Film Festival Celebrates Public Art

The Maine International Film Festival (MIFF) is off to a great start. The opening night film, The Rivals, was very well attended, as was the public art lecture by Patricia Phillips on Sunday. Her talk centered around public artists who use their work to comment on how consumerism and commercialism affect personal and cultural identity. This was followed by the Harrod Blank film Automorphosis which examined people who build art-cars and the identity that creates. The panel discussion after the film welcomed Ester Partegas, a Barcelona born artist working in New York who is currently in Maine as a resident artist faculty member at the Skowhegan School of Art.

Patricia Phillips 07-12-2009

This was all part of the July 12 Celebrate Public Art day at the festival. Waterville is becoming a public art hotspot in Maine. In the fall public artist Tim Gaudreau will be working with Waterville Main Street and Waterville Arts Council on a public art community engagement project (partially funded through a NEFA program). In January, artist Randy Regier will be bringing his public installation A Toy Store for Spaceship Earth to the downtown (a project funded through the generosity of the Harry Faust Art Fund).

In addition to helping with the Celebrate Public Art day, the Maine Arts Commission is proud to support MIFF by being a day sponsor for Making it in Maine Day on Saturday, July 18. This day will include the Maine Student Film and Video Festival, the Maine Shorts film presentation, and the showing of Language of America, Dead Buffalo and The Kings.