Volume Nine, Number Two    April 2004    www.columbiajournal.ca

MayWorks Festival Looking for Local Artists

Marco Procaccini

Vancouver’s traditional MayWorks Festival of Working Class Culture is being revived for 2004, and organizers are asking for local artists to participate.

After a three-year hiatus, a recently formed organization called the MayWorks Collective has taken up the task of putting the festival together.

“Because cultural productions such as painting, theatre, music, photography, poster art, spoken word, sculpture, and clowning, are vital to our understanding of who we are and how we interpret the world around us, the MayWorks festival wants to show case artists, musicians and writers who help us celebrate the strength and diversity of the working class,” says the Collective in a press release. “As part of this year’s MayWorks, we have space for art installations for the May Day weekend. As well, we are presenting a worker’s cabaret, a May Day central stage at Grandview Park, and an International Solidarity Café.”

The festival was started in 1985 by local labour groups and artists to promote working class culture and to publicize the fact that most of our culture in general is created by, although not necessarily controlled by, working people. It was set up to take place starting May 1, International Workers’ Day, which is officially recognized as a holiday across the globe, except in Canada and the United States, and to continue throughout the month.

It also focuses on the history of the labour and social movements that have won the rights and freedoms and living standards that we enjoy today.

The Collective is currently looking for submissions to help build a festival with art that “represents, encourages or documents working people’s lives, struggles and gains.”

The deadline for submissions for art that will be installed for May 1 and 2 is April 15.

The MayWorks Collective can be reached by e-mailing MayWorks at resist.ca or by calling 604-255-2765.