 Welcome. Hello, Town Meeting TV. We're here outside of Rath's Mission, part of the Junctiq's Empire, with Sam Kahn. Hi. Hi, Megan. Sam. Sam's going to tell us a little bit about this upcoming arts festival that was sponsored in part by our Ward 2-3 neighborhood MPA. And this is the poster. I don't know if you can zoom in on this. And we'll also maybe put that QR code, which is where you can go to find tickets to the festival, Plex Arts Fest. Sam, can tell us about it. Yeah. So this is an arts festival that's happening not this Saturday, next Saturday, May 20th. It will be right here in Rath's Mission in Tank Recording Studio and in Junctiq's. And it's all different artistic disciplines. So we've got a lot of visual art, sculpture, music, theater, dance, film, anything, any kind of art discipline was welcome. Poetry readings. And it's really like the idea is to have a space for experimental community-based art in the Old North End. So, and how did you come, how did you come to have this idea? What's your background? So I was a student at Middlebury College. And in 2018, I started an arts festival called Nocturne with a bunch of other really awesome student artists. And it very quickly became an annual spring campus tradition where everyone would come out to celebrate all the student artists on campus. It was really a way of like, as a student funneling more of resources towards the arts and highlighting the arts and like all the amazing artists that were on that campus. And it still continues to this day. And so after graduating, after graduating, I wanted to see, ooh, hold for a truck. Yeah, we're here on North Winnie Ski Avenue. And so there's a lot of traffic there doing all the repairs on North Winnie Ski Avenue. For those of you who don't know, Junctiq's and Rath's mission are in the corner of North Winnie Ski Avenue and Archibald Street. But back to Nocturne. Yeah, so it was just a really important event for me, a way to platform people, artists who might not have other platforms who are doing stuff that's a little bit more experimental. And, and I wanted to see if it was possible to make that a real thing in the real world. Because after leaving school, it's it's really hard to find your space as a rising artist, to find niches and community and places that are interested in the kind of work that I'm interested in. So got a group of friends, fellow artists together, and we decided to make it happen. And the NPA, War 23 NPA was really supportive of it. And now we're here. Yeah. So you're saying it's hard to find your way as an up and coming artist or as you know, whatever that means in the art world. What does this give you to put on a festival like this as an artist? I think the number one thing for me is community. I think there aren't, like unlike other careers, there aren't like set steps how to become an artist. And it can be really, really hard because there's so few resources and a lot of self doubt and a lot of just wondering how to make it possible. So I think I really craved to find an artistic community in Burlington so that we can support each other and uplift each other and help each other like continue that like constant struggle of putting your out into the world and sort of validating the importance of up and coming contemporary art. So if folks come to Plex Art Fest and again, that's May 20th. Oh, I dropped my hand here. That's May 20th, 6 p.m. to 12 30 a.m. That's going to be here, a tank recording studio and junk teaks. What do they what do they expect? What are they going to see or hear? This space will be transformed. So we're going to have two big projection screens in this parking lot. We're going to have visual art on this wall. We're going to have visual art around the corner, visual art outside of the tank. There'll be several interactive components. There's going to be two main stages with music, dance, circus. And so I think my goal is or my hope is that it'll be like a total immersion in many different forms of art, color, sound, and just like a lot of joy and like space for people to play. Do you feel connected, integrated into the neighborhood in doing this? Definitely. Yeah. So a majority of our organizers live in Ward two and three. And a lot of our artists as well. But I think it's just the small things like this earlier today. I didn't have a space to do work. So I just went over to junk teaks and I sat in the backyard. And I was like, can I just hang out? And they were like, yeah, you can just hang out. So I think it's also just been a way to get to know more people in this community who think the same things that are like are interested in the same things that I'm interested in, which is awesome and really important to me. So besides sort of showcasing the arts and this is kind of a left field question, is there anything as we let the sound again die down? Is there anything that that brings in for you a set of social justice or racial justice or equity elements to doing a festival like this? And how can you talk to that a little bit? Yeah. I mean, I know not everyone agrees on this, but like for me, all art is political. And this festival is very queer and very young. I think, yeah, the majority of our organizers are young queer film people. And I think, you know, like arising experimental artists have always been at the forefront of social change and new ideas. So creating a space for those people to exist and do something that's maybe a little different and maybe isn't always seen in this area feels like an important way