Introduction

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hello everyone my name is lindsay sharman i am the curator of the art gallery of alberta

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i’m very happy to be introducing our event today which is a conversation with members of the creative team behind

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five artists one love uh 2021 is five artists one love’s

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15th year of promoting the vibrancy of edmonton’s african canadian communities

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through art music spoken word and performance this is also the 10th year of hosting

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art exhibitions at the aga so to mark those anniversaries five artists one love has put together

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the exhibition called black everyday which brings together 15 amazing visual artists that exhibition

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is being installed right now um at the art gallery of alberta and although we

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do unfortunately remain closed to the public uh that exhibition will be ready for you to

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visit uh whenever health restrictions allow us to open again to the public

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um so today we are hearing from uh darren jordan who is the founder producer and curator of five

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artists one love uh natalie mayer who is the artistic director and uh their exhibition consultant

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monique mcfarland monique is joining us from treaty 7 territory

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and darren natalie myself as well as the aga are all situated on treaty 6 territory

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we’re also in edmonton and this area is the traditional land of diverse indigenous peoples including

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the cree blackfoot metis nakotasu iroquois dene inuit and ojibwe solto

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i’d also like to acknowledge all of the indigenous inuit and metis people who make edmonton and

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alberta at their home today so for today um daryn natalie and

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monique are going to talk for probably about 45 minutes after which

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we’re hoping to have some time for for questions should any come up um so you will see

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a chat on your screen where you can send in your questions i’ll be monitoring the chat throughout

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the conversation so you don’t need to wait until the end to ask your questions you

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should just can just pop them in whenever you like um before i hand things over to um

Introducing 5 Artists 1 Love

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darren natalie and monique i’d like to thank epcor um for their support um

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all of our online programming at the ag is brought to you because of the generous support of the epcor heart and soul fund

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five artists one love also receives a lot of support for the great work they

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do so their specific supporters are td bank group edmonton community fund and autism

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edmonton um so with that um i will hand it over to uh darren natalie and

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monique and i’ll invite them to to come forward

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hello hello everybody hello everyone

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we got a good crowd here today yeah you ready you ready for this everybody

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ready for this ready we’re ready ready a little nervous but we can do this let’s go

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let’s do it okay well um thank you uh lindsay i appreciate uh i

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appreciate you the introduction and uh and also we appreciate the acknowledgement that you uh you made for

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us being on treaty 687 so um the question is who are we so we

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are the creative team of five arts one love and uh you’re gonna have an opportunity to meet um this part of the team

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but i just want to acknowledge uh some other people that also are involved uh

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and that are part part or members of this team so one is uh jeff hendrick who is our music director

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uh melody caesar who is our uh chief operating officer uh ziada abdullah and she’s basically

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our volunteer coordinator and of course my wife rosemarie who’s a big supporter of me

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and god knows i need it um and also we’re gonna do a special shout out to planet

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sound today uh they they’ve been helping us with marketing and production and um they’ve taken this whole event to

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another level i also want to take an opportunity to just reiterate what uh what lindsay said about our sponsors

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we we could not do this without the support of the community and we certainly couldn’t do without the support of our sponsors

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so again td bank uh t bankrupt who’s been uh instrumental in uh helping us elevate this uh event uh the

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edmonton arts council uh who’ve been involved with this over the last few years um very supportive very consistent and the

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edmonton community foundation also uh who have been with us uh for the last uh couple of years

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um also want to give a moment to say that we mental health is a very important uh

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topic for us among other things and so we have partnered with uh the edmonton uh autism edmonton uh um

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organization and uh going forward every event that we have we’re always hoping that people

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uh sort of raise our awareness about autism and the organization’s work within the community and uh there’s always an

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opportunity to donate to that uh that charity that’s a charity that we’ve taken under our wing and is important to us and

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uh lastly i just need to say a special thank you to the aga katherine crostin and uh and lindsay uh

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lindsey sharman and their team for all the uh the work and effort that they’ve done uh with us so

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uh thank you very much so let’s do it okay can i get into it absolutely all right let’s do this uh so

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i just like to talk about why we’re what yeah you know who i am okay all

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right my name is darren w jordan and i am the uh i’m the founder and i’m the um i guess producer

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of five artists one love and um today we’re gonna do we’re gonna

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discuss a couple of things we’re gonna talk about the genesis of five artists one love and what it is uh we’re gonna talk about

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um the 15-year making of this uh this new and exciting event that the aga called

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black everyday um and the importance of uh holding space for black artists

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and then we also at the end of this we want to hear from all of you so uh let me let me let me tell you again

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who i am my name is darren jordan as i said i’m the uh the founder and producer of fiverr one love i’m also their curator

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and uh here’s a little bit about my background um i love long walks on the beach and uh my my father is beijing and my

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mother is jamaican and i’m of british descent so that makes me somewhat i guess complicated so uh

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i’m going to now introduce the rest of the team uh natalie why don’t you tell us about your

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role and who you are where are you from what’s your business you bet you bet well my name is natalie meyer i am the

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artistic director of five artists one love uh this is my second year on board with this amazing team

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he uh asked me back to come a second year which i’m very thankful for darren thank you

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glad to have you means i i did an okay job last year um so yeah i’ve been around here for two

