THIRD SHIFT is a contemporary art festival in uptown Saint John. (Submitted: Laura Oland)
Saint John’s contemporary art festival takes to the streets this week.
THIRD SHIFT, run by non-profit artist run group Third Space, lasts from Wednesday to Friday and includes a variety of presentations and workshops, before concluding on Friday night with a public art exhibition on Canterbury Street.
Laura Oland, one of the planners of the festival, says it’s a great way for the Saint John community to learn about and see more art.
“Canterbury and Grannan will be blocked off, so there will be quite a few art installations in that area. Picaroons has extended their license into the street. It’s just a fun way for Saint Johners to come uptown, grab a drink, check out some new pieces of art, and get a different sense for the arts community,” she said in an interview.
Oland says Friday night is the festival’s main event. There will be 17 different installations on display, including some interactive ones.
“There’s one that we featured at Area 506 last week which was called ‘Lava,’ so it’s going to be different pieces of sod grass, with the idea to kind of jump between the lava. Just fun little things like that that’ll just be kind of neat to see how our core uptown area will transform,” she said.
THIRD SHIFT takes place on Canterbury and Grannan. (Submitted: Laura Oland)
Oland says while there are many artists from Saint John and New Brunswick, there are also several artists coming from around the country and the world.
“It ends up being a really neat collaboration and just a really fun evening just to see different pieces,” she said.
Friday night’s showcase will go from 7 PM to 12 AM.
Other interesting events this week include an Artist Dinner held at Bunkhaus on Water Street, an event Oland says is almost sold out.
A ticket buys a plate of food for you and another artist in town for the festival, in a community style dinner catered by Sankara.
“It’s an opportunity for members of the community to have dinner with some of the artists that are coming down for Third Shift, so its kind of a nice little meet and greet and get to know a little bit about the artists and have a family style dinner,” she said.
As well, there will be a couple of different artist talks on Wednesday and Thursday, and a Boyd pop-up on Wednesday at the Five and Dime.
On Thursday and Friday, artist Jessica Palmer will be holding a printmaking workshop at the Saint John Arts Centre. Filmmaker Roberto Santaguida will be running a visual art workshop on Thursday at the Saint John Library.
A full list and schedule of events can be found online.
