Eight Edifying Events Erupting Everywhere
September 23 – October 2, 2016
Artists who make their works of art in language will be exhibiting fresh works for the public to encounter throughout the city: in the windows of businesses, on coffee cups and buttons, in the city’s public spaces, in parks, up a tree, on dogs who run free.
Kate Story Storefront Stories /
Wendy Trusler Heliotrope
Ziy von B and company Take-Out Poetry / Monday September 26 cancelled. RAIN DATE: Join the cart at the Downtown Farmer’s Market on Wednesday September 28, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Niambi Leigh Words Not Bombs / Monday September 26 cancelled. RAIN DATE : Monday October 3 same location.
eCityLit Micro-fiction /
Russell Banx Neospeak /
Daphne Molson Poetry Giveaway
Janette Platana Following The White Whale
Words Artists’ Profiles
Storefront Stories
read the story here
Installed at the beginning of Artsweek in storefronts and remaining for the duration of the festival on the east side of George St. between Hunter and Simcoe St.
What if your story started here? Literature for everyone, a Storefront Story – one sentence per store window – will appear on George Street during Artsweek. Running between Hunter and Simcoe, for passersby to read – walking north OR south! Written especially for Artsweek.
Biography: Kate Story is a writer and performer. A Newfoundlander living in Ontario, her first novel Blasted (Killick Press) received the Sunburst Award for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic’s honourable mention. She is the 2015 recipient of the Ontario Arts Council’s K.M. Hunter Award for her work in theatre. Recent publications include short stories “Yoke of Inauspicious Stars” (Carbide Tipped Pens, Tor Books); “Unicorn” (in World Fantasy Award-nominated Gods, Memes, and Monsters, Stone Skin Press); “Show and Tell” (Aurora Award-nominated Playground of Lost Toys, Exile); “Equus” (Clockwork Canada; Exile). Her story “Demoted” was featured in ChiZine Publication’s Imaginarium: Best Canadian Speculative Writing 2015.
Heliotrope
Drop in and find the artist working around the Silver Bean Café, 130 King St. between 12:00 pm – 3:00 pm on
- Tuesday, September 27
- Thursday, September 29
- Friday, September 30
- Saturday, October 1
In this meditative and intimate project, Wendy Trusler uses a wood burning tool to write on beautiful chunks of reclaimed wood, etching the words we use when we undertake new beginnings. Come and talk to the artist while she explores this theme with language culled from resumes, mission statements, and documents that are formal, informal, personal and professional. Bring your own ideas of what words we use when we are making fresh starts.
Biography: Wendy Trusler is an artist, designer and writer who creates site-responsive installations incorporating drawing, painting, text, sculpture, performance, and film. Shaped by the experience of having lived in wild places, ideas around ecology, continuity and regeneration play out in the materiality and physicality of her work, as well as how it brings people together.
Artsweek Poetry Give-Away
Saturday, October 1, during the New Moon Afternoon in Millennium Park, 1 King St.
Peterborough poet Daphne Molson creates original poems for this annual Artsweek event, puts them in an envelope with the official Artsweek seal and autographs them. You get a free poem by one of Peterborough’s strongest arts supporters. A work of art, in the park, to celebrate Artsweek.
Biography: Daphne Molson was born and raised in Peterborough and studied music at the Royal Ontario Conservatory in Toronto. She has won a number of awards for her work and it has appeared in a number of publications. Daphne also paints and plays piano.
Take-Out Poetry
- September 26, 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm, Peterborough City Hall, 500 George St. N. Cancelled ~RAIN DATE: Join the cart at the Downtown Farmer’s Market on Wednesday!
- September 28, 11:00 am – 2:00 pm, Downtown Farmer’s Market, 225 Charlotte St.
- Saturday, October 1, 2:00 pm – 5:00 pm, New Moon Afternoon in Millennium Park, 1 King St.
Do you require a sonnet for your new lover? A limerick for your toddler? A unique birthday card for your boss? A motivational rant to inspire you to action? Step right up to the Take-Out Poetry cart and put your order in. In just a few minutes, this team of diverse writers will have your one-of-a-kind poem ready to go. Curated by Ziysah von Bieberstein and featuring a host of extraordinary local writers.
Biographies
Hilary Wear is a Métis theatre artist, mother, spouse, collaborator, clown, community volunteer and performer who also writes…monologues, jokes, maudlin sentiments, torturous tweets, and pro-Mother Earth presentations to politicians. Those are all painful; writing for you would be a treat.
Jon Hedderwick is a professional spoken word poet who performs across Canada and organizes with the Peterborough Poetry Slam Collective. By day, he works as a job developer and an employment counsellor, advocating for marginalized workers. He lives in Peterborough with his wife and daughter.
Ziy von B is a parent, community organizer, writer and performance poet whose art works to blur boundaries, forge connections, and address injustice. With family lines stemming from Jewish communities in Poland and Lithuania, Ziy is grateful to call Nogojiwanong / Peterborough home.
Sasha Patterson is a poet and a community organizer whose poetry engages in themes of activism, identity, queerness, and community. They have represented Peterborough multiple times in national poetry competitions.
Wes Ryan is a multifaceted artist with a penchant for combining spoken word and dance to produce genre-mashing performances that confront mediocrity. He has represented Peterborough at slam poetry events across the country. Since suffering a brain injury in 2007, Wes has found his voice in the spoken word community, facilitating workshops and performing on the theme of social consciousness.