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years i’ve been attending five artists one love for approximately five um mostly just being part of the wall

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and sort of being like a an audience member um the wall later that means yes you bet

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um that was my way in into the show so both of my parents actually are dash

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indo so i am an indonesian heritage um i am also a visual artist

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photographer youth mentor educator videographer body painter so i do a little bit with

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art and i think that’s kind of my segue into becoming the artistic director is

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i’m mostly known for painting women of color and i am very heavily influenced by culture

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tradition um a lot of african and caribbean um heritage and culture and uh

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yeah i’m really really glad to be here and i’m excited to tell you guys about the

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show so on to money okay um good afternoon everybody um my

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name is monique mcfarland um if you don’t know that it’s because i usually hide in the back

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i’m you i’ve been with five artists one love for around five years maybe missing

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a year in between but around five years total um i started with the group oh wait i

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should get back like more about me i guess um yeah my family is jamaican so i’m a jamaican canadian

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um so me and darren can commiserate over some really good soul food some shacky and

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selfish sometimes and things like that it’s always fun um

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i’ve been with them for around like i said five years currently i’m the exhibition consultant

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because natalie has taken over the roles of artistic director i was in that role for maybe four years

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and then before that i was a volunteer and worked my way up i guess as they say i grinded through

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so um and you’re amazing amazing that’s kind of where i stand um i’m in

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the background i’m helping with um design review and content review and exhibit details

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and graphics review and then i help out with some online tasks whenever i’m available to do so so

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i guess um that leads us to our next section then we’re going to talk to darren and he’s

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going to give us some history on five artists one loves and it’s genesis and you know let’s take a look at some

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photos over the years as we talk to darren really so full disclosure i have a tendency to ramble so i know that we

History of 5 Artists 1 Love

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have uh we’ve got this broken down to certain minutes so if um if it looks like i’m going on just

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cough for say um stop okay okay so yeah so

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so basically five artists one love is um it’s like how would i describe it so

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it’s it’s a cultural event that promotes um the vibrancy and

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and the range of edmonton’s african communities african canadian communities and we do that through artistry and

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community engagement um at its genesis it was a art show

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and um we started that in 2006 they’re very small very modest um gallery called the two

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gallery and uh basically over the x amount of years so many years

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i think about five years it grew and then we were invited to uh to do the show at the uh the art

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gallery of alberta um it is not only a cultural experience that will

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just edify your soul uh in terms of the art but there is an amazing music production that is

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connected to this thing and um basically we started that to

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bankroll and pay for um the art show and it’s basically moved on to have a life of

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itself the reason why i started this was back then um i when i looked around i just didn’t

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see a lot of representation of black artists strangely enough particularly during

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black history month so i didn’t see much in the way of galleries or any large or small and so i felt that

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uh there would be some benefit and stop my stopping complaining about it and try to get

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uh something going so a big thanks to a gentleman by the name of alex uh patterson who owned the

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gallery who gave us that first opportunity to do that so that’s basically what it is and why

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we’re here okay darren so when was like the first five artists went up what exact date because i’m like

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i guess i could just be like it’s 15 years later but i don’t do math what’s the math i don’t know about the

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date february 2006 at the gallery

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is where that’s when that’s when it first started and um you know i tell you when we first

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started it i knew that i’d seen other people do other shows or what have

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you um not necessarily from our community but i wanted to actually make it feel like an event that when you walked

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in you know that there was a lot of thought in all the details and i think that’s one of the things that sort of has set us aside with a lot of other

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uh similar events particularly back then but um yeah we’re looking at 2006 i believe is

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when we started so okay so darren we have a lot of events going on can you tell people what the

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events are in our calendar year just like our general regular events so they know where to find this kind of

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thing indeed normally yeah so uh black black history month

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that is where we have uh that’s where we have been nestled and nurtured and that is where we

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we started this event was primarily set up as a black history month event so um for several years we would always

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occupy the first saturday of uh of february black history month

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the coldest shortest month of the year and uh we did so um with the idea that we would like to

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live outside of the confines of that particular thing so yes we do uh we do uh five artists one

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love and we have actually consistently done it for black history month

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but we have started to uh spread out we now have a show in september

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for the last uh probably about five six years for culture days where we do a an art

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battle an art show art battle music extravaganza um and we have uh we have goals of

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continuing to uh spread out throughout the year and as i said just sort of break out of the confines of uh

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of february and uh i think this uh i think the most significant move is this uh

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this most recent um [Music] art exhibit that we have which is not in

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february uh if all things go well and the the restrictions allow uh

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by the end of uh march we should be having something very special outside of

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black history month yeah okay then now that we’re in like the so-called coveted reality i hate

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saying that um what have we done to pivot to pivot on this covet thing because

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clearly people cannot come to our event right now yeah maybe in the future who knows but

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we’ve done things a little bit differently we’ve had to pivot and you know what are the ingenious ways you’ve

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helped us to like you know address that issue good question likely through an ingenious so

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we we cannot uh we clearly we can’t meet uh we cannot meet as as as as a

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community as a cri in a crowd or anything like that um and i’ll tell you shortly after that was uh

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realized people were were asking what are we gonna do how are you guys going to still do something special for for the

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time and so what we’ve done is we uh developed a webisode we we partnered with planet sound uh again

