Kimberley has been selected as one of five B.C. communities to take part in this year’s 12th annual BC Culture Days, which takes place across the province and virtually at culturedays.ca/bc from Sept. 24 to Oct. 24.
The month-long series of events is described by Murray Paterson Marketing Group’s communications specialist Angela Poon as a “dynamic line-up of free, interactive arts and culture events designed to suit all types of interests, hobbies, and comfort and accessibility levels, in light of public health recommendations.”
The theme of this year’s Culture Days is “RE:IMAGINE”, with organizers asking people around the province to “imagine a post-pandemic world brightened through creative exploration and artistic expression.”
Kimberley was chosen, along with four other remote or rural B.C. communities: Prince Rupert, Bella Coola, Sooke and Salmon Arm.
This year it will also feature a new video series entitled RE:GENERATE, giving participating towns the opportunity to show off the artistic ingenuity of their art communities.
Kimberley’s video series will focus on how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted its arts and culture sector and will premier on Oct. 22.
“When the Kimberley Arts Council was approached last year by Nazanin [Shoja], the Culture Day representative, to let us know that Kimberley was one of the chosen BC communities, we decided it was a great opportunity to share examples of Kimberley’s vibrant arts and cultural scene to the Culture Day audience,” said Kimberley Arts administrator Christine Besold, adding they were offered $3000 to produce three short videos to depict Kimberley’s art scene.
Besold explained that the original plan was, seeing as Culture Days took place in October, to include footage of Kimberley’s Kaleidoscope Festival which was scheduled for this past August. Unfortunately, Kimberley Arts discovered that the deadline for submissions was the end of July, so that plan wouldn’t work.
READ MORE: Kimberley Kaleidoscope Festival triumphant despite tricky circumstances
“COVID-19 restrictions made it difficult to plan for any live events on such short notice and we really had no older footage of past events in film format available,” Besold explained. “Not having any filmed footage available from the past, a small group of dedicated volunteers and hired videographer Trixie Paxis said down with me to brainstorm what we could come up with in such a short timeframe.”
Kimberley will show three films, entitled: Kimberley During the Pandemic, Kimberley Before the Pandemic and Kimberley Emerging From the Pandemic.
The films, all done by Trixie Pacis, collaborate with many well-known figures in the Kimberley arts community, including Bruce Kirkby, Chantel Delaney and Natalie Skokan of the Kimberley Horror Fest, Chelsea Boyd Gibson, Jeff Pew and many more.
You can learn more about BC Culture Days and how to watch the films at this link: https://culturedays.ca/en/hubs/c397da82-2c17-4816-95c5-3fca1d92ec3a
paul.rodgers@kimberleybulletin
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