Students lend many hands to multicultural art festival

GRAVENHURST – Multicultural awareness in Muskoka is getting a major hand up this year and the hope is there may be a few more to lend.
Grade 9 art class students of Sue Buckingham at Gravenhurst High School are working on a large installation for the upcoming, third annual art festival to promote multiculturalism. Sarah Goossen, event host and owner of the Zensations art gallery in Gravenhurst, said this is the first year young talents have been encouraged to take part in the festival. Goossen, who is also a board member and liaison with the Muskoka Multicultural Association has approached several area schools with fellow association member Patricia Larocque and the Gravenhurst High School crew jumped right on board, digging in with a group project that will span the festival’s goals.
“The idea behind this year was that we really wanted to encourage our younger artists and give them all a chance to showcase their work in a professional setting,” Goossen said this past Wednesday, May 23 as the class set about their project. “It’s fantastic to see them getting involved like this.”
The students are crafting wax moulds of their hands in a peace sign position to create plaster casts from materials donated by Jenn Merritt of Urban Textures Salon in Gravenhurst.
Buckingham explained the casts will then be decorated by the students to highlight cultures from across the country and globe, then fashioned together in a massive circular peace symbol overtop of a map of the world.
“There’s going to be at least 25 hands showing off a lot of cultures,” Buckingham said.
Larocque said she has been promoting the art festival far and wide, including in the Greater Toronto Area to draw as much attention to the students’ work as possible, adding she hopes youth from Bracebridge and Huntsville, either through the school or individually will also express what multiculturalism means to them.
“It just seems so right to include the students; Muskoka is certainly becoming more multicultural every day and we need to educate each other and increase our sensitivities,” Larocque said. “When you think of Canada and what we are, it’s more important every day to explore multiculturalism.”
The festival, to be held at Goossen’s gallery on Steamship Bay Road near the Muskoka Boat and Heritage Centre, will begin June 23 and run until July 15. Goossen added that festival will feature a wide array of artistic talents, including sculpture, pottery, painting of all types and more.
If anyone would like more information about the organization or the festival, check out muskokamulticulturalassociation.com.

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