While many groups and performers have been taking bookings for outdoor concerts and plays — appearing everywhere from rooftops to backyards to public band shells — the latest lifting of restrictions means that indoor events are now possible too, which opens up options for local art and history buffs.
Along with this week's anticipated opening of the immersive Imagine Van Gogh exhibit at Edmonton Expo Centre, the Royal Alberta Museum (RAM) and Art Gallery of Alberta (AGA) are also welcoming in-person visitors to a host of new displays.
On at the RAM is the Quilt of Belonging exhibit, a massive collaborative tapestry that showcases 263 blocks over an area of 36 metres, each block representing a nation of Indigenous people in Canada and around the world.
Also showing is Joe Chowaniec's photography in Abandoned Alberta, and set to open on July 14 is Breathe, a diverse collection of hand-crafted masks from makers across the globe, taking shape in a range of mediums like beadwork, embroidery, birch bark etching, quillwork, rug-hooking, metalwork, and glass fusion.
The AGA is showing Genius Loci, a retrospective on the distinctive landscape architecture of Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, who passed away earlier this year, and The Scene offers a cross-section of new and experimental work from local emerging and mid-career artists.
Also on display until Sept. 12 is Black Every Day, which marks the 15th anniversary of 5 Artists 1 Love, an organization that promotes and tributes the creative work of Edmonton's African Canadian communities. There's a Picasso linocut series in there too, along with Anna Hawkins' new film Blue Light Blue, which examines contemporary human relationships to screens, playing in rotation in the New Works Gallery.
Also adapting to the times is Found Festival, running in safely-distanced spaces — indoor, on Zoom, and outside — from July 8-11. The lineup includes David Gagnon Walker's This Is the Story of the Child Ruled by Fear, a COVID-cautious performance at Studio Theatre, and daily Puppet Pub Crawls through the Old Strathcona neighbourhood.