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an amazing production company and what we wanted to do is tell a story about the genesis

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of five artists one love what how it started where we’re going uh and we wanted to give them a sample

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of of these infectious uh performances that we normally do and so we did a webisode

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which was aired last night uh it will live um on the and the world wide web

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interwebs it will live on the internet on uh on our

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youtube channel facebook uh instagram and twitter uh but that is one of the things that we have done we’ve made sure

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that we uh we’ve got this wonderful uh production for people to take a look at it’s a head nod and a love letter for

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the people that have supported us over the years um and it is an introduction to people

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that are uninitiated so uh that was shown last night and it can still be seen on our website

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fiveartistonelove.com and other social media platforms and the other thing that we’re doing

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obviously is this fantastic show at the aga

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black every day okay then so um for like you said the uninitiated

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um we have a video for you so let’s check out last year’s promo for the real feminist film the war that

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was the name of the show and the performance that was going on last year and we have a little video for you all to watch

Last Years Promo

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check it out

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[Music]

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oh

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[Music]

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from return [Music]

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[Music]

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is [Music]

End of the Road

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sometimes i forget how amazing

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honestly i was just watching on myself on the other day the last event that we had at allard

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last year and how everyone was singing end of the road in the green room yeah probably one of my favorite moments

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i’m sure people that are watching right now remember that moment and the moment on stage when

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everyone grabbed their cell phones and everyone was on stage you know that was the very last time we could have

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a big event like that right absolutely yeah and that’s that moment

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has been brought up so many times it’s been uh sent through social media and several conversations have been had

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about it because it does mark as you said the last time that um a lot of our community were together

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for for that time after that it was covered hit and all the restrictions fell into place so

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it was a really special moment for us yeah uh yeah natalie

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yes can i ask you a question you sure can okay can you can you take a moment

The Art Show

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and explain to us uh the art show uh who are the artists where are they

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from uh how do we choose them what’s our process you bet uh so this part is uh

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obviously the reason why we’re here today is the art show so five artists one love

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um typically will select uh five local artists um of black african

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caribbean descent and we will feature them in the art gallery um the art gallery of alberta to really

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celebrate their work um and the process that they’ve had to to get to this to this point so uh

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typically over the first few years uh you guys were in a bunch of different smaller venues

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and i believe it was the fifth year correct that you were approached by aja yeah so we were

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we were our home was the two gallery which was a gallery on 124th

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and that’s where we were for for five years and on the fifth year uh the um

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the director at the time jill herbert he was the director of the aga just happened to come to one of our

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shows and he looked around and he i think one of the things that stood out for him

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was the cultural diversity that filled the room and the it was almost a palpable energy

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that was there and after the show he he said well where he’s new to edmonton

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and he was like where are all these people from and um and that was the beginning

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of a really positive relationship he basically opened the doors for us to get into the the community gallery

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at the aga um and then uh that was the beginning of our relationship uh with that organization

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so that was a giant door obviously that he opened for you um so typically we’re in the

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community gallery down on the lower level up until this year so if you guys are not aware

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we have been very blessed to be able to move up to the second level main gallery um and this

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this year for the 15-year anniversary uh we have a collaborative partnership with the aga so we’re working hand in

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hand together uh to make this a really outstanding exhibit

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um typically we have like i said five artists uh that we showcase and so this is the

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third alumni event that we’ve had over the 15 years so to celebrate the anniversary uh it is a

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retrospective year so we selected 15 artists who have played an integral role in the growth of

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five artists one love so all alumni artists that we had over the past 15 years we’ve selected

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15 of them um there was so many to choose from it was really really difficult to be able to

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to pick those 15 artists um yeah we were back and forth and some of it had to do with availability and whatnot and some

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people have moved out of the city um however you know unfortunately we only have a limited amount of space

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in the gallery so have we had you know the entire aga to work with we could

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have probably invited uh so many more but yeah right jaren yeah so absolutely so i’ll just quickly go

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over a little bit about the process of how we normally would select artists four or five artists one love

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so on a regular year um we would do an open call usually around the fall

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time and ask for artists of black descent so african caribbean

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to submit their work to us um for review and basically we would get

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together as a team the five artists on the team kind of go through the submissions see what was the right fit

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see which artists maybe uh were ready to be showcased in the art gallery and then we would uh

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submit a proposal to them to be part of the show my job as artistic director

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i had actually really big boots to fill because monique over there who was like a force

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of nature that’s right right and so the only reason why i actually have this position now is

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because she moved away to our southern city calgary i still don’t know why we

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don’t understand why all right

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so the spot here we needed somebody local so darren jordan graciously invited me to be part of it

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of course i was very honored to do so so my job and monique’s job previously was basically

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to work with these artists prepare them for an exhibit kind of walk them through the steps if they weren’t

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really aware of you know how to showcase their work how to have it you know ready gallery ready and just

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kind of guide them so you know over the last couple years i’ve had some artists ask

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you know what should i paint what should i do what kind of framing should i get you know how do i prepare for this so

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those are my role as my role for artistic director those are my responsibilities to help them to get

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ready and experience the best experience that they can to be able to showcase in such a phenomenal gallery

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can i just jump in for a moment certainly so from uh from its inception one of the

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things that uh one of our mandates was we wanted to not only give uh black artists an opportunity to show

