Jerry-Faye Flatt | Visual Art and Installations Lead This Year's FLOURISH Festival

Usually the start of FLOURISH Festival means winter is over and warmer weather is around the corner. But this year, organizers Jane Blanchard and Stefan Westner had to come up with a new plan because of the worldwide pandemic. They postponed their spring festival and turned it into a fall one instead, one with more social distancing, online concerts and outdoor displays of art.

FLOURISH Festival kicks off Sept. 3 with public art installation Sardinia by Janice Wright Cheney.

Jane said their main focus this year is on visual art and public art installations.

“We’ve actually been able to do more [public art] because we're not running events and shows, so we've been able to kind of rethink our programming, and rethink the festival, and put a little bit more money into large-scale projects that we usually wouldn't be able to do,” said Jane.

Fredericton artists Penny Heather and Laura Forrester are in the process of completing a couple of those large-scale projects, murals. Penny’s mural is on the outside wall of the New Brunswick College of Craft and Design library, and Laura’s mural is where the food trucks park near Victory Meat Market, at 380 King St.

Laura Forrester’s progress on her mural for FLOURISH Festival. (Photo credit: Flourish Festival’s Facebook)

The only walk-through installation will be Sardinia by Janice Wright Cheney. It will be set up in the CreatedHere/NBCCD Studio at 408 Queen St.

Sardinia is a multimedia installation that involves hundreds of cut out fish made from recycled plastic and printed paper, sourced used netting, projections edited of found sardine footage by Ryan O’Toole, and an original musical composition by Charles Harding and David Cheney. This will be the third time it’s shown.

Janice Wright Cheney’s sardines in process. (Submitted by Janice)

 Sardinia was originally created when Janice was doing a residency at The Tides Institute & Museum of Art in Eastport, Maine. The Tides Institute were working on getting a church ready to use for community art projects. Janice was asked to be the first person to create art for that space. 

“It was seeing that building that made me conceive this project,” said Janice.  

With about 20 canneries in the 1900s, Eastport used to be a hub for canning sardines. The once booming industry declined after the 1950s, “as regulations were enacted to curb overfishing and the oily fish became less popular than more mild canned tuna,” according to a Mashable article.

Janice also mentioned species collapse in her description of the installation.

“The sardine canneries were the life-blood of that town and employed almost everybody in it,” she said.   

Since sardines are a big part of the story of Eastport, Janice knew she wanted to include them in her installation immediately. 

“I instantly pictured sardines swimming, like being projected and swimming across the beautiful vaulted ceiling of this church.” 

Janice said it all came together in a four-to-six-month period. CreatedHere will be the smallest place she’s presented the project.

“I think it'll be very intimate, and it'll be really different, but I think it could still be really special.”

Up-close photos of Janice Wright Cheney’s sardines for her installation Sardinia. (Submitted by Janice)

CreatedHere will be keeping the instillation up a little longer than usual, since the physical distance requirements will only allow for a few people to come see it at a time.

“[It’ll] hopefully create a really special place to maybe contemplate, and have some sort of peace or imagining in the middle of a very busy performing arts festival.”

The Rest of FLOURISH Festival

The musical acts for the festival will be streamed on Twitch for free. The Cap will also stream some of the shows on the downstairs patio on a large screen. Some musical performances to look forward to are by Jennah Barry, DEBBY FRIDAY and Designosaur, and Fredericton locals Arma Epifanía, chillteens, Graeme Kennedy, Young Satan In Love, Motherhood and more.

The whole festival will be free with the exception of two live shows: One by The Hypochondriacs, and the other by Motherhood at The Cap. Jane said technically these shows will still be free because they will also be live streamed.

Jane’s excited to be presenting an entirely free festival.

“It feels great. I wish we could do it every year. Honestly, it would be amazing. It just gets rid of any barrier to entry for anyone.”

Jane said with lots of art displays out in the public, she hopes that people who aren’t familiar with FLOURISH will see installations and want to come back next year. 

FLOURISH Festival begins Sept. 3 and runs until Sept. 13. Visit www.flourish-fest.com for more information.