The Rockford area is full of things to do this weekend. Here are 20 ideas to keep you busy | Rock River Current
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The Rockford area is full of things to do this weekend. Here are 20 ideas to keep you busy
Eiteljorg Indian Market & Festival returns June 24-25
Returning for its 31st year, the Eiteljorg Indian Market and Festival will run from June 24-25 at the Eiteljorg Museum, 500 W. Washington St., Indianapolis.
Nearly 120 Native artists from across the U.S. and Canada will be at the museum to sell pottery, jewelry, beadwork, weavings, paintings, carvings and more, as well as presenting cultural performances through music, dance and storytelling.
“Since its inception in 1993, the annual Eiteljorg Museum Indian Market and Festival has grown in stature to become one of the top Native American art markets in the country, as well as a must-do event on the downtown Indianapolis summer calendar. Artists, performers and thousands of market-goers and art buyers have come together at the Eiteljorg to celebrate Native arts and cultures,” said Alisa Nordholt-Dean, vice president for public programs and Beeler family director of education at the Eiteljorg.
Admission for the festival is $25 for non-members at the gate. Eiteljorg members will be admitted for free, with reduced admission available for two adult guests of a member for $20 each. Advance discount tickets are available now for $20 and may be purchased online at Eiteljorg.org/IndianMarketandFestival or by calling 317-636-9378. Attendees ages 17 and younger will be admitted for free during market weekend. Tickets for the market and festival includes admission into the entire museum, galleries and other exhibitions.
For an early start on shopping, registration for the Market Morning Breakfast at 8 a.m. June 24, is available by contacting Jennifer Hiatt by emailing to jhiatt@eiteljorg.com or by calling 317-275-1360. Members can reserve for $50 and non-members can reserve for $60.
Several foods trucks will be available throughout the weekend. Performances for the festival include:
- Yellow Bird Dancers of Phoenix, Arizona, a professional family dance company performing songs, dances and stories, and led by Ken Duncan (San Carlos Apache Tribe);
- Firefly the Hybrid of the Penobscot Nation, a multimedia artist from Maine who performs traditional and contemporary music;
- Randy, Rykelle and Raven Kemp, a family of storytellers, artists and musicians from the Choctaw, Euchee and Muscogee Creek peoples of Oklahoma; and
- The Levi Platero Band (Navajo Nation), an award-winning act that performs guitar blues and rock.
For more information on the Eiteljorg Indian Market and Festival, visit the website at eiteljorg.org/indian-market-and-festival.
Sustainable Search Engine Optimization: Build a Lasting SEO Strategy
The Gist
- SEO is a continuous process, not a one-time project. To be effective, SEO needs to be treated as a long-term, ongoing process rather than a series of independent, short-term projects. It requires regular attention and management due to constantly changing factors such as Google’s algorithm, your website’s content, and your competition.
- Quality content is crucial for SEO: Providing well-written, purposeful content is at the heart of any successful SEO strategy.
- Choosing the right SEO partner can enhance results: Working closely with an SEO agency or expert over a sustained period can lead to better results. As the SEO team becomes more familiar with your content and keywords, they can more effectively optimize your site.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a fundamental aspect of website management that is critical to build brand awareness and generate leads. If people can’t find your website content, then much of the efforts made around creating an excellent site and impactful content are effectively wasted.
Despite SEO’s importance, many digital marketing and web teams remain surprisingly unaware of SEO basics. For many, it still remains something of a dark art and a mysterious practice that requires deep expertise with constantly shifting requirements.
Due to a lack of internal skills as well as resourcing and budgetary constraints, many teams choose to rely on external expertise for SEO. This is often a sensible approach, especially as there are some SEO practices which can be quite specialist, but it can lead to some issues:
- SEO efforts and improvement tend to come in short, independent bursts based around engaging specialists on an ad hoc basis, rather than providing an ongoing and continuous SEO process.
- There are a lot of self-proclaimed SEO experts, but it can be hard for digital marketing teams to ascertain whether the advice and action they are receiving is successful or not.
- There is no transfer of skills to the digital marketing team in terms of awareness and knowledge of SEO practices.
