From my Inbox to you:

MARGINAL ARTS FESTIVAL RETURNS FOR 2013 – MAR 25- 30

The regions only contemporary art festival is back for its sixth year and it is still as out of place in Roanoke as a rubber chicken at a gun show! Performance art, vaudeville, film screenings, absurdist theater, curated exhibitions in ephemeral spaces, absurdist carnival, a parade full of artist-built floats, giant paper mache heads and art on wheels—everything the festival organizers claim is normally excluded from Roanoke’s art scene.

Workshops, demonstrations and lectures begin March 25 and festivities proper will begin on Thursday, March 28^th  with the final festival event ending around 11pm, March 30th.

Education focused on making contemporary art more accessible will be a large component of this year’s festival:

Lectures, master classes, and hands-on workshops will take place at 16 West Marketplace on Church Street, and Community High School on Campbell Avenue, as well as a few other locations in downtown Roanoke. This “Lyceé Marginal” will include a lecture by curator Brian Sieveking on how the popularity of wrestler Sputnik Monroe in the 1950’s led to desegregation in the South. Avant-garde historian and performer Olchar E. Lindsann will be giving a lecture on the history of the Readymade from 1830 to 1930. Virginia Tech and Hollins drawing students will work together to complete a collaborative drawing mural at 16 West Marketplace early festival week, while silkscreen printing workshops and food preparation demonstations will be among the other educational offering provided by the Lyceé Marginal.

Community participation is encouraged:

Non-artists, illustrators, milliners and collectors of wrestling paraphernalia are invited to participate in this year’s festival along with the dozens of authors who have already registered for the 48 hour “Best Pulp Novel set in Roanoke” writing contest.  Additional collaboration opportunities include drawing a favorite wrestler from memory, illustrating the cover for the winner of the pulp fiction contest, designing a hat with Dante’s Inferno as a theme or decorating an egg for the absurdist carnival egg hunt.

The festival events will take place Thursday through Saturday:

Visual art exhibitions will include a circus-themed exhibition curated by Roanoke based artist Susan Jamison, large works curated by Hollins professor Alison Hall, and a wrestling-themed exhibition by Brian Sieveking.

• On Thursday, March 28, Team Rose will lead a tour of MAF exhibitions that will also recognize the locations vacated by galleries, studios, theaters and art institutions.
• Performance “sound” poetry, theatrical events and film screening events will take place all three days of the festival but will be especially concentrated on Friday March 29th.
• The annual MAF Art Parade and the Absurdist Carnival that immediately follows are events on the final day of the festival that have become family favorites. Games, performances, music and hilarious activities that defy description are planned, and this year there will be food available.

Community High School, the festival originator, will host several events including “Circus Pony” exhibition in the school’s LIMINAL: alternative artspace (sic), Star City Creators’ absurdist theatrical event The Night The Circus Left Town, and the Vaudeville Night finale will take place in the June M. McBroom Theater.

Marginal Art is not a type of art, or way to judge art. It is art that is created in the cultural margins by and for citizens who want culture to include them. It is not art chosen by an elite few for the masses, but art that originates from the local community that has global implications.

For more information and a full schedule of events, visit marginalarts.com.