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their work but we also wanted to put them in a position where they could learn how to nurture um their

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relationships with gallery owners learn how to price their work sell their work and and establish uh

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connections and networks with uh other black artists that’s right thank you

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sorry i had to throw that in i’m so sorry yeah no no that’s good that’s good you’ve been doing this a little longer

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than me um so another thing uh that we typically do on an average year is

The Wall

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we have what’s called the wall so the wall is really an exciting component of five

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artists one love typically we do an open call again for the wall

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but this one is not tethered to being a black artist it could be anyone

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any ethnicity was available to submit for this uh there’s always a common theme

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so the common themes would vary each year we would get together as a collective and sort of figure out you

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know what’s the current affairs happening or maybe there’s something a little bit

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uh you know i don’t know something we wanted to address um when i first started i really wanted

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to get into the show but obviously being a indonesian heritage

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thank you love you guys um but yeah so i got to submit uh by being part of the wall so it was a

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12 by 12 inch gallery canvas everything was very uniform um you know

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it was it’s an exciting part to be a part of the wall um again you don’t

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have to be a professional artist anybody there’s a picture of the wall right there

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darren what was the theme of that one do you remember that one was martin luther king in there

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god’s soul got so maybe maybe that was the one god so

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so unfortunately this year um with it being the alumni retrospective show we were unable to accommodate a wall

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uh however i’m sure that we’ll be back next year oh indeed yeah okay absolutely great

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so for the 15th year anniversary of five honest one love just to kind of give you a little bit of um the differences between a regular

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year to this particular year um usually the show as darren and emily kipple said

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it’s typically black history month which is in february um so the year this year sorry the title

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is black every day which kind of coincides with the fact that it’s not just black history month where

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these artists should be recognized it’s every day um so did you it’s falling

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outside of black history month so hopefully we’ll have it by the end of march uh is

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supposed to run march 6 to june 6 but again because of covid

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this darn cohen needs to go away uh we’ve had to shift and go with somebody

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right so um did you want to say something about that

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darren about the archer yeah yeah i all what i would say is that um the the the art show has a

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few elements uh to it it’s a fairly layered um exhibit and when you go it’s it’s just

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that you’ll see it’s a uh it’s an immersive um uh story that’s being told uh but one of

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the things i want to talk about is that uh it does acknowledge the fact that right now uh we all know we all see it we all feel it

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that there is this uh global global movement towards combating

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racism uh towards black people uh which is which is which is good um so it has

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potential to bring about positive change and i think we all acknowledge that uh but the conversations that are

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going on in in black homes are uh is this a trend is it a trend and i

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think one of the things about the show is that we’re talking uh to the fact that being black is is not a trend it’s not a

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trend um and we we’re certainly hoping that uh these changes that have been coming

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about uh continue uh but in order for them to to be meaningful there’s got to be some sort

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of um sustainability of that change so uh right that’s why that’s one of the

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many things that the the art show uh acknowledges as well and that you know we don’t stop being black and you know

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after black history month we’re we’re back every day so which the title obviously is very

30:56

fitting and a lot more meaningful than you probably would think at first glance but

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um if i may i would just like to quickly introduce our 15 artists if you guys

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have not please look at the poster you can find it on our website you can find

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on social media you can find it on the aga website uh planet sound made this incredible

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poster uh it has the the images of all of our 15 artists i’m just going to quickly

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list off the names um hopefully i don’t miss anybody but so we’ve got brexit

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i think i got it i think i got it so we got braxton santiago garneau

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renee spuden emily shelton shaheen small judy robinson holly

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mackercher keon courtney uh shoko caesar richard lipscombe lisa mays

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ashumba betsam teclamarian and jay dante and then if you guys

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have kind of been following these other two artists on their social media we are very

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excited to have two of the best muralists in western canada we’ve got trevor curly peters and of

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course mr aj lowden who i’m sure all of you guys know they have been um this week very busy

32:18

installing two gigantic murals in this exhibit i get goose bumps every

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time i think of this i saw on trevor’s story this morning that he was in there

The Murals

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with annalisa you know kind of doing some last minute work there and he had some prep stuff in his

32:35

stories last week so two giant murals plus all of this

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incredible amazing artwork uh we have a whole bunch of different mediums here

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this year we’ve got visual artists we have a photographer i’m getting goosebumps right now

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we have sculptors yeah it’s just you can’t even describe

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just looking at the sample work that they have submitted um when you guys walk into this exhibit

33:07

honestly i think it’s going to be overwhelming you might want to come a couple times the install is happening right now for

33:15

the murals and next week i will be on site to kind of check out

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a little bit more of the install of the fine art so i don’t know if i’m gonna show any

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sneak peeks i might give a little corner of something here and there

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but yeah we’ll see i don’t really want to ruin it because these artists have been working incredibly hard and the work that

The Artists

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they’ve submitted is really really out of this world um most of our artists here

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are local we do have lisa mays who has joined us from montreal

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so she’s way out on the east coast but her work has also been shown out here uh at the museum so you guys will really

33:58

want to you know come down when the aj is open and safe for us to do so

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to come and look at all of this work um we also do have a few artists here that are amber valley settlers uh so

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like we have so many just incredible people uh part as part of this show so i’m