The combination of these trends can lead to SEO that is less effective than it should be, and does not deliver the kind of long-term, continuous improvement in SEO that digital teams are looking for and that delivers tangible results.
Why Is Sustainable SEO Critical?
To get the best results it’s important to take a more sustainable and less short-term approach to SEO. Let’s look at some of the reasons for this.
Effective SEO Is a Moving Target
SEO doesn’t stay still. Improvements made that might be effective today may not necessarily still be effective in the future. Changes can happen across a number of different criteria that will impact SEO, including the way Google constructs its algorithm, changes to your own website or the content that feeds it, or even changes to your CMS. New keywords also come along and other websites can start to outperform you. For all these reasons and more, SEO is effectively a moving target that needs ongoing attention and management.
Related Article: State of SEO: Google Search Algorithm Updates for Q2 2023
SEO Is a Process Not a Project
Successful SEO is hard to achieve if you take a short-term view. Hiring an SEO consultant every so often isn’t going to cut it. It’s much more about delivering an ongoing process that continues to add new content that is optimized for SEO and builds on success.
The core of successful SEO is implementing everyday processes and practices that are part of the way you manage a website and its content, rather than activating a series of separate projects.
Content Is King
Providing well-written content that has a purpose is still at the center of any successful SEO strategy. Content can’t also only be about SEO — it has to appeal to your audiences to make them want to visit and then return to your site.
Any approach to SEO also needs to have an accompanying content strategy that defines your medium- to long-term goals for content and ensures it has value.
Related Article: Google Helpful Content Update Improves Customer Experience and SEO Strategy
Keeping Your Eyes on Your Data, With the Right Tools and Research
Successful SEO by its very nature is data-driven and therefore has a dependency on ensuring there are the right tools for reporting and keyword research. In particular, it’s important that your analytics package (for example Google Analytics) is configured in a way that aligns with your SEO goals and processes.
The SEO and analytics tools landscape is wide; having the right tools in place is an important component in establishing a more sustainable approach to SEO and utilizing your data to the fullest.
Picking the Right Partner and Sticking With Them
We believe SEO works best in a partnership. One thing we’ve found is that when an SEO agency or expert works together closely with a client over a sustained period of time, the SEO team gets to better know the types of content and specialist keywords that are going to resonate with a segmented audience.
At the same time, the marketing team will gain a better understanding of SEO practices, particularly if they are beginners and less experienced, but also potentially even if they have advanced knowledge. This can influence the way content is written and reviewed, so it is already partly SEO-optimized before being worked upon by an SEO agency.
Ultimately when the SEO team knows a target audience, and the marketing team knows more about SEO, it can better align content management practices with the SEO process, which ultimately leads to better SEO performance.
Learn how you can join our contributor community.
Pakistani native Slowspin explores the immigrant experience with electronic music
Making music under the name Slowspin, Zeerak Ahmed blends North Indian classical vocal traditions with modern shoegaze, psychedelic rock, folk, ambient and experimental sounds.
Ahmed first came to the United States to attend Hiram College in 2009, and she has lived in Cleveland since 2019. She spent most of the COVID-19 pandemic teaching at the Cleveland Institute of Art and composing music.
The Pakistani-born multimedia artist released her first full-length, “Talisman,” last month. She collaborated on the album with a group of notable musicians and producers in Brooklyn, New York.
“We just swam in sound,” Ahmed said. “It’s like the first time I wrote the song is the recording you hear. And I build around that. Let all the deep sounds of the lows and the highs – and the flutes and all the textures in between the two – wash through you.”
Learning to make music in Pakistan
While this is Slowspin’s first full-length release, the artist is not new to making music.
Her journey began in her hometown of Karachi, Pakistan, where she grew up in a strong creative and musical family.
Ahmed began taking vocal lessons in Pakistan around age 15.
Electronic music started to grow in popularity within the region’s underground music scene, and Ahmed was fascinated by the digital technologies used to produce the sounds.
She came to the U.S. to study visual arts, and Hiram’s quiet campus gave her the space and inspiration to begin writing her own music.
“I was spending a lot of time, just me, myself, my acoustic guitar on GarageBand, recording these little melodies,” she said. “That felt like my truth.”
