Festival

The ninth annual Visualeyez… festival of performance art taking place from July 18-28, 2008 in the downtown core of Edmonton, Alberta with the curatorial theme of Justice.

Focusing upon the broad interpretation of Justice, this theme has deliberately been left wide open to the interpretation of artists and collectives. This will include such aspects as social justice, ecological, racial, economical, retributive justice, distributive justice, justice as virtue, and justice as harmony.

Visualeyez happens over a period of ten days and all invited artists should be prepared to attend for the entire length of the festival. Artists experience the work of other artists, engage in discussion groups, panels and other activities that enhance the work of individual artists and the performance art community within Canada and beyond.

Visualeyez is supported, in part by Canadian Heritage, Canada Council for the Arts, Imperial Tobacco Canada Arts Council, The City of Edmonton and Latitude 53.

Message from the Director

Welcome to Visualeyez 2008, which marks the ninth anniversary of Canada’s only annual festival of performance art. This year, we are presenting some of the most well-known and well-honed artists working in performance art in Canada and one of the most sought-after international artists – Kira O’Reilly.

This year, Visualeyez explores Justice; over a year ago, when I was thinking of what the theme for ’08 would be, I thought it was particularly salient to ask artists an open question about what they thought of justice. I purposely left it wide open to include the vast array of issues around justice. I find it important to explore this now; Alberta is a province that is rapidly changing and has the opportunity to have a very positive financial flow at this time. It is also ten years after the Vriend decision by the Supreme Court of Canada and our government has still yet to recognize homosexuals within human rights legislation. Where is justice there?

Justice is also about a balancing act – between retribution, righting past wrongs (or at the least acknowledging them), and creating a delicate equality between the individual’s needs versus society – or what we assume society is at any point in time. Perhaps it is more than that – perhaps it is about laws, standards and acts that will stand the test of time. I would put forward justice is also about how we treat our weakest and how we conduct ourselves with those we love and those we hate, or at least, in relation to the actions that we detest. Over the next nine days I hope that you will engage with our artists and programming to help yourself explore what Justice means to you and how you reconcile that with the Society in which we live. All events are FREE and most are centrally located at Visualeyez centre – 10248 – 106 Street. Check out our website at http://visualeyez2008.latitude53.org/schedule for the latest
information as everything is subject to change.

Huge thanks and gratitude go towards our funders: Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Heritage Canada, the City of Edmonton through the Edmonton Arts Council, and the Canada Council for the Arts; our season sponsors: SEE Magazine, Café Leva, Big Rock Brewery, Days Inn Downtown, and Charton Hobbs; and those who support us for the festival: the Edmonton Downtown Business Association, Chianti Café, DaDeO’s, Padmanadi Restaurant, Boston Pizza Downtown, MacEwan College, Save-On Foods and the extraordinary volunteers of Latitude 53. And finally to the unsung heroes that are so very just – Latitude 53’s Board of Directors and staff.

Todd Janes
Executive Director, Latitude 53 Contemporary Visual Culture
Curator, Visualeyez