of giving that group of people a voice in, you know, in like, and also building community and having to be really joyful, I think, I think it's possible to do both. You know, I'm interested in like joyful social change. And how will so when people show up, you talked a little bit about how you're going to transform the space, who who's going to be here? Who's on the docket for performing? Yeah. So it's there are 70 or so artists. Yeah. And I'd say, you know, it's it's all a little like it's very DIY and we're like embracing the chaos of having so many different people and having like a light touch as organizers. But in the next door space, we're going to have a bunch of visual artists. So Luna Shen, who's one of our organizers is going to be presenting Lydia Kern is going to have a sculpture in this area. There's a band that's coming from New Hampshire called Trash Sun. That's like a shoe gauge band that's going to be upstairs. In the next door junk tick space, musician named Marcus Breddo is going to be playing like Afro funk music. Madeline Joe and I just one of our organizers is going to have a window where you can put a lemon and she'll give you a tattoo. So real variety of people across all these spaces. So May 20th, 6pm to 12 30pm. Talk a little bit about what it was like to get the support from the word 23 MPa. How did you even come to know about the word 23 MPa? Site of political power for community members. I had a friend who just sent me the application and it seemed perfect for what we wanted to do. I think want we want this festival to be as much outside of capitalism or sort of like normal structures of money and art as possible. I'm I also work in film and have seen how money in the arts can like require people to go in a certain direction. So the dream was to have a space where you don't have to be like catering as much to commercial interests. And so the MPI felt like the perfect place for funding because we wanted to be really grounded in the community. And a group that yeah, has community interests as opposed to like capitalist interests. So we applied for funding way back in the fall. And then we got $400 from them and it was just enough to sort of like legitimize our project and pay for the space rentals and pay for materials. But then there's also so much volunteer work. So there's a team of six organizers and we've been working say we meet we've been meeting every week since January. And then there are 70 artists who are like putting in all the labor of making art and we are charging tickets but no one's turned away. So it's a zero to $20 sliding ticket scale. And this space this parking lot will have no entry fee so anyone can just come in here. So that sort of eliminates the barrier between the community in which you're situated. Exactly. I was this like, this fine line between wanting to value like art is work and art is necessary and important. And so we decided to charge tickets so we can give at least something to the artist. But realistically, it might be like $20 each or something. So all the ticket proceeds will be split in evenly between artists and organizers. And that's just a way of saying art is work art is important, but also keeping it as open as possible to the community. So you can go to this QR code which we'll put on the screen also or we can just zoom in on in the spirit of full disclosure. There's somebody behind the camera as well. So just throwing it back to you, Steven, is there anything that we should ask that you're listening to any burning questions? Both personally and artistically you've gained from being part of such a intertwined artistic community. Is there a collaborative nature that you feel like you've sort of gained from it? Do you feel like just learning from other people's perspective? Do you feel like you've gained from something? I think it's a little bit what I said before of like, making art is really scary, especially when you're young and haven't like, had like organizations legitimize you or money legitimize you when you're really still trying to find your place as an artist. And so I think being in a community of other people who are like, also in that with me has been really meaningful. And then getting to know the community better has been really meaningful. And then I'm, you know, I work in a lot of different mediums and I'm just like personally excited about art that's multidisciplinary. And like, I think the divisions we create between like, okay, we have a visual art show, and then we have a movie theater, and then we have a music concert to me that feels really arbitrary. So I think there's something very beautiful and exciting and inspiring about like being in conversation with other artists and other art forms. And like having everyone grow together, you know, I see music and I might be like, Oh, that's so exciting. Maybe I want to work with that musician for a dance piece or a filmmaker who's inspired by the like visual art. I think there's a lot to be gained from like cross disciplinary conversation. Wonderful. Thank you. Oh, no, don't go anywhere, Steven. So thanks. Thanks for watching. And thank you, Sam Kan for bringing a gift of levity, light, beauty and magic to a community. Appreciate that. Thank you, Megan. And so again, we'll put this up so that you can see it and maybe get the QR code, but give us the details again. Plex Arts Festival Saturday, May 20, starting at 6pm in Rats Mission Tank Recording Studio and Junk Teaks. Hope to see you there. Thanks all. Thanks for watching.