Ahmed realized she could best express herself through sound, rather than the visual arts she originally pursued.
“There’s something deeply spiritual and powerful about sound. And it really, really resonated with me.”
Zeerak Ahmed
She told her parents, “I want to actually use my voice to say the things that I want to say.”
She fell in love with Ohio for its green, natural beauty, which she said contrasts with Karachi’s landscape.
“All my friends were going to schools they either visited or heard of before. I was going to a school that nobody knew of. The third day I called my dad. I was like, ‘Biggest mistake. There are more cows than people. I’ve never seen so much land.’ I’m joking about the cows. It was just fantastic,” she said.
After college, she returned to her hometown in 2012. Around this time, she became a formative member of the independent music scene in Karachi, where she was part of the “muhajir,” or immigrant community.
Countercultural music was a primarily male-dominated space, and she said that presented challenges despite her successfully releasing an EP and working with an indie record label there.
“I knew I was coming into this place, which politically was going through its own turmoils. And there was a great risk being at shows or having shows,” she said. “That, added with the constant threat of being this female always at the risk of being objectified, and that taking over, as opposed to your craft being respected and given attention.”
She said in the last decade, she has noticed a shift in her native Pakistan with more women being embraced by the underground music scene.
“They’re doing phenomenal work, and there’s a lot more support,” she said.
Creating her debut full-length album
Ahmed has traveled between Pakistan, Germany and the U.S. releasing six total Slowspin EPs and creating voice-based sound sculptures and installations.
Alyse Nelson
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Her distinct sound is rooted in the Hindustani classical vocal style, with elements like ambient soundscapes accented by plucky folk guitars.
On her debut LP, Ahmed worked with producer Grey Mcmurray, noted for his collaborations with artists like Gil-Scott Heron and John Cale.
Over the course of three days, Ahmed and Mcmurray conducted an extended improv session with Shahzad Ismaily, Aaron Roche and Greg Fox at Figure 8 recording studio in New York.
The three days of sound experimentation turned into three years of writing “Talisman.”
“It’s got songs that belong to lyrical traditions, poetic traditions, I don’t know, 700 years old or older. But there’s also so much of my own writing there as well,” Ahmed said.
She said her compositions and the arrangements on the album represent her journey as a migrant experiencing new things and longing for those she had to let go of.
The 10 songs feature vocals in English as well as Urdu, Farsi and Purbi. The lead single, “Hamari,” pulls from a devotional poem by Muslim Sufi poet Nawab Sadiq Jung Bahadur Hilm.
Other tracks tie universal feelings of love and loss with the migrant experience, all accented by dreamy production and instrumentation.
A migrating artist
Ahmed returns to Pakistan every year and works with Karachi Community Radio, which features emerging artists in the region’s electronic music scene.
In 2019, Ahmed met her now-partner while visiting college friends in Cleveland.
“And here we are. I wasn’t too sure about Cleveland being my new home, but March of 2020, I was visiting my partner and seven days later, so seven days into the trip, I got a text from Emirates saying, ‘Due to the global pandemic, all flights back are indefinitely canceled,’” she said.
Aside from making music, Ahmed is still heavily involved in other art forms, teaching liberal arts and visual arts at the Cleveland Institute of Art.
In 2022, she received the CAN Triennial Prize for her Akron Art Museum sound installations.
Her current work focuses on archiving South Asian female folk music traditions and creating new visual work from these histories.
“There’s something deeply comforting. There’s something deeply spiritual and powerful about sound. And it really, really resonated with me. The notes, the ways to channel sound through the body,” she said. “I thought that was incredibly powerful and it was very healing. That became a kind of guide throughout my life.”
Ahmed plans to relocate from Cleveland to New York to pursue music full time. Before then, she will perform as Slowspin at Cleveland’s Re:Sound, a festival for new and experimental music, June 11.
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London Gallery Weekend: best shows for photography fans
Morgan Otagburuagu
Doyle Wham, 91A Rivington Street, EC2A 3AY, until 10 June
A decade ago, it was difficult to find a single exhibition in London of contemporary African photography. Not anymore. Figurative art from Africa has become a mainstream preoccupation for the art market. But never before has an entire gallery dedicated itself to the essential artistic medium of the world’s fastest changing continent.
