The Works Festival of Art & Design is full of holes-in-pocket type secrets, the kind that are unexpected and sometimes sour, but at other times like finding out that the clanking in your dryer was a toonie all along.

Performance artists merge with patrons and viewers on Churchill Square, sometimes their performances are known and expected, other times their movements and spectacles are unknown and unannounced even to the staff.

How does the past signify and to what extent can this past be recaptured and made meaningful for the present moment? And to what extent can certain stories and perspectives be told or understood, given the inevitable distance between the past and present? The two exhibits Patrick Arès-Pilon and Sophie Arès-Pilon’s Le Salon Slideshow and Mitch Kern’s Upside Down and Backwards offer interesting and contrasting approaches to these issues, despite their seemingly different subject matter.

What choices does an artist make when creating a portrait and to what extent is a person’s portrait inherently political? At first glance, Carol Wylie’s series “Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters” in Manulife Place appears to be simply portraits of individual people standing or sitting against a backdrop of monochrome walls. However, the historical trajectory of the artistic portrait tradition has tended to focus on prominent subjects or famous people as a means to affirm their status by casting their likeness into art.

Being a Works to Work intern involves, well, work, but in that are invaluable experiences that teach, challenge and encourage the growth of emerging artists. Me and three other interns were given the opportunity to join in the creation of a sculpture for the festival behind the lead of local artist Kasie Campbell.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my two years as a Works to Work intern at the Works Art & Design Festival, it is that the mentality of the team is crucial to the quality of the outcome. This year we had a fantastic outcome, directly reflective of who was involved behind the scenes. Our team always has a group of people with diverse backgrounds and strengths, but with one overarching common goal and a talent for breaking all the major things we need do into manageable sizes and celebrating the little things we accomplish along the way.

As part of The Works volunteer recruitment effort, the team set up a table at Night Market Edmonton this past Friday and the event was a huge success. We managed to rope in quite a few volunteers.

However, the highlight of the evening was when a young man stumbled up to one of our posters and read it aloud (a little cockeyed):

“Artsneak… to disguise art in everyday experiences. Two. When a performance artist is hidden in a crowd.”

As the Curatorial Assistant with The Works Art & Design Festival, I have had the opportunity to read the proposals and statements of various artists exhibiting during the 2015 festival. While reading statements written by exhibiting artists, I noticed that several artists are addressing the theme, “Making Space,” by creating work that references the landscape. For example, both Lynette de Montreuil and Paddy Lamb are in some ways using material found in the landscape to address the theme “Making Space.”

This year The Works Art & Design Festival is displaying 51 exhibits. One of the exhibits that I am especially interested in is an installation by Dawn Marie Marchand titled a place to hang your stories.

Marchand’s installation is an extension of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. She is offering an opportunity for those affected by Alberta’s Indian Residential Schools to have their voices heard.

Contemporary art has more market value in the 21st Century than ever before thanks to online sales and art auctions. In this highly commercialized art world, the commodification of art intensifies, threatening to compromise the social and cultural agency of the works. A public art festival, however, has the potential to work against this trend by engaging the community, and thereby restoring art’s social, political, and cultural agency.

A Skype interview with Kelsey Fraser, who will be showing work at Text Crutch, curated by Robert Harpin. The show will run from October 26 - November 2, 2013 at The Works Gallery at Jackson Power (9744 60 Ave). The opening reception will be held on October 25th, 7 - 10pm.

A Skype interview with Jennifer Konanz, who will be showing work at Text Crutch, curated by Robert Harpin. The show will run from October 26 - November 2, 2013 at The Works Gallery at Jackson Power (9744 60 Ave). The opening reception will be held on October 25th, 7 - 10pm.

A Skype interview with Cindy Baker, who will be showing work at Text Crutch, curated by Robert Harpin. The show will run from October 25- November 1, 2013 at The Works Gallery at Jackson Power (9744 60 Ave).

Being a production assistant for The Works leading up to the festival is a unique experience. The production team consists of ten people in total. We complete a variety of tasks that involve muscles, creativity, brainpower, and Loverboy. When we first received our Loverboy CD, it was a blessing as our radio was beginning to fail us. The music of the eighties flooded the bunker and helped our steel toes and gloved hands move a little faster.