FARMINGTON, ME (October 17, 2017) — The UMF Art Gallery is holding its third annual Water Bear Confabulum, an alternative arts festival to celebrate diverse artistic and community voices. This year’s festival will take place from 1-6 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 28, in the art alleys in downtown Farmington and on an art trail in nearby Bonney Woods and Flint Woods.
Art work by Maggie Libby, Beth Wittenberg and other artists will begin to appear the week before the event to create collaborative and interactive artworks in the alleys.
This year, with the generous sponsorship of the Onion Foundation and ArtsFarmington, the exhibit extends into the Bonney and Flint Woods adjacent to downtown including artworks by guest artists Sarah Bouchard, Michel Droge, Bethany Engstrom,Rick Osterhaut, Jan Piribeck, James Provenzano, Jesse Potts and Susan Smith.
A 5K Trail Run will be held beginning at 1 p.m., at the Old North Church at the corner of High and Court streets. With a suggested donation of $20 for adults and $10 for children, this event will benefit local high school students coming to the University of Maine at Farmington who are interested in the arts and the environment.
The annual trick-or-treat trail in the alleys will be held from 1-6 p.m.
The Water Bear (or tardigrade) is a unique and enduring animal living unseen among us, adapting to new environments, even to the extreme landscape of outer space. A confabulum combines the meanings of confabulation: first, to simply engage in conversation, and second, the psychological meaning–the brain’s compulsion to generate fictions to fill absences in memory.
This extraordinary event invites the re-imagining of everyday places in the town and its environs in surprising ways through art and performance. By subverting traditional functions and expectations of known places through the arts, and by artistically invading overlooked and unconventional spaces, artmakers bring fresh attention to the fabric of the town and to the local conversation with global ideas.
If you would like to help build and install navigational charts on Saturday, Oct. 21 for the event please contact Sarah at maline@maine.edu or 207.778.1062. For more information on this event, visit the UMF Art Gallery website at artgalleryumf.org.
EDITOR’S NOTE
Image can be found at:
https://www.umf.maine.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/1/2017/11/WaterBearinthewoods.jpg
Photo Credit: UMF photo
Photo Caption: Water Bear in Flint Woods.
