Radiant Rural Halls is a series of free, public art events including installations, workshops, screenings, and performances, held in rural P.E.I. community halls and organized by this town is small.
Radiant Rural Halls Catalogue (English)
Catalogue de Radieuses Salles Rurales (Français)
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
February 20 – Screening of Island Cowboy, 59 min., Directed by Raphaël Sandler
3 pm on February 20 at Plough the Waves Community Hall at Wood Islands Village, PEI.
Island Cowboy is a documentary that follows a beekeeper on Prince Edward Island during one of his last years of work. At the age of 68, Stan Sandler would like to retire, but impending threats to his island home’s ecosystem threaten the future of the bees and the health of the environment. The relationship between a beekeeper’s labour and the economy of the Island’s blueberry crop is explored through a season of beekeeping, as we get an intimate look at Stan and the “bee cowboys”.
Attendance: 21 seats, registration required. Register for the in-person screening on Eventbrite. Also available to stream on this town is small’s YouTube channel at the same time as the in-person event (no registration required for digital screening).
Event & venue details available on the Facebook event
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February 26 – Scintillate: An Astronomical Animation Workshop by Rachel Thornton
1-4 pm on February 26 at Milton Community Hall in North Milton, PEI.
Join artist Rachel Thornton for an informal afternoon of handmade, stop-motion paper animation. At this workshop, participants will learn tips and tricks to make short animations and create twinkling stars, comets that will shoot across the sky and other orbiting celestial phenomena. The night sky has long been a source of inspiration and imagination throughout human history. Absent of physical material, outer space begs to be filled with mythological narratives, speculative fiction and scientific information. The animations made at this workshop will be edited together to make a new collaborative night sky that comes to life through quiet movement and interaction.
Attendance: 12 seats, registration required. Register for the workshop on Eventbrite. This workshop is available for all ages. Kids under 12 must be accompanied by an adult.
Event & venue details available on the Facebook event
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March 5 & 6 – Shipwright by Vernon Corney with Patrick Jeffrey, Benton Hartley, and Joey Weale
2-8 pm with performances from 5-7 pm on March 5 & 6 at the Riverview Community Centre in Clyde River, PEI.
Shipwright is a storytelling exhibit that combines sculpture and performance to evoke Prince Edward Island’s shipbuilding past. Have a cup of tea at the Riverview Community Centre and witness a PEI shipyard straight from the nineteenth century, complete with a fleet of ships built by local craftsman Vernon Corney in their first public display. Each day, the space is occupied by a pair of shipwrights played by Patrick Jeffrey and Joey Weale. They work and sing, sleep and eat, play banjo and do their chores in a performance directed by Benton Hartley. Come feel the sense memory of PEI’s age of sail. This project is being produced with the support of the National Theatre School’s Theatre Engaging Communities Grant.
Attendance: This is a drop-in event. We ask that visitors wear a mask, follow COVID-19 health and safety protocols, and practice physical distancing. No pre-registration required.
Event & venue details available on the Facebook event
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March 20, 26, & 27 – Fabric Stories by Donnalee Downe
March 20 from 1-4 pm at the Breadalbane Community Hall, PEI.
March 26 from 1-4 pm at the Milton Community Hall in North Milton, PEI.
March 27 from 1-4 pm at the Farmer’s Bank of Rustico in South Rustico, PEI.
Donnalee Downe’s current work explores how personal narratives and private histories emerge when speaking about the fabrics we remember. Her Radiant Rural Halls project involves informal one-on-one and small group gatherings where Downe will share her current work and exchange “Fabric Stories” with rural Islanders. Downe’s fabric narratives involve apron and tea towel collections, her son’s baby clothes, a quilt made from threadbare pyjamas, and renderings of textile patterns based on sketches provided by members of her family. She is interested to see what stories Islanders have related to fabrics they have held on to or remember from their childhoods. The project’s research will inform new works representing a complete index of the artist’s memory of lost fabrics (1964 to present).
Attendance: About 45 minutes per individual or small group discussion, registration required. Registration: To register, email Donnalee Downe at: donnaleedowne@gmail.com
Event & venue details available on the Facebook event
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March 12 – STRENGTH OF CHARACTER, a screening of documentary shorts by Millefiore Clarkes, Robin Gessy Gislain Shumbusho, Shane Pendergast, and Susan Rodgers
3 pm on March 12 at the Kings Playhouse in Georgetown, PEI.
