Rossdale Community Hall
Ortona Artists’ Reach Society (OARS)
Draw-A-Thon at Rossdale Community Hall
SITE #17
June 30, 2025
10:00am-10:00pm
Rossdale Community Hall
(10135 96 Ave NW, Edmonton)
A free all-ages 12-hour drop-in drawing party. Art supplies, snacks and a 16mm film camera-less animation station.
Music by DJ Vlad thee inhaler
The Draw-a-thon is a 12 hour free all-ages art making marathon party at the Rossdale Community Hall with art supplies and food provided. This is a casual, drop-in-anytime event, from 10am to 10pm. A 16mm film camera-less animation station will be set up for making and projecting short hand drawn films. The Paint Spot will be on site generously showing and sharing fresh neat art supplies. Music by DJ Vlad thee inhaler will animate the space from 5pm to 10pm. Join the spontaneous fun!
The Draw-a-thon is supported by the Rossdale Community League, The Paint Spot, the Ortona Artists' Reach Society(OARS), The Works Art and Design Festival, the Edmonton Arts Council and the City of Edmonton.
ABOUT THE ORTONA DIASPORA
Ortona Diaspora is a group exhibition celebrating a dispersed arts community that faced an uncertain future in 2019. Ortona Artists’ Reach Society (OARS) is proud to feature artists of the Ortona Armoury Arts Community from past and present through an array of mediums including sculpture, painting, film, drawing, steel drum, vidéo, party dancing, live talk show, photography, home movies, installation and performance art. OARS is multidisciplinary, multicultural, multilingual and multi-generational, and are inspired to assembling with their cherished and supportive community partners. This Edmonton-based grassroots community is alive, expanding, and growing in encouraging and unforeseen ways. Ortona Diaspora is a dynamic reflection of this unique arts community in flux.
The Ortona was home to many artists, including misfit anarchists with a punk rock ethos. Prior to the recent gutting of its historic 1940s interior naval design, the Ortona Armoury Arts Building had been open to the public and was home to a steel drum band, a film co-op, filmmakers, conservators, writers, cinematographers, editors, photographers, painters, musicians, poets, performers, composers, dancers, actors and agitators, as well as eleven in-studio artists along with their collaborators, enthusiasts, volunteers, families and friends. The artists of the Ortona always invited and included the wider public community at every opportunity. This exhibit captures a glimpse of the Ortona powerhouse of Art.
OARS is motivated to highlight the significant work of these artists who were dispersed due to their 2019 renoviction from their home, the historical Ortona Armoury Arts Building in the Rossdale neighbourhood.
Funding generously provided by the Edmonton Arts Council and the City of Edmonton
Curated by the Ortona Artists’ Reach Society (OARS)