34:19

really excited for you guys to see it really can’t wait for you guys to be able to walk into there

34:24

and and just get the vibe even though it’s not the vibe of you know being there in person our

34:32

show as normal i think like historically it’s going to be

34:37

overwhelming um you know for many of us to walk into the to the show and just feel all the

34:45

culture and the heritage and the expertise and you know the emotion

34:51

that all of this artwork evokes so i am very excited i know that you guys are excited hopefully

34:56

everybody that’s watching is also excited um the other thing that is really cool

35:02

about the show this year is planet sound throughout the whole cover things

35:07

somehow made this work with all of the protocols and whatnot

35:12

they interviewed almost all of our artists who were available to come down to the studio following of course

35:19

all the protocols and they were interviewed by rj and his wife rowena

35:26

they were asked a series of questions and we’ve made this or they have made this really incredible

35:32

seven minute video um of all of our artists so i’m sure

35:37

some of you guys have seen the teasers online there and uh looks like they’re going through it right now

35:46

black every day is basically just you know trying to live up to the expectations of the great

35:52

people that came before me and you know push the boundary for the people that come come after me especially in canada i

35:59

guess people can kind of think black is just one thing so having 15 15 different versions of black this shows that like

36:05

black is who you are who you are not what you are everything if you see is between black and white all the

36:12

colors you know we can say the color or we can see the colors is because of you know

36:17

the revelation of the light light is knowledge for me it takes a community to represent the

36:24

diversity that is blackness i’m so i’m grateful to be a part of that community art is

36:30

very personal and i hope people who go through this exhibition will get a little bit of that emotion come be

36:37

a part of it and see what we have to offer don’t be afraid of it

36:42

ask questions and we are for the most part doing that with art in this culture and with media so if everyone comes out

36:49

and takes take a look at the experiences of all these artists there are beautiful artists right here

36:55

the art there is representing voices of people in their communities and voices that aren’t often at the

37:00

forefront of a lot of storytelling i really want this to be a celebration of the culture of hip-hop and the mentoring and the knowledge that

37:07

i’ve i’ve received it is significant to be a person of color in this day and age

37:13

and i want people to walk away from the exhibit knowing that so i feel like these opportunities is a great

37:19

opportunity to insert us into the conversation because if we don’t speak for ourselves other people will try to speak for us

37:36

now i feel famous

37:47

so i’m really excited to hear you guys feedback on that video

37:53

again that’s just the teaser and that doesn’t showcase all of our artists but it gives you a

37:58

little bit of a glimpse into what the video is about and just a little bit about what each of these

38:04

artists will be showing at the exhibition um the full one

38:09

will be played at the exhibit so if you guys are able to go down there it’s a seven minute long video please

38:15

for sure you know take a few moments just to kind of see what everybody has to say it’s

38:20

really intriguing to to hear their answers to some of these questions um and it gives you a little

38:26

bit more insight into who all of these artists are can i just make a comment on what i just

38:31

saw so it just it just reminded me uh natalie of another thing

38:36

that we’re trying to achieve with this uh with this black everyday exhibit and

38:42

that is um acknowledging the fact that the black community is not this

38:47

homogeneous entity it’s a a complex diverse uh pattern within a

38:54

tapestry and so the the man that the 25 year old

38:59

that was born in nigeria uh may have a similar melanin account to the

39:04

the 25 year old black man born in london uh but there’s there’s some significant differences

39:10

culturally and uh rather than seeing those differences as

39:15

something pejorative we see it as something really positive and so we want to highlight that uh that we are um we’re a diverse and uh

39:23

complex uh community and uh just looking at the lineup of the people

39:28

that are in the actual show um is a really good example of that that’s right a great

39:36

um i told you i have a tendency to go on i’m so sorry no no no it’s good i i mean this is this is

39:42

your baby right i want you to make sure i want you to feel what you feel like yeah i think people that have been to

39:48

the show before understand like where our excitement comes from because

39:54

being in that room with those artists and other creatives and just all the culture and the emotion

40:00

that happens during these events unfortunately again it’s different we’ve had to shift it this year a little bit

40:05

which yes you know is unfortunate since it is such a huge anniversary and a retrospective year for

40:13

five artists but um at the same time i think that we can still feel it through you know these types of

40:20

mediums like these videos like rj and ruben did an outstanding job with our artists

40:25

and i think our artists really had fun you know doing these interviews and and taking these head shots and whatnot

40:31

so um i love that video i love our artists i’m really excited again for everybody to see you know

40:38

what they’ve created for the show um one thing i did want to quickly ask you

Why isAGA important to the community

40:44

darren is if you wouldn’t mind why is why artists one love important to the community

40:50

i think a lot of people see us as like an annual show with the music and an art

40:56

component but um they might not see like the community aspect of what the organization is about

41:02

uh so maybe if you can just kind of touch on that part certainly um for one thing what it does

41:09

is it brings us together uh it brings us together and i meant i mentioned how we have that um that

41:16

that pattern within this tapestry and so there are many different elements many different groups

41:23

and during five artists one love um when you walk into the room it feels like a party at the u.n

41:28

uh we have people representing various uh cultures and communities and uh

41:35

specifically various communities within the black community so the fact that they’re actually we’re all

41:40

we’re all together we’re all celebrating uh black excellence and artistry in edmonton

