The Nipissing Region Curatorial Collective has a colourful and energetic summer on tap with literal synthesis of exhibitions, shows, festivals and conferences featuring art, environmental values and spirit.
On July 30, the Davedi Club will provide the stage for Resilience, a “flamenco fusion” performance by Cesar Forero, Gabriel Sifuentes and Carmen Romero that has packed venues in Toronto and Barrie.
Tickets are $20 for the Saturday evening event (buy tickets online at Event Brite here) that will also be promoting the second annual World Culture FusionFest Sept. 16-18.
In September, FusionFest kicks off on the Friday evening with African Fusion Cuisine, Dance and Music at the newly renovated 151 Main Street East Community Theatre. Saturday’s free event will be at Good2Go’s “back lot”. Eight cultures are represented among the 30 musicians coordinated through artistic director Justine Gogoua. Franco-Fusion is the focus Sunday with Green Hive Jam Sessions at several venues.
In the NOVAH Gallery at 176 Lakeshore Drive, the walls will be rich with colour during the Rick Wade Cunnington Retrospective Exhibition (Opening July 16) and running through the summer. A self-trained abstract artist, the North Bay truck driver left an impressive collection of abstract expressionist paintings. Opening at Gallery 222 the day before at 4 p.m. is the Living on the Land exhibition of Tamara Bain’s photographic works. Located at 222 McIntyre West at the Kennedy Building, her show runs until Aug. 30.
In August, Endangered Boreal Art and Environment Tour brings together an international collective of professional artists and curators from five continents, for a Broken Forests Exchange & Exhibition Project. The international group will connect with local artists to raise awareness, within themselves and others, of the social and environmental values of forests and wild areas.
Many participants are involved with an installation at the Propeller Gallery in High Park running Aug. 3-23 called: Old Growth: Resurrection, Regeneration, Intervention.
After visiting these exhibits on August 15, the Endangered Boreal Art Tour participants will journey through Midland, Manitoulin and Nipissing for two weeks, with stops in Temagami, Kirkland Lake and the Canadian Ecology Centre in Mattawa to experience the sacred sites, galleries and forests. They will also take part in site-specific performances.
On Aug. 20-23, the CEC and Nipissing University will be the venues for a conference focusing on bio-diversity through multiple lenses: scientific and indigenous, spiritual and artistic.
The Finding Art, Animism & Alchemy in the Broken Forest: Living with the Land Conference includes a Back Roads Bill Steer presentation and forest awareness walk, several healing and indigenous harvesting walks, sustainable forest management discussions and indigenous teachings and stories about our connections to nature, animals and the forest.
The four-day agenda for the conference is online at: brokenforests.com.
Writer, photographer and proud father. My mom's family is from the Soo with its Algoma Highlands, dad hailed from Cobden in the Ottawa Valley and I spent my teen years in Capreol. Summers were at the beach on the Vermillion River and winters at 'The Rink.' Born in East York but Toronto never was my thing. Ever since a kid looking out the window on long trips, I imagined living on the highway in a little house with a big yard and trees growing all around me.
