Free this Week
Blast into February with some budget-friendly arts events!
There’s so much to see and do this week for free! Chinook Blast rolls out with great free family events including an Indigenous Market, live music, lighting displays and more, while elsewhere you can take in Lunar New Year Celebrations, film, art workshops and so much more. Get planning!
Conversations with Newcomer Artists
February 2, 2024, 6pm
Contemporary Calgary (701 11 St. SW)
Free to attend
The Exposure Photography Festival presents a brand-new series of conversations that respond to Exposure’s curated exhibitions and explore the significant topics the artists address through their work. Don’t miss this conversation hosted by Toyin Oladele with presentations by Exposure artists Santosh Korthiwada and Maksim Tataev.
contemporarycalgary.com
Chinook Blast
February 2 – 19, 2024
Various venues
Prices vary
Experience the magic of Calgary’s winter festival celebration. Chinook Blast warms up our city with a celebration of community, culture and civic pride. The best of Calgary’s art, music, theatre, sport and recreation will be on display (read about some of the festival highlights here). Don’t miss it!
chinookblast.ca
4 Winds Indigenous Showcase & Market
February 2 – 4, 2024
City Hall Atrium (800 MacLeod Tr SE)
Free to attend
Check out more than 75 Indigenous vendors with a range of handmade products like beadwork, woodworking, artwork, home decor, apparel, hand-sewn items and more — plus music performances, a powwow showcase and an Indigenous fashion show featuring talent from the Treaty 7 area.
chinookblast.ca/events/four-winds
Kenna Burima “MonoMyth”
January 31, 2024. 12 – 1pm
Cathedral Church of the Redeemer (604 1 St. SE)
Free to attend
Since doing her time in the institutional hallowed halls of classical music education, Kenna’s love for all musical forms has driven her involvement in a diversity of projects. Using the narrative template of Joseph Campbell’s monomyth, Kenna weaves together 20 years of songs and a lifetime of stories into a 40-minute noon-hour listening experience.
proartssociety.ca/kenna-burima
Rise Up Community Outdoor Stage
February 2 – 19, 2024
Olympic Plaza (228 8 Ave. SE)
Free to attend
A diversity of talent is set to perform on the RISE UP Community Outdoor Stage at Olympic Plaza. Catch free performances curated by the Chinook Blast team and local partners during weekends throughout the festival — an opening night collaboration with the Folk Festival and One Yellow Rabbit, a music showcase presented by GlobalFest, Lunar New Year performances, a Black History Month reggae celebration and much, much more.
chinookblast.ca
Artists Pavilion
Until February 16, 2024
Calgary Central Library (800 3 St. SE)
Free to attend
Take in some arts and culture during your lunch break on Thursdays and Fridays during Chinook Blast! The Artists Pavilion at the Central Library hosts pop-up performances by local artists, presented by Four Winds YYC and 10 at 10 Music and Culture, as well as mini jams curated by One Big Jam, all in celebration of the Lunar New Year, Indigenous culture and Black History Month.
chinookblast.ca/events/the-td-artist-pavilion
chinookblast.ca/events/lunchtime-mini-jams
aGoGo Fire & Flow
February 2, 2024, 7 – 8pm
Stephen Avenue (100 W Block SW)
Free to attend
aGoGo artists combine individual passions and talents to co-create and exhibit beautiful displays of dance and prop manipulation of poi, hoops, staff, rope dart, fans, and whips in silks, LED and fire! Come feel the heat as aGoGo artists bring their FIRE dancing to Stephen Avenue where they will perform with mesmerizing fire beautifully displayed with grace and ease in remarkable patterns and flow.
chinookblast.ca/agogo-fire-flow
Sweetlights
February 2 – 19, 2024
Olympic Plaza (228 8 Ave. SE)
Free to attend
SweetLights, by ActivateYYC and the Federation of Calgary Communities, are bright, interactive and revolving lanterns lighting up the downtown core. It’s an installation concept that equally enhances the sense of safety, comfort and well-being within a space. Bright colours, shapes that tell stories, human scale interaction and joyful design are integrated into these pillars of imagination. This is one of many art and light installations to explore during Chinook Blast!
chinookblast.ca/sweetlights
Chinese New Year Festival
Check out The Calgary Chinese Cultural Centre’s Chinese New Year Festival, a sensational celebration of our city’s rich cultural tapestry. Immerse yourself in two weekends of multicultural performances, a vibrant vendor market, dragon and lion dances, art exhibitions and more!
culturalcentre.ca
Youth Studio
February 3 – 4, 2024, 12 – 5pm
Esker Foundation (4th Flr., 1011 9 Ave. SE)
Free to attend
Inspired by his exhibition Tropicana, artist Juan Ortiz-Apuy will lead youth in a video-making workshop mini-series that explores consumerism, capitalism, the viral trends of ASMR and unboxing videos, and what makes us love our stuff. The final video artworks will be exhibited in Esker’s Bridge Space youth gallery.
eventbrite.ca/youthworkshop
Calgary European Film Festival EU Film Series
February 5, 2024
Calgary Central Library (800 3 St. SE)
Free to attend
In the 2022 animated drama My Grandfather’s Demons, Rosa is the hot shot in her company. However, today Rosa destroys her computer in front of all her work colleagues and leaves the city for good. Rosa has just lost the only family she had, her grandfather Marcelino, who she hadn’t seen for a long time.
calgaryeuropeanfilmfestival.ca
The Memory Palace
February 1 – 24, 2024
AUArts (1407 14 St. NW)
Free to attend
In conjunction with Exposure Photography Festival, AUArts presents works by Julya Hajnoczky & Stephanie Jager. In Hajnoczky’s Room One, The Conservatory, no one has set foot here for who knows how long. Panes of glass, glittering shards scattered in the drifts of snow. Pieces of paper with delicate images of plants and fragments of text are pinned to the wall, others flutter about the room. In Jager’s Room Two, The Living Room, rightly it should not be called the ‘living room’ for there is nothing living here. Photographs crowd the walls. For some reason though, the subjects are unclear. Are they fading? Have they been deliberately obscured?
auarts.ca
Open Studio for 55+
February 2 – 23, 2024, 1 – 4pm
Contemporary Calgary (701 11 St. SW)
Free to attend
Contemporary Calgary’s Open Studio for 55+ on Fridays in February invites participants are invited to bring projects they are currently engaged in, or ideas and materials for projects, offering the opportunity to work with the support of peers and a facilitator with a background in visual art.
contemporarycalgary.com
