Events

The Red Deer Arts Council invites you to an extraordinary celebration of creativity and community at its 50th Anniversary Soirée, a fundraiser supporting arts programs in Central Alberta. Get your tickets for the Red Deer Arts Council’s 50th Anniversary Soirée to experience our vibrant arts community in Central Alberta, and to raise funds towards our many programs focusing on literary, visual, and performing arts.

This milestone event promises an unforgettable evening of arts and entertainment. Guests will enjoy captivating performances, including live music with the Andrew Ludtke Quartet, dance, theatre, and literary readings, alongside interactive activities such as virtual reality art, a pop-up gallery, and live painters around the venue. Celebrate RDAC’s five decades of fostering creativity while indulging in delicious hors d'oeuvres and mingling with fellow arts enthusiasts. A cash bar will also be available.

The Soirée takes place February 1, 2025 from 7:00 – 11:00 pm at the Scott Block Theatre, 4816 50th Avenue in Downtown Red Deer. 

Tickets are $40 each and can be purchased at showpass.com/rdac50anniv/.

Background
Red Deer Arts Council (RDAC) serves as a vital Community Arts Service Organization fostering visual, literary, and performing member artists and cultural organizations to enhance our community’s vibrant cultural landscape. The RDAC supports artists at all levels of experience (student, emerging, professional, recreational) from diverse backgrounds. Our membership includes both individual artists and community organizations engaged in arts, culture, heritage, and creativity. We also work to build relationships with new stakeholders to better develop the richness of our community through arts presentation and by cultivating creative living.

For more information about the Red Deer Arts Council visit www.RedDeerArtsCouncil.ca.

Bea is lively, naughty and full of life. When she asks something of her Mother that no parent would want to be asked, and her best friend something beyond the call of duty, they are both forced to challenge the boundaries of their own compassion.

"Bea, the play, is at times funny, and at times shocking, and it is a story affecting many of us," says Artistic Director John Hudson. "It is an insightful show about compassion, life, and death, and an important one to present."

January 22 to February 9.

Tickets and more information.

ᐊᐧᐃᐧᓯᐦᒋᑲᐣ
wawisihcikan - adornment
January 7-25, 2025  | FAB Gallery | Edmonton, Alberta
Reception: Saturday, Jan. 18, 12-3 PM

Curated by MJ Belcourt
Featuring works by Elaine Alexie, Erik Lee, and Carmen Miller

The travelling exhibit entitled “ᐊᐧᐃᐧᓯᐦᒋᑲᐣ wawisihcikan - adornment” takes a look at adornment through an Indigenous perspective. The meaning of adornment according to the dictionary states the use of item(s) that decorate, embellish, enhance, beautify, or enrich. It could be said adornment is the finishing touch that distinguishes the wearer.

Adornment from an Indigenous perspective goes beyond the items’ beauty. It is an artistic expression that conveys many levels of communication. It makes connection to a spiritual foundation, the importance to land and place, and defines inherent culture.

Early adornment provides a sense of knowledge about our ancestors that reflect the natural world in which they lived. The seasonal round of birth and rebirth shape our worldview in a circulatory way as everything is interdependent.

Spirituality has been the foundation for Indigenous peoples’ lives and an ‘intrinsic quality of creative activity.’ These artistic expressions were woven into the fabric of daily life. ‘Artifacts were generally created as items to be used, not as ‘art’. Bags, pouches, along with awl and knife sheaths were functional yet beautifully decorated’.

Through European contact and trade metal goods, cloth and glass beads were incorporated into the repertoire of the maker. Even as the use of trade materials increased, traditional styles of embellishment remained with the use of these traditional materials still being utilized to this present day, maintaining connection to ancestors and cultural traditions. ‘Contemporary artists/artisans are keenly aware of their responsibility as guardians of traditions from which their imagery and inspiration derive.’

‘More than beautiful ornamentation, adornment is a visual language expressing the joy of creativity, pride in attention to craftsmanship, and the desire to share with others. Above all, it honors oneself as well as one’s people by doing a thing well.’ (Sherr Dubin, Lois. North American Indian Jewelry and Adornment: From Prehistory to the Present)

This exhibition is organized by the Art Gallery of Alberta for the Alberta Foundation for the Arts Travelling Exhibition Program. TREX is funded by the Alberta Foundation for the Arts.

A/P is pleased to present NOTICE ME! by HOT 4 THE MOMENT, as our first exhibition in 2025.

NOTICE ME! will run from January 24 - March 14, 2025.

Join us for the Opening Reception and Artist Talk on January 24 from 7-9pm.
The artists will begin their artist talk at 7pm, followed by the reception until 9pm.

About the exhibition:

HOT 4 THE MOMENT uses printmaking, performance, textiles, sculpture and video as tools to explore labour, gender, and friendship. Their work uses humor as a vessel for change and pop-culture as a language to explore difficult topics, and to break down expectations of “women under the patriarchy”. This often looks at gendered labour and representation in the media. NOTICE ME! is a playful examination of gendered cultural and social labour norms. This body of work uses imagery of work sites and construction signage to consider what is traditionally valued as paid labour vs. what goes mostly unrecognized and underpaid moving through the world as both artists and women.

With their first body of work as HOT 4 THE MOMENT, Georgia Dawkin and Drew Pardy use playfulness, humour, softness and collaboration as an act of resilience and protest against systems of oppression within professional spaces as THE FIX-ITS. Together, they dissect these themes through dispersing labour and decentering oneself in practice.

Artist Bios:

Georgia Dawkin and Drew Pardy are the two halves of the friendship heart necklace that is HOT 4 THE MOMENT . A creative collective, HOT 4 THE MOMENT developed as a way for Georgia Dawkin and Drew Pardy to combine common themes within their work, and to provide a space for play within their art practices. HOT 4 THE MOMENT has exhibited in Eastern Edge Gallery (NL), Neutral Ground Artist Run Centre (SK), designed sets for Lawnya Vawnya Music Festival (NL), and performed at CB Nuit (NL), and the Atlantic Arts Symposium (NB). They were the 2024 Elbow Room Artists in Residence at The Rooms (NL) and the VANL Emerging Artists of the Year in 2024. Both Georgia and Drew are currently based in St. John’s, NL and have received their BFAs from Grenfell Campus, Memorial University.

A/P Main Gallery is located at 4025 4th Street SE
Gallery Hours: Wednesday from 10am - 8pm; Thursday - Saturday from 10am 5pm