Art fest set for Junction streets
[attach]2188[/attach]If you see a barricade of filing cabinets on Junction streets sometime this month, take comfort in knowing it isn’t the work of another disgruntled stockbroker who lost his job.
No, in fact, it’s an art installation. And it’s smashing — literally. Welcome to the Junction Arts Festival.
In a four-hour spectacle taking place on Sept. 9, Istvan Kantor will perform “RE: INVASION Recent Crimes and Punishments” as part of the weeklong arts fest.
A barricade of hundreds of old filing cabinets will be stacked outside of SMASH, an industrial-sized vintage furniture store.
According to the Junction Arts Festival website, Kantor has turned the store into a “Neoist (s)mash-up arts headquarters” that is a “perfect drill-ground for Kantor’s hyper-audacious strategy, techno-cinematic vision and his conflicting taste for mayhem.”
The West Toronto resident will open his show with an event-special performance from his own robo-zombie MachineSexActionGroup.
But don’t think the Junction Arts Festival is all about beauty in destruction.
The five-day long event has something for everyone, including over 100 performers and exhibitors ranging in various media, from classic to contemporary art to spoken word and installation art.
New this year is an environmental sensory experience walk, where participants will be able to move barefoot through water, mud, granular stones, mulch grass and pinecones.
“All the time you’re surrounded by plants and animals, you’re also surrounded by the elements of urbaness,” said festival chair Robert Hilts.
And there’s even more to check out along Dundas Street West this year.
“We’ve expanded the festival both east and west,” said Hilts, adding it will now run from Indian Road to St. Johns Road.
The performance stage will be located on the north side of Pacific Avenue.
The festival runs from Sept. 8 to 12. Check for the schedule of events and admission costs at [url]www.junctionartsfest.com.[/url]
— With files from Karolyn Coorsh