On Wednesday, after the reception for Pascal Dufaux’s installation, I tagged along with the CAFKA posse over to the Cork Bar for a press event. On the agenda was the double announcement of the 2014 CAFKA Biennial and Open Ears lineups. Going to be an amazing time in June. Karie Liao, artistic director for CAFKA.14, is going to have details up on the CAFKA site soon, and I suspect Gregory Oh, artistic director for Open Ears, will too. In the meantime, Robert Reid has a solid piece in the Record you should check out.
Ben Grossman (above), mesmerized the assembly with some hypnotic hurdy gurdy. Regular mb readers may recall the wicked fieldtrip we took to Ben’s Guelph studio way back in 2011. He’s in the lineup for OE14, so definitely catch his show.
I had no idea there was a “secret” bar, the Cork Bar, attached to McCabe’s in downtown Kitchener. Great space.
I’ve been meeting more and more of the CAFKA gang over the years. It’s another group with great energy.
Caught up with Gordon Hatt, Karie Liao, Sarah Kernohan, David Jensenius, Martin de Groot, Stephen Lavigne, Bernie Rohde, Laura De Decker, Stefan Rose, and my very good friend Melissa Doherty. Kind of have to split my time between chatting (which I love) and shooting on these adventures.
Stephen was rocking this board, because the content was…
on the way. Gordon Hatt, executive director at CAFKA kicked it off. He also filled in for CAFKA president and board chair Graham Whiting who was tackling a late-breaking and happily non-life-threatening ER visit with a kid in need of stitches.
Karie Liao, introduced the CAFKA.14 lineup.
Mr. Marcel O’Gorman, delivered the awesomely utopian theme of CAFKA 2014: It Should Always Be This Way. Yes.
Switching gears to Open Ears (rhyme!), Anne-Marie Donovan kicked it off…
and Gregory Oh (left) delivered the OE14 lineup.
Despite having very little light…
I couldn’t resist grabbing a few more captures of Ben’s hurdy gurdy. Musical instruments are so beautiful to shoot and have such a gravity as objects.
Save all of June for CAFKA and Open Ears. Well, you’d better also set aside June 8 for the Grand Porch Party, too.
Ben!
DW
Darren! Way to capture the excitement of these two great events. Can’t wait for an awesome June with OPEN EARS and CAFKA keeping us on the cultural map.