Three-year art project celebrates breastfeeding

THOMPSON-OKANAGAN – Interior Health is searching for artists and community members to create pieces for an expo aimed at exploring the topic of breastfeeding through art.

Interior Health Project Coordinator Karen Graham says the three-year project called the Breastfeeding Art Expo is in its preliminary stages but the call went out to the entire Interior Health region Jan. 6 for artists interested in creating pieces for the expo. Once artists are selected for the project, a specific application for funding will be made to local organizations to support in-kind funding of each individual artist.

Graham said notices regarding the expo have been sent to all art centres in the Interior Health region. The expo will consist of art developed  from a variety of forms, such as art panel, 3-D, film or sculpture.

According to Graham, the Breastfeeding Art Expo is a joint project between Interior Health and Kelowna Community Services, a non-profit group servicing a large part of the Okanagan. She says so far, funding for the project has come through a small working budget and in-kind funding from Interior Health, Kelowna Community Services and in-kind volunteer support from a 10-member steering committee who will select 10 artists and one videographer for the expo. Once artists are selected, the project is expected to take from the fall of 2015 to fall of 2018 to complete.

The final year of the expo will see displays created of the 10 art pieces, including film vignettes, which will form an expo taking different formats as it is displayed across the region.

“There will be a community component to each expo., which will make the display unique to each locality,” said Graham. “We are also looking for other community non-profits to potentially partner with us to set up the expos in each community.”

Interested artists should consult the breastfeeding art expo website. Applicants can go to the “calls” section to download an application form. The deadline for applications is Feb.27.

Interested organizations should contact Karen Graham at 250-868-7846.

To contact the reporter for this story, email Steve Arstad at sarstad@infonews.ca or call 250-488-3065. To contact the editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.