1:00pm - 3:00pm

The theme of Arsene Joseph Alexander Arcand’s new body of work for this year’s Indigenous Artist in Residency is centered around teachings of the moss bag. The pieces are visual interpretations of a moss bag, what we use to swaddle a baby in Indigenous traditional parenting. The stone motifs of a moss bag is a reminder to return to ôpikinasowin, meaning the act of raising children in nêhiyawêwin, the Cree language. For everything that is ceremonially significant to us, we keep it safe in a bag. This is protection from the outside world, mimicking the warmth and safety of your mother’s womb. Your body is a moss bag for your spirit. Many of the carvings are hollow inside to represent the opportunity to fill the space with something good. It represents the significance of our potential as human beings.

6:15 PM - 8:15 PM with reception to follow.

Rove with artists on this special curator led walking tour to select Works Festival exhibits!

Ticket includes: Curatorial guided tour of select Exhibits at The Works Art & Design Festival, 2 drinks and refreshments.

Gather between 6:15 PM - 6:30 PM at the Niwapahkwanin // I See Flowers When I Close My Eyes exhibit by Sharon Rose Kootenay, on Churchill Square. Look for the white umbrella. The first Rove begins at 6:30 sharp.

Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/roving-reception-the-works-art-design-festival-tickets-1991735772311

4:00PM - 6:00PM

Gathering natural materials and using the stencils provided, create a composition on special treated paper. Watch your image transform to a rich blue when exposed to the sun as you learn about cyanotype printing, one of the earliest recorded photographic techniques. 

6:00PM - 7:00PM

Bring your sketchbooks and draw at the festival! Come as a group or on your own and let your creativity flow!

12:00PM-6:00PM

12:00PM-6:00PM

Inspired by Maria Shiroshonita's Home, The Places that Make Us. Make collage images and drawings of items you might find at home, or another place you'd like to frame. Place it in a paper frame for a shadow box effect in a flat collage.

12:00PM-6:00PM

Inspired by Robert Dmytruck's The Aesthetics of Collision found at the Don Wheaton YMCA. Collage different shapes and patterns into abstract arrangements. See how colour, shape, and pattern interact to create exciting new works of art from found images. 

12:00PM-6:00PM

Inspired by Jared Epp's Anonymous Edmontonian sculptures found throughout the square, make your own aluminum foil figure! Take it home or add it to the growing installation of figures at the WorksShop.

1:00-3:00PM (Virtual Event)

Zachary Ayotte will be in conversation with Gendai Collective about their work around alternative art economies and how arts work is a core investment in our civic structures. Finding parallels between their work and Artist Civil Service, the conversation will tease apart the importance of structural critique and collective change through artistic practice. 

Gendai is a collective based in Tkaronto/Toronto. Throughout its twenty-five-year history, Gendai has supported experimental curatorial and organizational practices, whilst creating space for East Asian artists and artists of colour. As Gendai’s newest stewards, Marsya Maharani and Petrina Ng are dedicated to building a more equitable art sector through collective research with BIPOC artists and arts workers. Using gossip as a methodology to trace the contours of institutional power, Gendai builds relationships with emerging and mid-career arts practitioners of colour to learn about current workplace dynamics in the sector. By offering peer mentorship and access to Gendai’s platform, resources, and network, they invite collaborators to support each other in pursuing non-institutional futures and imagine “off-ramps” from the linear expressway of traditional, capitalist, and institutional career progression in the arts. Gendai also participates in Guidance Council, a bi-monthly casual drop-in organized by Alexandra Hong and Peter Rahul for racialized arts workers to share stories and solicit advice from each other. Gendai has published their research in the Gossip issue of C Magazine, titled “We Should Talk: Obvious Truths About Working in the Arts.”

Register for this Virtual Event: https://www.latitude53.org/events/2026/6/27/gendai

11:00am-2:00pm

4:00-5:00PM

Workshop at the YWCA

3:00-4:00pm

Stories of The Land: Exploring displacement, cultural memory and belonging through painting, printmaking and research-based practice. 

3:00pm-6:00pm

Drop-in to share your scrap fabric and stories while the artists teach basic stitches and weaving methods. Patrons are welcome to use donated fabric supplied by the artists or to bring pre-cut strips, scraps, or pair-less socks to weave in their own personal touch. The artists will not receive fabric donations at the festival. 

1:00am-4:00pm

11:00am-3:00pm

Join Diana Ohiozebau for a creative workshop inspired by the exhibition Not Alone As Such. This interactive workshop invites participants to engage closely with selected fragments from the exhibited artworks. Drawing from themes of identity, collective presence, African mask traditions, and sculptural forms, participants will transfer and paint a small section of an artwork onto canvas, to create their own interpretation through colour, texture, and line. Through the process of focusing on a single fragment, participants are encouraged to reflect on how individual parts contribute to a larger whole.  This event is suitable for all ages. No prior painting experience is required. 

11:00am-3:00PM

7:30PM

Experimental electronic music with Jacob Audry Taves, Will Northlich Redmond, and guests. Entry is PWYC (pay what you can).

7:30PM

The concept behind Scapes and Shapes is quite simple: pair a visual artist with a sound designer or musician, and with no prearranged agenda, they spend 20 minutes creating an impromptu work of art that complements a sound piece also composed on the spot. Entry is $5 to $15 or PWYC (pay what you can). 

7:00PM

Come early to shop for original art and then stay for popcorn and movies with the artist.

6:00-7:00PM

Viewers will be able to interact with the bodies in different ways that center their own art-making. Through drawing and writing messages on the bodies or adorning them with jewelry or other objects, the public will experience collaborating with strangers on the collective construction of an artwork. They can see their own artwork and messages on the sculptures and feel like they are participating in the festival.