Message from the Board of Directors

On behalf of the Board of Directors, I would like to welcome participating artists and audiences to this year's Visualeyez festival. Latitude 53 Contemporary Visual Culture has the great privilege of hosting ten artists as they perform works that circle the theme of "water," and develop those works based upon feedback from audiences and peers in performance. I always experience a range of reactions and thoughts during the festival. I am surprised and intrigued by the ways in which the performers respond to the broad curatorial theme, I am interested in the ways that performances may succeed or fail and what the performer and viewers learn from this, and I often remember individual works that moved me for years afterwards. The festival is a physical and intellectual site where the artists can take risks with their ideas and the physical manifestation of those ideas; it is also a site where viewers can engage directly with the work and the artists, participating in the process.

I would like to thank the artists for the work they bring to Edmonton for this festival. I would like to express our gratitude to the volunteers, funders, and sponsors without whom there would be no space to take the kinds of risks these artists are able to take. Finally, I would like to thank the Latitude 53 staff: Todd Janes, April Dean, Hannah Wigle, Yulia Startsev, Adam Waldron-Blain, and Vicky Wong for the work they put into Visualeyez to make it a success—both in terms of presentation, but also in terms of the support they provide to the artists. 

Allison Sivak
President