EXHIBIT
Artlandia
When: Opening Friday, 7-10 p.m. Events and installations through Sept. 24.
Where: Opening at Rifflandia headquarters, 517 Pandora Ave. Others at Royal Athletic Park (during Rifflandia), Souvenir Art Gallery and other locations around the city.
Admission: Opening is by donation.
It's hard to ignore the steady growth of Rifflandia as a music festival in the five years since it began. It has spread across venues, drawn bigger and brighter star power and seen its audience grow by the thousands, becoming the kind of high-calibre festival that can make a city proud.
But while music is the mandate, its growth knows no creative bounds. Artlandia began in the festival's inaugural year as a segment specifically devoted to visual arts. This year, it has not only grown but assumed a specifically local focus.
"It's a bit of an expansion," said organizer Joey MacDonald, who also manages the Olio Artists and Workers Co-operative.
"This year, the focus switched more to local artists."
MacDonald began working with Artlandia through Live!Stock, an exhibition of posters designed by local artists for musical acts, spearheaded by Olio.
With so many local artists already on the hook to create posters again this year, he pitched ways to expand their involvement through a series of new installations.
"We wanted to get [local artists] involved in as many other ways as possible," he said. "That fit well with Rifflandia's mandate. And they were eager to expand the festival in more ways, I suppose, so visual arts seemed pretty natural."
This year, Artlandia will encompass five main components - some old, some new and some adjusted. In addition to Live!Stock, there will be - a group art show (Group Think), a series of murals around town (Paint the Town), interactive cut-outs (Headspace) and a train-inspired installation (the R&A Line).
Artlandia opens Friday at Rifflandia headquarters, where all Live!Stock posters will be shown, as well as about half the Head Space pieces and two of the R&A train cars. Fifteen posters will remain there on display through Sept. 23.
Paint the Town begins Sunday at various locations. Then, when Rifflandia hits Royal Athletic Park next week, festival-goers can check out the full R&A train, Headspace, a tent of Group Think pieces, another tent where audiences can get their own bags and clothing screenprinted in an interactive setting, and more - all on the park grounds. Souvenir Gallery, the pop-up space on Johnson Street, houses a separate portion of Group Think, while works at the park grounds will be moved to the Olio Co-operative's space on Fisgard Street after the festival, where they will remain until Sept. 24.
For MacDonald, the relationship between a music festival and the local visual arts community is a natural one.
"I think visual art and music - they've never really been that far apart," he said. "As any festival expands - like Pop Montreal or the Halifax Pop Explosion - there's typically a pretty strong visual component. If you keep music as art, divorced from other forms of art, it has the opportunity to become anemic. But if you incorporate other art forms, they kind of embellish one another. It seems like a healthy way for a festival to expand, and [the Rifflandia organizers] realize that more than anybody."
