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Culture Day event produces 3D objects. One on the lawn (20 Photos)

The 2015 Culture Days event at the Centennial Library and Art Gallery of Algoma exploded with a diverse assortment of cultural activities while one artist found a way to weave them all together.
The 2015 Culture Days event at the Centennial Library and Art Gallery of Algoma exploded with a diverse assortment of cultural activities while one artist found a way to weave them all together.
 
Rihkee Strapp of the Mill Market Mural Project recognized a common thread running between the library’s wire twisting activity and the art gallery’s basket weaving demonstration and used the opportunity to physically and symbolically intertwine the two institutions together with a Community Weaving Picnic on the front lawn between their respective buildings.
 
“(There were) multiple organizations that wanted to do different events for Culture Days and (we asked) how can we kind of tie...or weave some of them together? (The) Community Weaving Picnic kind of came out of that, “ said Strapp.
 
The picnic included pizza, presentations and activities, and a large participatory art-project that was originally supposed to be a giant loom but turned into a “wild” 3-dimensional tangle of fabric and threads after participants took the project in unexpected directions.
 
Strapp also used the day as opportunity to make cardboard Haida-inspired “transformation masks” to be used in the final unveiling of the Mill Market Mural Project on Saturday.
 
Library staff said they counted about 1000 passes through the library’s front doors during 10 a.m. - 3 p.m. event times on Friday.
 
Helena Huopalainen, Manager of Community Engagement for Centennial Public Library, said the “turnout was amazing” and commented that the library was proud to offer dancing, a puppet show, and other performances alongside the outdoor happenings.
 
“The trend of libraries is to make space and what’s so great about today is we could offer inside space and outside space. We can bring in these performances and engage people,” said Huopalainen.
 
The library used Culture Days to demonstrate its new 3D printer which by days end had already printed a bracelet, chess pieces, an Easter Island Statue shaped vase, and other objects out of either Lego-grade quality plastic or another lighter, biodegradable corn-based material.
 
The newly acquired 3d printer has already been a valuable asset for the library as staff were able to save an old microfilm viewer by 3d printing what they say is a “perhaps impossible” to replace part.
 
The Maine-based volunteer-run Beehive Design Collective were in Sault Ste. Marie as part of their “Art of Resistance Tour” with hip hop artist Testament and displayed several meters wide and tall sized fabric murals, the biggest of which took 22 people over 9 years to make.
 
The group presented to the Community Weaving Picnic crowd on the anti-globalization themes found in their highly detailed and metaphor-rich illustrations.
 
Also at the picnic was Urban Indigenous Youth For Change (UIFYC) who promoted the idea of “social economy”, or, economy that is related to first nations practices of exchange and other alternatives to “oppressive capitalist economy”.
        
UIFYC conveyed their ideas through a “Blanket Nations” activity where groups sat on small blankets pretending to be different nations and exchanged resources such as animals, food, and water (symbolically represented by toys and other items) with the intention of role-playing and generating awareness around non-capitalist exchange practices.
 
Other Friday goings-on included the Clay It Forward art project, 100 free lunches provided by the Gnarly Bistro lunch truck, cultural themed craft tables, oral history sharing, henna tattoos, fly tying, Finnish coffee bread, and much more.
 
(PHOTO: Rihkee Strapp of the Mill Market Mural Project created a participatory art-project to weave together the diverse cultural happenings at the 2015 Culture Days event in Sault Ste. Marie. Strapp is pictured wearing a Haida inspired bird costume inside the fabric tangled art project. Photo by Jeff Klassen for SooToday)
 

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Jeff Klassen

About the Author: Jeff Klassen

Jeff Klassen is a SooToday staff reporter who is always looking for an interesting story
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