STRENGTH OF CHARACTER is a film screening of four new short documentaries made by PEI-based filmmakers, about PEI-based humans. Each of the four films delves intimately, with humour and philosophy, into the lives of fascinating and diverse characters who call PEI their home. The screening will also include a panel discussion, moderated by Millefiore Clarkes, in which the filmmakers will speak to their films, their practice, and offer the audience insight into the craft of documentary filmmaking.
Attendance: 50 seats, registration required. Register for the in-person screening on Eventbrite. Also available to stream on this town is small’s YouTube channel at the same time as the in-person event (no registration required for digital screening).
Synopsis of each film, event & venue details available on the Facebook event
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March (ongoing) – L’Empremier jam, février 1969 by Rémi Belliveau & Jason LeBlanc
Touring to Radiant Rural Halls events at: the Kings Playhouse on March 12, Bonshaw Community Hall on March 18, the Breadalbane Community Hall on March 20, and the Acadian Museum/Musée Acadien (23 Main Dr E, Miscouche, PE) from April 11 – April 30.
L’Empremier jam, février 1969 is a sound sculpture and portable installation that highlights the [ongoing] writing process of the [fictitious] Acadian prog-rock group L’Empremier. Imagined by Rémi Belliveau (alias Jean Dularge) and “Mononcle” Jason LeBlanc (alias Miller White), the project draws attention to the political music written by the duo during the winter of 1969, having it loop on a vintage cassette radio for listeners to take-in. Overheard on these tapes is not only melodies and lyrics in the process of gestation, but also discussions of a musical and intimate nature between historic musicians meeting up in person for the first time.
Photo by Annie France Leclerc.
Attendance: This is a drop-in event. We ask that visitors wear a mask, follow COVID-19 health and safety protocols, and practice physical distancing. No pre-registration required.
Artist bios, event & venue details available on the Facebook event
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March 18 – The Water Lover, an audio-visual performance by Patrick Allaby
6 pm on March 18 at the Bonshaw Community Hall in Bonshaw, PEI.
The Water Lover is an audio-visual performance that delves into the artists’ experience of being diagnosed and living with type 1 diabetes. Through storytelling, humour, and a hand-drawn slideshow, the performance explores navigating a precarious healthcare system and getting by with chronic illness: “Since being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in 2015, my work has focused on examining the experience of being chronically ill. The latest iteration of this performance aims to dispel myths about Canada’s ‘universal healthcare’ system, and advocate for a national pharmacare program.”
Attendance: 50 seats, registration required. Register to attend the event on Eventbrite
Event & venue details available on the Facebook event
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March (ongoing) – The Woodsman by Becka Viau
This project is taking place throughout the month of March at the Breadalbane Community Hall in Breadalbane, PEI. The artist will be on site from 10 am to 1:30 pm on Tuesday March 15, 3 pm to 6:30 pm on Thursday March 17, 9 am to 2 pm on Saturday March 19, and 10 am to 5 pm on Sunday March 20.
The artist will be outdoors at the Breadalbane Community Hall chopping a cord of wood. Visitors are invited to offer a trade to the artist in exchange for lumber. The artist will accept trades at their own discretion: “The labour of self-reliance becomes a site of interdependence through the act of processing firewood for trade with the community.”
Attendance: This is an outdoor, drop-in event. We ask that visitors wear a mask, follow COVID-19 health and safety protocols, practice physical distancing, and dress for the weather. No pre-registration required.
Event & venue details available on the Facebook event
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March 20 – An Early Spring by Alana Morouney
12-5 pm March 20 Breadalbane Community Hall in Breadalbane, PEI.
An Early Spring brings reprieve from slow hesitant steps through a landscape of snow. Alana Morouney’s colourful kites are woven, quilted and sewn in garden hues to bring our downcast faces up to the sun. An ode to the changing seasons and those that keep us warm, these kites will be available to view and fly. Please dress in suitable footwear as we will be outside if weather permits.
Attendance: This is a drop-in event. We ask that visitors wear a mask, follow COVID-19 health and safety protocols, and practice physical distancing. No pre-registration required.
Event & venue details available on the Facebook event
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March 20 – The Root Washer by Carina Phillips
12-5pm March 20 at the Breadalbane Community Hall in Breadalbane, PEI.
