The Works Art & Design Festival

The Works Art & Design Festival is a thirteen day celebration held at the end of June and the beginning of July in downtown Edmonton, Canada. The festival displays the work of artists and designers from across Canada as well as featured exhibits from international presenters.

The Works has the mandate to promote visual art and design among the public at large and the artistic community by developing, producing and marketing special projects, programs and events that elicit the continued financial support of sponsors in the public and private sectors and the professional support of the artistic community.

The Works International Visual Arts Society (est.1981) produces The Works Art & Design Festival (est.1986) in downtown Edmonton, a free event that draws an audience of over 372,000 people of all ages and interests, and offers over 260 exhibits and special events to the public, every summer. The Society also provides executive directorship for The Art & Design in Public Places Program. The Places was launched in 1999 as a community-based, multi-partner initiative designed to help revitalize Edmonton's downtown through placement of publicly funded works of art.

Each year The Works Art & Design Festival presents free exhibits in over 30 venues around Edmonton's downtown core, such as restaurants, vacant retail spaces, warehouses, city parks, and office building lobbies. Artworks range from the traditional (ceramics, painting, sculpture) to the contemporary (furniture design, site installations, graffiti) to the cutting edge (interactive new media installations, sonic installations).

The Works Art & Design Festival's main festival site is Sir Winston Churchill Square, across from Edmonton's City Hall and the Stanley A. Milner Library. Each year, the square's concrete plaza is filled with dozens of tents, which sell handmade Canadian artwork and local/international cuisine. The Works Stage features a wide variety of musical acts from around the globe and a wide array of genres, including avant-garde and sonic art performances. The Works Street Stage is well known for its exciting Canada Day performances, which draw tens of thousands of people every year. Families can also make crafts at the Festival's Family Programs tent. The Works places an emphasis on interactive and large-scale public installations, encouraging its audience to contribute to community public artworks, watch artist demonstrations, and participate in educational workshops.

The Festival exhibits the work of well-known and awarding-winning artists as well as the work of emerging and student artists. Any artist or designer may apply to participate in the Festival during its annual Call to Enter in August. Artists, designers, and curators are also invited directly to participate in the Festival or may be commissioned to do a special project. The Festival has presented artworks from every continent, but the majority of its content is Canadian.

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