Department of Illumination

The Department of Illumination is bringing two magnificent events to Picton this May!

Circles of Joy, a collaboration with Toronto’s Kick Start Arts, is a festival of joyful stories brought to life! Over the winter, the two organizations facilitated a heartwarming series of online storytelling workshops sharing stories of joy.

From these workshops, almost thirty audio stories were recorded and are now housed in an online Archive of Joy. A selection of 18 artists of various disciplines from PEC and Toronto were then invited to choose a story from the archive and create an artistic response to it. The in-person festival will be held May 14 from 1-5 PM at Picton’s Macaulay Heritage Park, where the public are invited to experience these joyful artistic creations. It will be a day of interactive fun, including live music, dance, art installations, puppets, food and more!

Tickets are available now on Eventbrite.

WILD THING: a celebration of biodiversity, a partnership with South Shore Joint Initiative, brings together the arts and sciences while honouring the natural world around us. Every species — including humans — is connected and relies on each other to survive. Prince Edward County contains an astonishing level of biodiversity.

WILD THING is comprised of three key elements:

• School workshops where children will learn about a local wetland species with Cheryl Chapman from NatureHood-PEPtBO and then work with artist Andrea Piller to create a puppet or costume piece of the species;

• The embroidery club The Society of Stitchers has been busy stitching images of local species at risk at the Department of Illumination studio; these images are being quilted into a banner;

• and finally, a public celebration in Picton’s Benson Park on May 22 from 1-4 PM (rain date May 29th), the International Day for Biological Diversity. This event will feature live music from KASHKA and That’s What She Said, crafts and activities, giant puppets, and a lively community procession!

All programming for WILD THING is free of charge thanks to funding from the Huff Family Fund.