41:45

um is a part of it the other thing is i think uh shaheem had mentioned during his

41:50

interview the importance of um black artists being able to tell their stories

41:56

um and and the truth in the fact that if if we don’t tell our stories other people will and when other people

42:03

have historically sorry that was such a powerful statement a very powerful statement

42:09

and i mean historically when other people have uh told our stories those that have heard

42:16

heard it have been left wanting um it’s it’s definitely short of the whole picture so who better to tell our stories than than

42:23

us and i truly see um artists as being the custodians of culture um

42:30

visual artists performing artists um this is how we communicate this is how we share our

42:36

culture and so uh five artists one love is is a conduit for that and it’s the universal language you

42:43

don’t have to speak the language to understand what they’re saying right you don’t need to speak english or

42:49

anything that’s right you walk into that show um the the work that is in front of you

42:56

will speak to you if you walk into the performances

43:01

what you see will speak to you it’ll edify your soul the other thing that happens is it also

43:08

it also pushes uh any conversation of relevance forward

43:13

there are a lot of things that we should be talking about amongst ourselves within our community and with our lives and other other

43:19

communities as well um and it’s a safe environment to do that to ask questions

43:26

to learn about each other i’ve always felt that it’s hard to hate somebody

43:32

and pro promote hatred towards people that you know and understand and you’ve spent

43:38

time with and learned about their culture or broke bread or been entertained together and so

43:44

again i know one of the things that we’re trying to uh we’re trying to accomplish with this with this event excellent thank you

Community involvement

43:52

um speaking a little bit more on community involvement monique i know that you have a few things to say

43:59

about that um if i can ask for 2020 for 2021 uh black every day

44:07

how does five artists one love fit into black history month programming and beyond um

44:14

as we all know like and i’m sure a majority of our audience can testify to this there’s some

44:19

so-called you know traditional black history month events that are a little bit more

44:25

heavy on um you know current events in a situation of you

44:32

know a lecturing situation or some scholarly events which are all awesome and i enjoy them all

44:40

five artists one love is basically looking at celebrating our artists and

44:46

celebrating black culture and black communities and one of the main things we like to

44:52

focus on is community building community celebration community exploration and clearly for us

44:59

our focus is on the black arts community we do so in the ways that you guys have mentioned already

45:05

i’m gonna keep it sharks running out of time i have a different list in front of me

45:12

basically you know we you know we help our artists we support our artists we you know we talked about um how we

45:18

work with emerging artists and veteran artists to support them and help them you know gain

45:24

some experience and different galleries big and small we work with a lot of satellite galleries contemporary

45:30

galleries we expose them to different curatorial staff it’s different um ways of running

45:36

institutions some of the places we’ve been have been um artist run centers which is way different than an al

45:42

you know a provincial museum or provincial or a city shout out to the scott gallery as well

45:48

you know sky gallery big ups you know uh latitude latitude attitude

45:54

you know all these places that we bring in even into the princess theater i was in there hanging stuff up

46:00

it was wild i was so scared that people were gonna rob it like it was crazy but you know we’ve been all over them we

46:07

did okay we did okay you know that you know artists like handing me you know

46:12

paintings behind like you know theater doors and they’re like what’s going on i’m like go to the back door don’t worry about it

46:17

you know so we’re exposing them to all these things and we’re also doing a lot of networking

46:23

not only just the artists are networking together um the community is networking if you go to a lot of black history month

46:29

events i don’t know if you remember but back in the day man that was that was it

46:34

i thought about what i was gonna wear for a month and you see all the other kids from across town and you you did not show up

46:41

with ashley you did not show up looking no no no man your parents they dressed

46:46

you to the nines they you know got you and your sister those matching outfits everybody matched and

46:51

we all showed up and so this is another way for us to have an event where we build that community

46:58

so it’s you know we’re doing all that and we don’t turn any artists away because of their type of art you know we

47:05

have paintings industrial designers we have print makers etchings graffiti

47:10

mirrorless sculpture we even had textile arts which is something i nerd out about yes yeah but

47:15

we had a textile artist and i wasn’t there for it so it’s a little whatever i missed out that’s my fault

47:20

but you know we still haven’t had any performance artists who knows what’s going to happen but you know we’ve also had a lot of

47:26

collaborations that have come out and you know dare i say maybe a couple of babies have come out of five artists

47:32

one month 100 yeah relationships but you know

47:38

so just love the valuable experience it’s a valuable experience and it adds to the fabric of the quilt

47:46

that we sew as the black community that’s the word tapestry yes

47:54

right here we’re adding to that

48:00

i also have one more thing to say too i have one more thing to we choose to participate in black

48:07

history month through the arts because it shines a light on who we are and

48:12

creates a possibility for change in a different venue because you know what i could lecture all day we anybody

48:17

who knows me knows i can do this but you know what this is a nicer a little bit more pc way and it you know

48:25

involves imagination and creativity oh man thank you thank you

48:34

oh we only have like answers into community as well then it’s you kind of all put it all together into

48:41

the same uh this description i think the commitment

48:47

five artists one life has in the community so i guess with that being said we’ve got

48:52

what 10 minutes left yep i don’t know lindsay if anyone has

48:58

put any questions in the chat i haven’t really been monitoring that at all um so far