The Root Washer features an old vegetable root washer as the central figure of a video installation that contemplates the past and future of farming: “Thoughts of hope and despair for the future of farming often rotate through my mind. As a young agrarian, I am so inspired by “the back 40″ of most rural properties. The old machinery that needs fixing, that has so much potential to aid small and medium farms in their start-up years. I know that one reason these machines don’t get maintained is that older farmers have no one to take over their operations. Intergenerational farming is so important, but making those links between new and old farmers can be a challenge. There is an exchange between the innovations of the past and the present that can be invigorating for young and old farmers alike. When accessing land becomes so challenging for young people, especially the BIPOC community, these machines look like carcasses to me. Why are these vessels empty? Why is land so hard to access? Why is the price of land rising so much? These questions keep rolling through my brain and are issues that I’d like to shine a light on.”
Attendance: This is a drop-in event. We ask that visitors wear a mask, follow COVID-19 health and safety protocols, and practice physical distancing. No pre-registration required.
Event & venue details available on the Facebook event
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March 25 & 26 – Circus of the Failurz, a performance-making workshop by Megan Stewart and Brian Riley
March 25 from 6:30-8:30 pm and March 26 from 1-5 pm at the Milton Community Hall in North Milton, PEI.
Welcome to Circus of the Failurz! It’s the beginning of 2022! Thriving? Not really. Living your best life? Seems unlikely. Failing often? Yeah, us too.
Join Megan and Brian for a performance-making workshop where we celebrate and tear apart and make some art inspired by our collected tiny (and maybe sometimes big) failurz. We’ll smash a bunch of theatre creation practices together – there will be collisions of games, storytelling, movement and music – to build a failure-based circus unlike anything you’ve seen before. Let’s make a shoe show.
Attendance: 12 seats, registration required. Register for the workshop on Eventbrite. This workshop is open to participants age 12 and above.
Event & venue details available on the Facebook event
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March 31 – Virtual Artist Talk by Rémi Belliveau
March 31 at 7 pm (ADT) on Zoom
Rémi Belliveau will present an artist talk about their Radiant Rural Halls project, “L’Empremier jam, février 1969,” and their past work creating, embodying, and documenting the historic(al) fiction of their alter ego Jean Dularge. Blurring the contours of reality using falsified archives, this singer-songwriter persona brings to light the shortcomings of a forgotten story: the musicians of early rock in the Acadian community (1958-1973)
Rémi Belliveau is an Acadian trans non-binary interdisciplinary artist and musician hailing from Memramcook, New Brunswick, a village located in Mi’kma’ki, the traditional unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq people. Their art practice is rooted in Acadian culture, which is often caught between its past (history, folklore, stories, customs) and its present (diaspora, social causes, dialects, pop culture).
Attendance: This artist talk will be presented via Zoom on March 31 at 7pm ADT. It will be about 40 minutes long, with a 5-minute break before about 30 minutes of Q&A. Here is the link to the Zoom meeting
Full details available on the Facebook event
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April 2-10 – Crepuscular Rhythms by Lou Sheppard in residence at the Kings Playhouse
Kings Playhouse in Georgetown, PEI
Crepuscular Rhythms is a performance score that figures dawn and dusk as queer times of day, times that blur the boundaries between day and night and that provide protective cover for queer and trans bodies in public space. The score has been performed as a graphic notation by musicians, and as a series of walks at dawn and dusk wearing light-sensitive t-shirts. This iteration will respond to the landscape surrounding the Georgetown Playhouse, figuring queer presence in a rural environment. During a week-long residency at the hall, Lou will host a performance and exhibition on site.
Public Event: An Open Studio event with Lou Sheppard will take place on Saturday, April 9 from 3pm-5pm at the Kings Playhouse (65 Grafton St, Georgetown, PE). Drop in to learn more about Lou’s project. All are welcome!
Attendance: This is a drop-in event. We ask that visitors wear a mask, follow COVID-19 health and safety protocols, and practice physical distancing. No pre-registration required.
Event & venue details available on the Facebook event
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Radiant Rural Halls programming is taking place on ancestral and unceded Mi’kmaq territory. As part of one of the seven districts of Mi’kma’ki, Epekwitk (PEI) is covered by the Treaties of Peace and Friendship of 1725, which never involved the surrender of land, but rather serve as a foundation for relationships between the citizens of this region.
This project is made possible thanks to the generous support of:
this town is small 