Eye on the Esplanade: Arts and Heritage is still available – celebrate!

By medicinehatnews on April 30, 2021.

As I was lining up to receive the vaccine last Friday, I realized we all deserve the biggest kudos for our resiliency and adaptation over the past year. It is obviously all relative to the experiences in our own world; some have it worse, some have it better … However, no matter how good or bad we have it, this health crisis has affected each one of us and we all have adapted as best we could. I know we are not out of the woods yet, but we still need to find places and times to acknowledge, applaud and celebrate!

The Esplanade Arts and Heritage Centre is for many a place of celebration. The building has been closed to the public, for the most part, since March 2020. While the physical space has been temporarily unavailable, rendering us unable to gather inside, we can continue to explore the content created here. Most of us are so fortunate to have access to technologies that allow us to experience our culture and continue to enjoy our community’s arts and heritage. Celebrate!

Two recent additions in the galleries come to mind when thinking of content creation and celebration: The Black Gold Tapestry and School Art 2021. The public can visit these two exhibitions through 360 virtual tours as well as exploring other related material on Esplanade’s digital channels. The Black Gold Tapestry, by Calgary artist Sandra Sawatzky, is a 67-metre, hand-embroidered masterpiece visually narrating the history of oil. As for School Art, it needs no introduction in our community. It is simply the most popular exhibition year after year for the last 43 years! There is much to enjoy even with the facility closed! Celebrate!

Speaking of School Art 2021, I feel the people we need to acknowledge and applaud most, especially right now, are our children. They are going through this disruptive, confusing and divisive time like champions, rising above the languish we are all feeling. We want to give them a platform to express themselves. Therefore, we are launching a social media School Art Takeover during the month of May, where we will share artwork by children from across the community daily and have weekly student-led art lesson videos on Facebook and Instagram! Celebrate!

Your child can be part of it too! Tag @medhatesplanade and add #schoolarttakeover in photos of the favourite young artist in your life showing off their masterpiece! We will publish these photos on our Facebook and Instagram stories and create albums from them. One lucky participant will win one free week of Summer Art Camp! Celebrate!

Tobie Laliberte is marketing and promotions coordinator at the Esplanade

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