FUSE organizers Brooklyn Fink (l) and Asya Barker.

DETAILS

FUSE Festival
Shaw Millennium Park
Saturday, September 4 - Saturday, September 4

More in: Special Events

What are the kids up to these days?

If Generation Y (or RenGen or whatever they’re called this minute) has you scratching your head, between their newfangled iPads and Web 2.0, head down to Shaw Millennium Park this weekend for a genuine taste of urban youth culture. The Fuse Young Culture Festival combines skateboarding, b-boy battles, street art and more in an exuberant celebration of what’s happening now.

The event’s organizers, Brooklyn Fink and Asya Barker of C.A.K.E. Young Artists’ Society (C.A.K.E. = Community + Arts + Knowledge Engaged), envision Fuse as a place for artists under 35 to share their work with the Calgary public.

“The commercial galleries don’t have to take a risk on young artists,” says Fink, who also works as a visual artist. “They have established artists that they know will sell, so they’re not jumping at the chance to take a risk on new talent. This is a way to thrust them into the public eye and get the ball rolling for their future careers.”

While this is the first year of Fuse, it rises from the ashes of Urban Burn, an urban youth arts festival that ran for two years at Quickdraw Animation Society. The name change is an attempt to include a broader diversity of art forms, but also to distance the festival from negative associations.

“Last year, Urban Burn fell on the same day as the ‘Millennium fiasco,’” says Barker. “After that, people were questioning any graffiti-related events. We wanted to get away from that negativity but still give artists a positive opportunity to bring their art to the Calgary public.”

The “fiasco” refers to an aborted pilot project by the City of Calgary that would have created a legal spray-painting zone in Shaw Millennium Park. Unfortunately, two days into the project, the entire park was vandalized and the initiative was shut down. Accusations have been flying ever since, laying blame with the city (providing paint without supervision) or the vandals (“a pack of paint-wielding hooligans”). But whoever’s at fault, the result is the same: Shaw Millennium Park is as grey and lifeless as ever.

With Fuse, Fink and Barker hope to turn that around. While the festival’s headliners include mainstays of the urban arts scene — Sons of Boey, Lady C, Blist and more — there’s an open invitation for last-minute submissions. The park will be animated with artisan tables, an outdoor gallery wall, an aerosol-painted car, DJs, hip-hop artists and breakdancing — not to mention dozens of skateboarders showing their stuff.

“There’s an esthetic to skateboarding,” says Fink. “It takes skill to do a good kick flip, just like it does to make a painting. It’s a craft that so many young people are practising every day.”

A conversation with two of the participating artists — Carl Heitman, 19, and Diana Hellson, 18 — contains a potent mix of excitement and cynicism. On the one hand, they’re thrilled about the opportunity to display their art and meet their artistic peers. On the other, they feel like part of a marginalized group of cultural rebels.

Or, as Hellson puts it: “There’s no culture in Calgary.”

These two artists are exploring graphic design, animation and pop art, but they struggle to find creative opportunities. “The art scene is really hidden, I think because Calgary is so conservative that they don’t want to advertise it,” says Hellson. “I feel like, whoever’s in charge of the money in Calgary, they’re not just ignoring the art scene. They’re trying to stifle it.”

Ironically, despite their sense of alienation, Heitman and Hellson represent exactly the demographic that Calgary’s cultural heavyweights (Calgary Opera, Theatre Calgary, Alberta Ballet, Glenbow Museum, etc.) are dying to access — young, arts-hungry and connected to a network of like-minded peers. Outreach co-ordinators, take heed!

There is, however, an advantage to Calgary’s “quaint” art scene. “When you do something cool and original here, everybody sees it,” says Heitman. “It’s easy to stand out.”

With Fuse, C.A.K.E. is hoping to help turn around public opinion on urban arts. “These young graffiti artists don’t own property, they can’t show in galleries… so where else are they supposed to do it?” asks Fink. “If the city doesn’t meet them halfway and provide a space to paint, then they’re going to end up painting on bridges.”

By displaying high-quality graffiti art, adds Barker, “the young people who are just scribbling on walls and making a mess might be inspired to spend time developing their art, and adding some colour and vibrancy to the city.”