Work Program. Still, like any other job experience, I hit roadblocks, but the team or I’d rather say my Works family continually reminds me that we are all in this together – Hakuna Matata!
 

Allow me to invite you to come and visit The Works Festival on the Capital Plaza on the beautiful leg (legislature) grounds. All our staff, interns, and volunteers poured our blood, sweat, and tears to make North America’s largest free outdoor art and design festival happen!

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About the author: Iris Baguinon is honoured to be part of the Works to Work Program as the communications assistant. Coming from a theatre background, Iris has been expanding her knowledge of the arts through visual arts and design. Before joining The Works team, she coordinated volunteers and designed marketing and sponsorship materials for other arts organizations in Edmonton including Edmonton Heritage Festival and Ice on Whyte. Born and raised in the Philippines, Iris is a mental health advocate; she promotes self-care in her social media channels. She’s passionate about theatre, the Edmonton local arts scene, photography and making her Instagram feed as aesthetic as possible. Iris is excited to receive her Arts and Cultural Management Diploma from MacEwan University in November this year. Find her on Instagram and Twitter, @irislb_ .

By: Brittany Gergel, Curatorial Assistant.

An image featured in Emmanuel Osahor's In Search of Eden, originally from the artist's series The Valley

In the first season of Mad Men, an episode features ad man Don Draper listening to client Rachel Menken as she rhapsodizes on the concept of utopia. “The Greeks had two meanings for it,” Rachel says; “‘eu-topos,’ meaning ‘the good place,’ and ‘u-topos,’ meaning ‘the place that cannot be.’”

Though being discussed in the context of advertising in the 1960’s, the complexity of utopia proves relevant in our continued fixation on the concept. The current development of Downtown Edmonton, for instance, is evidence of how much value is placed on producing ‘the good place’ as an end product. However, our urban spaces are hardly equal-opportunity Edens. In Downtown Edmonton, critical, compassionate address of socioeconomic inequality is frequently cast aside in favour of flashy infrastructure and exclusive programming—twofold moves which, in the name of progress, neglect the vulnerable and cast them away from the city’s core. The latter half of Rachel Menken’s etymology of utopia unfortunately seems to be a self-fulfilling prophecy—sealing an ambivalence of good and bad, and possible and impossible, which exposes even more ambivalence and tension in its midst.

Artist Emmanuel Osahor explores these and other utopic ambivalences in the installation In Search of Eden, for The Works Art & Design Festival. Edmonton’s River Valley proves a compelling object of study for this work, as while conventionally utopic and Edenic in its own right, the River Valley also exists as a haven for Edmontonians ousted from urban spaces and experiencing homelessness.

In Search of Eden is a large structure with a scaffolding exterior—imposing, yet not out of place in a Downtown environment. Concealed within the structure is a towering, living wall of River Valley-native plant life. As viewers enter the installation, they view its additional walls, which bear large-scale photographic images of camps and similar signs of human activity in the River Valley. Through this reverent juxtaposition, viewers are forced to consider the River Valley as a space in which Edenic lushness is inseparable from the realities of poverty and homelessness. This tension is already familiar to the Edmontonians who use and consider the River Valley differently, and is further complicated by issues of safety and sustainability. ‘The good place’ and ‘the place that cannot be’ hang in precarious balance.

In this ambivalence, In Search of Eden embodies and asserts the significance of the active search. Though utopia or Eden as an endpoint has proven itself to be not-yet-obtained, the process of striving for different forms of sanctuary in complex spaces like the River Valley continues on. Osahor cites the collective yet differential search for utopia in spaces of hardship as a testament to the persistence of hope. Perhaps the best way to face the ambivalence of utopia is to remain critical, variable and mobile in this hope, constantly searching and striving for something bigger than both good and too good to be true.

Experience Emmanuel Osahor’s In Search of Eden at The Works Art & Design Festival, June 21 - July 3.

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About the author:  Brittany Gergel is a student currently pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in the History of Art, Design and Visual Culture at the University of Alberta. Her accomplishments include publication of art interpretation in the Faculty of Art & Design’s 2018 collaboration project, Anthropocities, and presentation of research-creational work at Mile Zero Dance’s 2018 Eco-Dirt Buffet. She is interested in eros, affinity and accountability as they are navigated through artistic forms.

The Works Festival of Art & Design is full of holes-in-pocket type secrets, the kind that are unexpected and sometimes sour, but at other times like finding out that the clanking in your dryer was a toonie all along. 

Performance artists merge with patrons and viewers on Churchill Square, sometimes their performances are known and expected, other times their movements and spectacles are unknown and unannounced even to the staff. 

Photograph: Inside and Out by Kasie Campbell

Hidden associations can also be found if The Works’ curatorial choices or more likely happenstance are carefully considered. One of my favourites is iHuman’s Graffiti wall, which for a day displayed “Defend the Sacred - Resist 150” next to City Hall’s equally large permanent Canada 150 sign. 