J.C. Sutcliffe and Laura Gaughan
eCityLit
Throughout Artsweek at participating cafés: BE Catering, Black Honey, Dreams of Beans, the Silver Bean Cafe, Natas, the Planet, the Planet North, BE at the Trend, In a Nuttshell, Amusé Coffee Co., Caffeina, Simply Delicious, the Turnbull Cafe, Hasseltons, and the Whistle Stop Cafe.
Returning for its second year, eCityLit will be bringing outstanding new poems and micro-fiction to Peterborough’s coffee shops this autumn. The work of six Peterborough writers will be printed on coffee sleeves to be distributed by the city’s best cafes. Will you manage to collect the whole Artsweek 2016 series? Let us know on Twitter @ecitylit or at facebook.com/ecitylit when you spot one of our coffee sleeves out in the wild.
Check out the flyer for the event at Black Honey on Friday, September 23, 2016 from 8:30 – 9:30 pm.
Biographies:
J.C. Sutcliffe is a writer, translator and editor whose book reviews and other writing have appeared in the Globe and Mail, the National Post, the Guardian, the Times Literary Supplement, the Literary Review of Canada, and elsewhere. Her blog is Slightly Bookist.
Laura Rock Gaughan’s fiction, essays and book reviews have appeared (under the name Laura Rock) in Canadian, Irish, UK and US publications including The New Quarterly, Southword, and the Globe and Mail, among others. Follow her on Twitter @laurairock
Matthew Hayes is an independent filmmaker and PhD student at Trent University. He is currently in production on the feature-length documentary film Pushback. His dissertation research will explore the history of science and the Cold War through an exploration of Canada’s UFO archive.
Andrew Ihamaki is an emerging artist/writer from Peterborough. Andrew has appeared frequently on Life Rattle Radio and published in several Life Rattle Press story collections, as well as Trent U’s Absynthe Magazine. He has appeared at the Rivoli to read at the Totally Unknown Writers Festival.
Joelle Kovach is the City Hall reporter for The Peterborough Examiner. She lives in Peterborough with her husband Matt and their two young sons.
Laura Murray is the Children’s Librarian at the Peterborough Public Library. Laura lives with her husband, Ben, and dog, Ribby. She likes to wander outdoors, play with words, and dance.
Matt Snell is a writer based in Peterborough. Matt’s works appear in Existere, Punchnel’s, and PRISM International. He holds an MFA in creative writing from UBC and has performed extensively as a musician, accompanying his original songs on guitar, banjo, and musical saw.
Claire Sullivan is an artist, author, publisher and gardener inspired by nature, travel and great writing, Claire is past president of the Peterborough branch of the Canadian Authors Association, the group she credits with helping her develop the voice used in her novel MasterGardener. Twitter: @clairewrites.
WORDS NOT BOMBS
Group Poetry Creation, Sept. 26, 2016 at 6:00 – 8:30 pm, Food Not Bombs Weekly Feast, Confederation Park, 501 George St. North
Cancelled. RAIN DATE : Monday October 3 same location.
With witty words and good food, WORDS NOT BOMBS forges a group poetry creation based around building community. The theme is how the Food Not Bombs space has helped shape our idea of community.
Born in Jamaica, Niambi is a Peterborough-based poet whose work explores the intersectionality between race, gender and mental illnesses. Their work is lyrical, deeply felt and rooted in storytelling. Niambi is a poet who reminds you that even the act of breathing is an expression of strength. They are the current individual Peterborough slam champion, and went on to represent Peterborough at the Verses Festival of Words in Vancouver in 2016. They are a three-time member of the Peterborough Poetry Slam Team, and traveled with the team to perform at the Canadian Festival of Spoken word in Victoria in 2014, in Saskatoon in 2015 and in Winnipeg in 2016, where they distinguished themselves as a poet on the rise.
Neospeak
Installed at the beginning of Artsweek and remaining for the duration of the festival at Union Studio, 391 Water St., unionstudioptbo.com
Visit “ book alley” to experience George Orwell’s 1984 in its entirety, in a projected reworking of this ominous text. Neospeak is a study in the changing consumption of the printed word in everyday life as we move further into a digital society. By projecting a perversion of George Orwell’s 1984, Banx is realizing connections between the physical demise of the printed word, and the totalitarian dismantling of language in Orwellian “Newspeak”
Artist’s Biography: Russell Banx is a multidisciplinary artist who grew up in Peterborough, contributing to the thriving music/arts community. He has participated in artist residencies in Ontario and Germany.
Following The White Whale
Begins Thursday, September 29, 8:00 am at Peterborough Square Mall Courtyard, Water and Simcoe St. Continues at various locations in downtown Peterborough until the book is finished, on
Saturday, October 1, New Moon Afternoon in Millennium Park, 1 King St.
Follow Ishmael, Captain Ahab and the white whale to locations that will be revealed on Twitter @FollowingMoby.
Moby Dick is called a great novel – or is it a great unread novel? Follow a lineup of relaying readers and hear the whole thing read live and out loud in a continuous roving journey throughout Peterborough.
Biography: Janette Platana’s latest book, A Token of My Affliction, was longlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Collection Award in 2015, and was a Finalist for the Trillium Book Award. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in literary magazines and anthologies in North America and Turkey. Originally from Saskatchewan, and with a background in indie bands and improv comedy, Janette has lived in Peterborough for 25 years. Her work is described as “cheerfully disturbing, gleefully outraged, and chillingly beautiful.” In Peterborough, she is an educator working with learners from kindergarten to university. Janette is committed to erasing the boundary between performer and spectator.
Slamtario Team: Artsweek 2014