Lumen Lite - Performing Community Garden by Khadija Baker presented by CAFKA

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About

Artist Statement:

Performing community garden is a participatory performance, and subsequent video work, where Baker employs story-telling and memories in a reciprocal relationship with community members. Wearing a hand-woven dress designed to hold a number of plants, Baker will share a plant with a name attached to it, with participants to take home with them. The names of the plants belong to primarily civilians who have been lost or displaced through violent situations as well as the names of survivors who have recently arrived in Canada. As the performance progresses, Baker shares memories and stories of the person the plant is named after with participants, and ask that they too, share the story of a loved one with her. Baker’s aim with the performance is to foster healthier relations with displaced people from the Middle East and encourage greater acceptance of different cultural values as a way to circumvent social separation and conflict. The work suggests we not forget, but be present, and reflect on the fact that even though the plant carries a stranger’s name, the life the plant carries will be nourished with the care and love of its recipients as it grows.

Links

• Lumen Lite lumenfestival.ca

Organizer

City of Waterloo - Create Waterloo in partnership with CAFKA

Lumen is an annual, free, all-ages festival that is open to the public and run by the City of Waterloo’s Arts and Culture team (Create Waterloo). The event features the work of artists as they explore the interplay of light, art, and technology in installations located throughout uptown Waterloo.

CAFKA – Contemporary Art Forum Kitchener and Area is a non-profit, artist-run organization that presents a free biennial exhibition of contemporary art in the public spaces of the City of Kitchener and across the Region of Waterloo. CAFKA is a producer, advocate and educator for contemporary public, interactive and interventionist art practices. CAFKA commissions contemporary artists from Ontario, across Canada and abroad, to develop new temporary art projects that can respond to the specific features of the local urban landscape and culture. The CAFKA biennial includes approximately 25 installations, performances, projections and interventions involving collaborations with concurrent music and cultural festivals and Regional art institutions. Between biennial exhibitions CAFKA presents selected public projects, promotes art education through its public tours and workshops, videos, public lectures and other ancillary programs and events.