Saint John’s contemporary arts festival has announced this year’s participating artists. This year’s festival takes place August 19-22.
After a successful 2020 installment brought Third Shift into the online world, Saint John’s free contemporary art festival is ready to announce another exciting pivot. For the first time in its history, Third Shift has a theme. From August 19 to the 22, over 20 artists will show off their work at Third Shift: Traverse.
Third Shift: Traverse aims to strengthen the best practices of its 2020 installment—an invigorating combination of bubble-friendly exhibitions and online installations—while maintaining the excitement of a traditional arts-at-night festival. In gorgeous parks and underutilized storefronts, in tourist hot spots and in cyberspace, Third Shift: Traverse will introduce art enthusiasts to over 20 remarkable artists and collectives from New Brunswick and abroad who are not afraid to colour outside the lines.
One such person is Third Shift artist-in-residence Indigo Komiwonuhke Poirier. An award-winning musician and multidisciplinary artist hailing from Kingsclear First Nation, Indigo will present ‘Being Without’, an audiovisual meditation on grief and change that takes mementos and photographs, converts them to data and makes them into music. Other artists, from across Canada and the world, will Traverse using media ranging from photography, architecture and video, to soil, light, flags, and even futuristic shoes.
This year’s complete artist lineup:
Indigo Komiwonuhke Poirier, Patrick Allaby, Amelia Bailey, Carmen Belanger & Devin Chambers, Nat Cann, Blake Creamer, Lacey Decker Hawthorne, Adam Hill, Sarah Jones, Colleen MacIsaac, Nathan Merrithew & John Marshall, Christiana Myers, Nazanin Oghanian, Resonance New Music, Emily Saab, Graeme Stewart-Robertson, Trophy, I-Click Photography, John Wasonga with Muthomi Ngeranwa & Caroline Ngorobi, Julie Whitenect and Florence Yee.
Why Traverse? The word means “to travel across or through”. It refers to movement, space, and change. Third Shift: Traverse was designed to encourage the creation of art projects that transcend boundaries, create intersections, relate to space and movement, and exist at the margins.
“2021 is an in-between year,” says Katie Buckley, Executive Director of Third Space Gallery. “In 2020, we adapted our festival to the restrictions we were facing at the time. Now in 2021, with New Brunswick on the cusp of returning to green, or ‘normal’, we felt this would be a perfect year to explore change, and the in-between moments that define life.”
Third Shift is a free all-ages contemporary art festival. From August 19 through 22, you will find temporary public artworks around the Uptown area that you can visit anytime throughout the four-day festival. There will also be a series of small in-person and online events relating to the artworks.
About THIRD SHIFT and Third Space Gallery
Established in 2015, Third Shift is a festival of public contemporary artworks presented by Third Space Gallery, a not-for-profit artist-run centre in Saint John, that includes temporary installations, interventions, performances, projections, and events. This year’s festival spans August 21st -28th with an emphasis on the presentation of contemporary artworks online and temporary installations throughout Uptown Saint John. Created as a platform for new experiences and communal exchange, THIRD SHIFT aims to offer Saint John citizens and visitors to the city a unique opportunity to engage with contemporary art and re-imagine urban space.