Questions

49:05

not really any questions um lots of encouraging comments

49:13

about how great you are and is that my mom that’s my mom

49:21

i do have we have some fun questions we could ask ourselves i guess i have one fun question if anybody’s

49:27

everybody wearing pants what are you wearing underneath are you all just wearing nice shirts anybody wearing pants 100 yeah yeah 100 sweats

49:36

qualities the only nudists the parties upstairs all right

49:43

yeah it doesn’t nobody’s willing to stand up to proof yeah surely no no no you don’t need to see what’s going on down there

49:49

i have i have a question for all of you okay so uh the wall is uh is one of i think it’s one of our

49:55

favorites also because um it’s so inclusive and you have so many people sounding off

50:01

um on what the topics are the topics in past have been things like civil rights movement god’s soul take a

50:08

knee black cards matter um a number of them what what was the one last year do you

50:14

remember the one last year was does anybody remember was it taking me was it afrofuturism actual future i’ll look at you

50:20

afrofuturism my question to you for two years ago

50:32

so my question to you panel is if we did have the wall

50:39

what would you title it oh my gosh yeah i got a couple

50:45

you always have good ones darren i’m not good at this um given what people went through during

50:53

2020 who knows what we’re going through in 2021 what do you think you’re uh what do you

50:59

think your your title would be oh i have i have one

51:05

that i’m just being explo it’s like a swear word in cartoon letters okay that would just be it

51:10

i’m not going to be like you know people just come up with whatever because everybody’s all sorts of madness going on so okay

51:16

i’m sure we’ll get like we’d get so many good things from that or you know okay

51:24

okay i’m sure darren’s ready to shoot i got i have two in mind number one would be 20 20 dot dot dot

51:31

wtf exclamation mark

51:37

that might have been that might have been what it was uh the other one is uh 2021 how bad could it be

51:46

yeah and the other one which i would i would i would credit my wife for this uh

51:51

hindsight is 20 20. yeah i just dropped the microphone right there

51:58

that was a bit cliche because i feel like people have said that before never been said yeah but darren is never

52:05

been again that happened just here right on

52:11

your parade or anything some questions that are coming in

52:17

this uh this is a great one uh what is your biggest goal or dream um for five

Goals

52:25

artists one love for the future jared wow okay um

52:33

to have a well there’s a few things to have shelves over here are you guys sorry it’s still alive and what yeah

52:41

let’s see you’re a robot right now i am no no

52:46

money okay uh i think uh we have a few goals um one is uh going forward to

52:55

fortify this relationship that we have with the aga and other prominent galleries in the

53:00

city so that um annually there’s a recognizable home for for us to uh to display our work um the

53:07

other thing is um we need to get it to the point where we have sustainability um

53:15

we’ve been doing this for 15 years and i think that bodes well um but you know i think going

53:21

forward establishing some really solid partnerships with with organizations and other communities

53:27

will help us maintain or although establish that that notion of of sustainability that we’re here that

53:34

we’re moving forward and um i would say thus far the trajectory has been

53:40

uh moving in that direction for sure but what about what about you ladies you

53:45

have thoughts i mean that’s one of those things i could go on for like an hour about so i’m being very conservative right now

Traveling Exhibit

53:51

i can tell you one of mine but it’s it’s pretty big is that you’re gonna

53:58

show and we’re gonna go like on the road so either it be

54:05

international or like across canada tour yeah darren

54:10

yeah yeah i could do a traveling exhibit like you consult me i’ll write it up

54:16

okay there we go it’s already started okay next question did you want to put

54:24

in your oh oh my three cents about the future i think it would be really good to a like

54:30

a traveling exhibit would be awesome but i think maybe the traveling exhibit could be um an art class that travels to schools

54:37

to teach children because one of the most touching things i have heard during my time is how we

54:43

affected a young girl who was being treated unfairly by her classmates due to her race

54:50

and she was feeling down and out about herself and not believing in herself and she saw our artwork

54:56

that we put up in a space out at augustana campus it was the librarian’s

55:02

niece he’s adopted yes and this little girl in a community of people who didn’t look like her

55:08

um saw that she could do this kind of art and saw like the power in it and

55:14

the beauty in it and it made her feel better about herself so we can do that for one child and that

55:19

like you know maybe two so if we can do that for other children like i’ve been in the art gallery aga and

55:26

i’ve seen classes come through because i was like you know skipping away on my lunch hour but

55:31

you know and i saw the little kids come through and i felt so honored and you know happy that these children

55:37

were um seeing things that i couldn’t see when i was growing up i was just like

55:42

black people paint they do yeah besides walls they don’t just pay walls like you know like it’s it’s education i

55:49

think if we could indeed five artists on the road to schools and also i know

55:54

natalie teaches arts natalie teaches to kids so you know we already got teacher ready

56:00

ready to go over there and just roll it out honestly teaching the children like uh through the africa center and

56:06

through um make paint dance and a couple of other different uh channels um these children are really

56:13

resilient and to to see what they can create in you know in one or two hour time span um

56:20

and to see their faces sort of light up it is like the biggest reward uh to myself you know and i think also

56:26

to these children so um you know with all the workshops and stuff that are going on at the aga

56:32

like yeah maybe we could do that maybe we can even get one of our artists or a couple of our artists