Kasie Campbell’s quietly momentous immersive installation is secluded in the small strip of grass, picnic tables and trees on the East side of the Square. Inside and Out sits like a squishy, wrinkled fleshy volcano, its skeleton a metal trailer, wheels engulfed by drooping girth. Inside and Out erupts with questioning and occasionally explosive patrons hourly. Despite of, or perhaps in spite of, the large vaginal looking entry into Inside and Out the piece feels surprisingly un-gendered, it feels uncomfortable and alive, it sits shaded, and dirty just outside the ring of conventional white cube gallery tents. Although soft, padded and cosy inside (its interior is lined with pillows and blankets) music pulses with a too-loud base, reverberating your chest and ringing your ears. Inside and Out, to me, has a queer reading of deep discomfort, of feeling trapped and controlled by your body, of having your flesh rebel. Through out the festival Kasie periodically performs with her child, Mav, both in costumes made from stuffed nylons, the same materials as the fleshy skin of the trailer. Kasie’s slowness oozes in comparison to Mav’s jerky childish motions, both are uncomfortable, and off-putting, they speak to me of repulsion of gender, and enforced identity based on physical attributes.  

Whether you are in it for the hidden treats, sneaky rewards, or the beer tent, the Works Art & Design Festival most likely has something up its sleeve (or staining its shirt) for you. 

Lucy Pauker is a multi-disciplinary artist from Toronto currently based in Halifax. She is about to complete the final year of her BFA at NSCAD, majoring in Intermedia. She is influenced by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Maggie Nelson, Simone Veil, Anne Carson, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, Vivek Shraya, and Candice Hopkins (to name a few). Lucy uses intersectional queer and feminist approaches in order to make installations and performance utilizing textiles, ceramics, poetry and video. Lucy was awarded the Creative Innovators of Tomorrow Award upon her acceptance to NSCAD. Her work and collaborative publications have been shown in Canada, with one collaborative project in Europe and the U.S., her co-curated show (with Camila Salcedo) Ritual/Virtual was selected as a must-see by Canadian Art in 2016.

She would like to acknowledge the incredible work of many Femmes, Women of colour and allies that came before her, that have made possible the opportunities she has been able to access.

by: Vanessa Traub, Volunteer Coordinator.

Photo: Kasie Campbell at the Kennedale Facility Artist Residency

Being a Works to Work intern involves, well, work, but in that are invaluable experiences that teach, challenge and encourage the growth of emerging artists. Me and three other interns were given the opportunity to join in the creation of a sculpture for the festival behind the lead of local artist Kasie Campbell. Not only did Kasie invite us into her studio but she shared many stories of her transition from university to a professional practice, from the initial struggles of not having access to resources to managing a family and work. We all sat outside, asking questions while sewing away to create a collectively dynamic piece. However, this collaboration was more than just creating art. Through genuine curiosity and meaningful conversation I got a real look into ‘the artist life’.

Just a few weeks later, all the Works to Work interns went on a field trip to visit Kasie at her artist residency. In her eleventh and final month at The City of Edmonton Kennedale Facility, Kasie guided us in her exploration of using concrete in sculpture. She gave us a tour of her studio space and spoke to the challenge of juxtaposing visually organic objects with an industrial medium. After seeing her studio space we all sat outside in a quiet space to ask questions about Kasie’s residency and artwork, and even hear about her time as a Works to Work intern.

Getting the chance to work with an artist for the festival and seeing first hand what an artist residency looks does not happen everyday. These surprising interactions with Kasie are an example of the opportunities the Works to Work summer internship offers. The internship program strives to get interns involved in the Edmonton arts community and I’ve found it does exactly that.

Vanessa Traub is an artist based in Edmonton pursuing her BFA in painting at the University of Alberta. Her work has been featured in various fundraisers including the Edmonton Public School Foundation’s annual Ready to Frame auction. Vanessa’s past works speak to the impact of mental health on identity, and currently embraces childlike imagination. Recently, she has initiated an art program at the Edmonton Young Offender Centre teaching beginner and advanced classes. Vanessa strives to teach the youth invaluable skills that they can take as tools to explore their interests and the vast definition of art.

By Cassandra Northrup, Marketing Assistant

Details: Photograph of St. Paul’s Residential School in Cardston, Alberta

This year The Works Art & Design Festival is displaying 51 exhibits. One of the exhibits that I am especially interested in is an installation by Dawn Marie Marchand titled a place to hang your stories.

Marchand’s installation is an extension of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. She is offering an opportunity for those affected by Alberta’s Indian Residential Schools to have their voices heard. As you walk through the installation, you see paper tiles all along the walls that hold the stories and experiences of survivors and family of survivors of the Residential Schools. There is an area of Marchand’s installation where a child sized desk is set up. This desk is meant to represent just how small the Aboriginal children were when they were taken from their homes and sent to the schools. There is also a section of the installation that has a blackboard for those who have experienced Marchand’s work to be able to express how it makes them feel or to write about their own stories related to the Residential Schools. With her installation, Marchand is aiming to raise awareness about the systemic oppression that occurred for hundreds of years and plays such a big part in Canada’s history. She is hoping that her installation will provide a kind of healing for those who have been directly or indirectly impacted by the Residential Schools.

I know that Marchand’s installation will be sure to get people talking, so I am interested to see what sort of impact will take place on the patrons who visit her installation. 

Marchand’s installation can be found in the Big Tent on Churchill Square. Find out more here: http://www.theworks.ab.ca/festival-exhibits/