Selena Liss and ArtsFest: Making Art Inclusive for All
Q: First of all, I just want to say, it was an amazing ArtsFest and I enjoyed it so much. To start this off, can you tell us about ArtsFest in general? What is it exactly?
A: So the ArtsFest started a long long, long, long time ago. It goes back to the 1970s, and I’ve actually seen some photos in black and white of the stuff they did there. It was on the old campus that was down the hill from here.
And then what I know about ArtsFest, I started doing it, I think, the year after I was hired, which is probably like seventeen or eighteen years ago. We have moved from the old campus to the new campus with ArtsFest.
And then as we moved in here, we tried to start up some new things. So I actually have up there — I don’t know if you can see that little red button. It’s from an old ArtsFest.
I don’t even know when that’s from, but it’s obviously dated. And I have a whole bunch of old literary journals too that go back to the 1980s. They’re from ArtsFest as well.
So there’s all these artifacts of what it used to be.
For a while, it was really the Arts and Sciences, and it used to be called the Creative Arts, Literature, and Languages program; they organized and took care of the ArtsFest. But it has changed over the years, and the festival became more open so that students from any program could take part in it.
Q: How would you recap this year’s ArtFest?
A: This year we tried to get things hopping a little bit more because it’s post-COVID. We had a few years where things were either online or quieter because of COVID. So this is really the first year that ArtsFest got back to its regular size, I would say.
We wanted to have lots of student involvement. We also wanted to make sure that we opened it up, and allowed people from outside to come on campus.
Our biggest event was probably the Vernissage we had this Wednesday evening where everyone was invited and they could bring their friends and their parents. And there was a really good turnout for that, which was so nice to see.
Because so many times the students do the work, and the only people that see it are the professors. So it’s really nice. It feels really gratifying for students to be able to have more of an audience and not just the people who are grading it, cause that gets a little boring after a while. (It feels really gratifying) to actually be able to show off their work to a larger public. Some projects that were up were by students that had been working on them for months — some of them are really, really really involved. So that was good.
And then we had a film festival, Poets Cafe, and guest speakers. They came in the previous week to ArtsFest, which was arranged by a student with the Indigenous Studies certificate too. So we tried to do some cross-linking.
We also had a literary journal that came out as part of ArtsFest.
There was ArtCon, a student-driven initiative that started last year, which is amazing, and I really hope it continues. Students sold different types of (art)works that they had been doing, I bought a bunch of stuff there as well.
So yeah, it was really a good mix of different events, mostly at AP, but some of them in the evening as well.
Q: You also talked about how students were involved. I was wondering what the festival meant for the students. What were the overall reactions you got from the participants in terms of participating in the artwork (exhibit) and viewing the art?
A: Well, I spoke to a lot of parents coming in, and they were really happy and excited, especially because some of them hadn’t truly been on campus before because of COVID. They were all really impressed, of course, by the quality of the work that they saw as well. So that was really nice.
There was also a lot of faculty that came, and a lot of them brought their partners and their children as well, which I really liked – to see the kids running through the hallways again and to see the faculty and students interacting outside of the classroom.
Q: During the entire festival, it seemed that the audience was mostly made up of non-Marianopolis students, and if there were (Marianopolis students), they were mostly students who were already involved in the ArtsFest. Do you find that students outside of art-related majors are simply less interested in participating in the ArtsFest, or do you think that they are not appreciating it as much as they could?
A: Yeah, it depends. Students from Arts and Science had to show works as part of ArtsFest. So they were really good at turning up and supporting each other. We had a really good turnout for the Poets Cafe as well, and there were lots of music students that were involved in the two concerts that happened, the ArtsFest concert and the spring concert.
Maybe some of the students from other programs were less involved. But of course, they are seeing stuff in the hallway during the day because they’re here for classes, so they’re moving through. I saw a lot of people stopping and looking during the day.
For Vernissage, it was probably more the Arts and Science students that attended, maybe some of the Art students too. There were a few students from my drawing class that came in, and then from Art and Activism as well.
It would be great to get students from other programs more involved. Going forward, we can have more ties between student clubs too. A lot of students from other programs are really artistic as well. It might be dance, music, or visual arts. So we can try to figure out how we can pull people in through clubs and students’ outside interests, to show their work but also support the other students’ work.
Q: You said that the Artsfest started off as a requirement, but became an opportunity that everyone in the college could engage in. Could you elaborate on that?
A: Yeah, that’s totally true. So it started out as a requirement for the Arts and Sciences students. But over time, because there are so many students who are interested in the arts, it has become more open and really student driven too. It’s the students that have pushed for that. ArtCon, the film screenings and the film festival that happened outside of classes were all organized by students. Adam helped out with that.
Q: Vanessa was worried about not getting enough people to come in, but we ended up having a pretty solid audience.
A: We can grow it too. There are first years who saw stuff happening this year, and next year they’ll know (about ArtsFest) ahead of time. And hopefully, we can build on and get even more people involved next year.
Q: About that, do you have any advice for future Mari students who want to be artistically active, not only in ArtsFest, but in their college life too?
A: Well, the college is really great with clubs. There are art-related clubs like The Creative Routes, Hallyu, the Literary Journal Club, the Creative Writing Club and all kinds of different things. But not only can you join those existing clubs, you can also start new clubs.
We have had artistic clubs that have used the (art) studio in the past, especially on Wednesday night. For example, one year, there was a group that wanted to have a live model come in. They couldn’t get into the figure drawing class that they were interested in, so I worked with them. We booked a model and people came to draw on a Wednesday evening. So I would say, if there’s not a club that interests you, go start your own club.
I’ll do a call for students who are interested in organizing ArtsFest again next year, probably in December or January and we will start to get into it. This year, we had maybe five or six meetings where students were deciding on what they wanted to do, and I was there to help facilitate the process.
But honestly, ArtsFest is a lot better if the students make the implications instead of having a teacher telling them what to do all the time. So we will improve that next year. People can always come and see me too if they have ideas or suggestions, or they wanna get involved with that.
The art studio is here all the time. Outside of class hours, we always have a schedule up. So even if people aren’t in an art class, they can always come by the studio and work on something. It is a really nice open space at the top of the college. The schedule will be posted on the outside of the (art studio) door and by the sinks starting in August. So come grab a table and draw or paint or do whatever you want to do.
The computer labs all have the Adobe program loaded on the computers so and you can all log into it. Unfortunately there’s no way to take it home, but if people are interested in using Adobe Premium, Photoshop, Lightroom, or whatever, that’s on all of the computers and all of the labs, and they all have graphic cards now, I think they are capable of running that stuff. So even if you’re not taking a class you can still, you know, mess around with it in your free time and teach yourself how to do it. Yeah, those are a few ideas.
Q: Thank you so much, we are running out of time, but is there anything you want to add?
A: People can come see me. If they are interested and want to get more involved in arts or if they need hints for things. I can tell you how to sign up for like a digital library card at the at the BANQ, the big Public Library which can give you access to online video training to learn how to use illustrator or stuff like that. Or if they’re working on artworks, we have open office hours, so you don’t have to be in my class to come and talk to me about stuff.
If you are working on a project and you want some feedback, or if you want to put together a portfolio. Sometimes we will get students who are in other programs that decide to go into something like a design program. So don’t be shy about stopping by. If you have questions about anything, we are here to help.