56:37

be the instructors for these you know like there’s so many things okay next question just because i know

56:43

we’re running out of time sorry um so so mike is asking about a

56:49

group rate um and i can answer that um and specifically for u of a uh

56:55

students have been reduced rate and free

57:01

um and so there’s going to be no problem to come if usually they students uh when we open

57:07

to the to the public um of course so that’s no problem um

Great Music Party

57:12

and another question um which maybe um will just be our our last question to

57:20

kind of wrap it up um they’re asking um where do you have

57:25

the great music party uh aga or any other location and is it

57:30

hard to get tickets i think that’s a good question but maybe you can kind of expand on that

57:36

i’ll take the last comments of the day actually was about the music portion but you go ahead darren okay i’ll take it and jump in if i miss

57:43

anything uh so traditionally uh what happens is we have a uh we have this music production and

57:50

it is um it’s fully immersive um it often is themed it tells stories so we’ve

57:57

explored the barber shops and salons in the black communities all the way to uh we had a show called

58:02

one night in harlem where we looked at all the major theories the savoy uh the cotton club and uh oh who’s

58:09

what’s the big one what am i thinking apollo yeah apollo a lot of mercy yeah the apollo

58:15

so every year it’s always it’s always themed uh last year we did uh we did the real film noir which

58:21

is about black films and the music that is tethered to it um there’s always a performance and uh so

58:27

we’ve we started the yardbird uh we were at um the aga for a while

58:33

and then uh we went to the citadel and our home recently has been for the last few years

58:39

uh grant mcewen um and so their brand new theater there uh we are our goal was always to be in um

58:47

it was one day to be in the windspeare we still we still have sight set on that uh the music show is ticketed it usually

58:53

costs about forty dollars yeah thereabouts that’s a ticketed show but we’ve also uh made sure that

59:00

students or other people that are not in a position to go for the ticketed show have access to the art and the music

59:07

so the aga has often um been a place that not only do you come to enjoy

59:12

uh the visual arts but we always have free music free spoken word um and free food

59:20

oh it’s so good um this year this year is different this year uh you will have access to the aga um

59:28

the music show as i said we’re not it’s not a ticketed event we’re doing three webisodes one of which

59:35

we released last night and over the next few months we will release the other two

59:40

when we get back to normal uh we will be having again the art show which will already

59:46

have uh built-in music and performances uh because lindsay and i were talking about what a

59:52

party this would have been if we if it was normal times the space that we’re using is absolutely beautiful and

59:58

inducive to uh a wonderful group uh of people having a good time so we’ll see what happens for next year but

1:00:05

for this journey jump in everybody if you can please um

1:00:10

follow or i guess subscribe to the newsletter for five artists one love on the website which is the number five

1:00:16

artist the number one love dot com as well as instagram follow five artists one love planet sound

1:00:23

uh myself end up by natalie darren jordan is jordan underscore darren monique i don’t know if your instagram

1:00:32

oh i’m i’m a hermit so that’s right okay but you should also follow youtube and

1:00:37

you can check out that video and of course your aja so you can get

1:00:42

all the updates in regard to uh the webinar the webisodes for the music portion we

1:00:48

don’t have the dates yet for the next two um but if you check out the website

1:00:53

um today i think it’s today you’ll be able to see the one that was released yesterday

1:00:58

and that’s the music portion um featuring of course jeff hendrick and stephanie french and a whole bunch of

1:01:04

other incredible artists please follow us for announcements um

1:01:09

thank you planet sound for running all of that stuff outstanding job of course your one on rj

1:01:16

thank you for that uh darren anything else looks like we’re at the end of the

1:01:22

the road here um yes i saw what you did there we saw what

1:01:28

you did she brought that around once you watch the webisode uh people that last comment will make a lot more

1:01:35

sense um or just also again just like to highlight the fact that um we uh we’re very community minded and

1:01:42

we have brought um autism edmonton under our our wing and we’ve partnered

1:01:47

with them uh again uh the the notion of the work that they do uh in the community

1:01:53

uh with families and and individuals that are um are touched by autism uh their work is

1:01:59

uh amazing uh you can actually donate to to them at uh info

1:02:04

autism edmonton.org it’s also on our website uh but again it’s not this isn’t just

1:02:10

about you know enjoying ourselves we are enjoying ourselves but we also want to put back into the community

1:02:16

and uh and support people that need our support so if you have an opportunity to follow up on that that would be

1:02:22

fantastic um otherwise thank you what an absolute delight this has been mentioned it was an honor

1:02:27

thank you thank you thank you lindsay thank you art gallery thank you helen planet sound

1:02:46

thank you for tuning in today and watch out for this summer we may have some special music surprises so

1:02:52

keep your eyes peeled outside of winter i would say one last thing that uh yeah

1:02:59

now has a foothold in the uh edmonton jazz festival for the first time so

1:03:06

that’s that’s a whole other story perhaps we’ll get another webisode for that yes subscribe to the channel

1:03:14

stay tuned for announcements yes lots of things to look for thank you that’s right yeah thank you

1:03:19

all so much um we’re so excited for the show and can’t wait until

1:03:25

we can open again thanks and thank you kga for being so flexible and awesome yes

1:03:34

thank you very much thank you everyone

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