What to check out at The Works Art & Design Festival June 21-July 1

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Timeless though art may be, The Works Art & Design Festival is in the midst of a banner year: the Big 4-0 — and a celebration of life on Earth itself.

Keeping the numbers going, starting Saturday, 42 exhibits tiny to gigantic will transform Churchill Square into a giant gallery (and music venue) and beckon the curious into the annual fest’s 18 partner galleries.

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The theme — Ground Works — is intentionally environmentally focused, its art full of impressions of flora and fauna.

I ran into two-spirit Beave Cree-Métis artist Clinton Minault wearing a “found” Louis Riel shirt out at North Country Fair earlier this week, where he’s making a fox sculpture.

For The Works on Churchill Square, he’ll be live-building Belly of the Beast — a new bison sculpture to accompany his 2024 piece Beastly Two Eyed Festival Seer.

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“The buffalo is a bench where you’re sitting in the belly,” the 46-year-old explains in a sunny field near Driftpile, AB. “There’s room for three people.”

Fitting the fest’s ecological vibe, Minault works primarily with garbage and recycled materials.

“I had to submit a draft, and I’ve never done that before,” he laughs. “Just doing that was the biggest learning curve of that whole process, because I would normally just grab a saw and cut it how I want, versus working in a team and trying to communicate how to make these odd things.”

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Over a wood frame, shopping bags in strips will form the piece’s woven exterior, coated in excess paint used by artists from previous festivals, which Minault rather likes as a sort of accidental collaboration, his new work instilled with whispers of past projects.

“When you have access to a large quantity of free materials,” he says, “you relieve yourself of material anxiety to produce something worthy of that $50 tiny tube of paint that you use cautiously, and not as exploratively as you should.”

Over the fest’s 10-day run, some other artists and pieces of note include Hillary Mussel’s hotel for passenger pigeons you can leave a Google review on; Kelly Andres’ scent-led experiences of collected botanicals from Edmonton parks on an “apothecycle” on Churchill Square; thousands of paper butterflies on branches by Monique Martin in City Hall; and Dustin Coulson’s impeccably designed birch bark and industrial material sculptures at the Westin hotel.

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I’ll do a detailed walkthrough of more of the art next week, but in the meantime asked The Works’ ever-eloquent executive artistic director Amber Rooke to walk us through some of this year’s 40^th anniversary highlights — so let’s jump in, shall we?

Dwayne Martineau — “You’re in it now”

The festival’s annually-re-skinned gate, this two sided mural on the north side of Churchill Square has two tree portraits — spruce bark and poplar buds — as a sort of Rorschach test/Dagobah tree.

“Martineau’s photography,” Rooke explains, “is less about framing and claiming landscape imagery, and more about finding a way to make visible the layers of sensory and extra sensory experiences had when one spends time surrounded by nature.

“He uses light bending materials to manipulate his surroundings before the image enters the camera, pulling us out of the idea of trees and getting closer to the character, presence, and ominousness of the forest.”

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Kerry Ross, Bob S Thornton, Carrie Phillips Kieser, John Abrams, Bram van Herwaarden — Alive! A Garden Party

Living art, this mini building has garden boxes, a green roof, a living wall and photography built right in.

“The festival’s Ground Works theme is all about relationships to nature,” Rooke notes. “This exhibit is a demonstration of design technologies that can help to better mediate that relationship. Buildings shape our urban lives, and in many ways are defined in opposition to nature — they are designed to show off human innovation and stand out as achievements of civilization.

“They protect us from the harshness of non-human forces and systems, but even in the city there are ways to work with these systems to promote a healthier ecosystem overall for a better shared future.”

Jenny Berkenbosch — Shelter

Continuing with the plant theme, this is a traditional painting exhibit on display in the main entrance hallway of the Don Wheaton YMCA.

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“Jenny has been studying plant life for decades through painting, homesteading, and farming produce,” says Rooke. “Her appreciation of the complexity, beauty and intense necessity of plant life comes through in these abstract works that bring together masking, flat clean lines, as well as depth, texture and colour.”

David MacGregor — Intimate Certainty

Sculptural arrangements of rabbit-chewed poplars, harvested and cut to fit in the low ceilings of City Hall.

“When the rabbits remove the bark around the base of a young tree it kills it for the coming season, creating more space for neighbouring trees and other plants,” explains MacGregor in his artist statement. “This is one way that a regenerating forest regulates itself and demonstrates interconnectedness between species over seasonal time.”

“The practice of noticing over time, of learning, seeing and interacting with patterns outside of your own is integral to this piece,” Rooke notes. “The patient ritualistic re-fitting of these trees indoors in columns elevates the interaction between the rabbit and the trees, however the more powerful impact for me is the very slow arc from observation through conception and to completion of the work.”

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Outside of all that, curated by local musician and artist Ben Sures, the stage performances starting Saturday kicks off strong with a nod to National Indigenous People’s Day with poetry by Naomi Mcilwaine poetry at 1 p.m., then the musical program at 2 p.m. starts with Bobbi Jo Starr, Zachary Moostoos Willer, the mighty hip-hop voyager Rellik at 6:30 p.m. and two sets by blues rocker Jim Guiboche at 7:45 p.m.

The full schedule’s at theworks.ab.ca, with Pete Turland headlining Sunday, Jed and the Valentine Monday, Entangados Tuesday and Everett Laroi Wednesday.

Here, you also find detailed information about the exhibits, art workshops and kid-friendly activations — rock painting, for instance — as well as videos from some of the featured artists.

The cohesive artistic theme promises for a particularly excellent festival this year, in honour and indeed defence of the only environment we’ll ever have.

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It’s all free, so pop on by to see what inspires and activates your own imagination.

The Works Art & Design Festival

Where Churchill Square and around Downtown

When June 21-July 1

Admission Free, more into at theworks.ab.ca

fgriwkowsky@postmedia.com

@fisheyefoto.bsky.social 

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