Doyle Wham, a gallery located in a former warehouse in Shoreditch, was launched in 2022 by Imme Dattenberg-Doyle, a recent graduate of the Royal College of Art in London, and Sofia Carreira-Wham, a Classics graduate from the University of Cambridge. Both Doyle and Wham are in their 20s: their roster includes African artists of the same generation, like the Gabonese photographer Yanis Davy Guibinga, and more established artists, like the Cameroonian photographer Angèle Etoundi Essamba.
But the chosen artist for London Gallery Weekend is the Nigerian photographer Morgan Otagburuagu; this is his first solo exhibition worldwide. The artist, born in 1997 in Nigeria’s coastal city of Port Harcourt, and now based in Lagos, is a graduate in computer science but committed to photography after the death of his parents in 2021. His portraits focus on the “inherent beauty” of the Black female form, the artist says.
Morgan Otagburuagu’s Bountiful (2023)
Courtesy of the artist and Doyle Wham
Thomas Struth
Galerie Max Hetzler, 41 Dover Street, W1S 4NS, 2 June–29 July
On view for the first time in the UK, at the London outpost of the German gallery Galerie Max Hetzler, are Thomas Struth’s photographs of the European Center for Nuclear Research (Cern), the world’s largest scientific facility.
Struth initially studied painting at the Düsseldorf Kunstakademie under the eye of the once-unheralded professor Gerhard Richter, and then as one of the academy’s first photographic students under the aegis of Bernd and Hilla Becher. That period culminated in a residency at New York, during which Struth created dispassionate studies of the Manhattan cityscape that positioned him as the Bechers’ standard-bearer; a photographer whose studies of the built landscape can reveal, if you look closely enough, secret human histories.
Cern, then, is the perfect subject for Struth. This machine has been built to answer the questions of our existence. Its surfaces hold clues to its secrets within, secrets that might forever evade our full understanding.
Thomas Struth’s ProtoDUNE, EHN 1, CERN, Prévessin-Moens 2023 (2023) Courtesy Galerie Max Hetzler
Maisie Cousins
TJ Boulting, 59 Riding House Street, W1W 7EG, until 17 June
TJ Boulting was the first gallery to display Maisie Cousins’s photography. Her first exhibition, hosted by the gallery in 2017, was titled grass, peonie, bum. The title of the show matched its content: not exactly subtle, not very elegant. But direct, garish and overly sensual.
Cousins recently moved out of London to live in a seaside town on the south coast with her first child. Her new series is titled Walking Back To Happiness and seems to mediate, with an ambiguous, multivalent power, on her move away from the city—and away from the adrenal rush of care-free youth.
The photography on display here—including, most notably, a series of images created via an artificial-intelligence image generator— communicate complicated feelings about her childhood, her family, her responsibilities as a young mother and her relationship with the town she now calls home. The AI images are a machine’s response to a series of childhood memories Cousins fed it as ‘prompts’, while her photographs focus on the seaside paraphernalia that is designed to appeal to small children—sweets, inflatable or plasticised toys, theme park rides. The artist is interested in “the uncanny”, she says, and how this relates to the feelings of “nostalgia, feeling of uncertainty and unease” which we all carry around inside of us.
Maisie Cousins’s Walking Back to Happiness (2023) Courtesy TJ Boulting
Oliviero Toscani
Mazzoleni, 15 Old Bond Street, W1S 4AX, until 4 June
The Milanese photographer Oliviero Toscani worked as the art director of the Italian fashion label United Colors of Benetton from 1982 to 2000. Throughout that 18-year period, Toscani oversaw advertising campaigns that, today, remain touchstones in how to reach a mass audience through controversial and confrontational visual marketing.
Toscani, born in 1942, grew up as Italy reformed itself after the fall of Mussolini. As a commercial artist, he was ahead of his time, seeming to presage advertising’s current engagement with geopolitical and social justice issues. For Benetton’s billboards, he photographed a man in the advanced stages of Aids, on the edge of death, surrounded by his family. He photographed a newly born baby, covered in their mother’s fluids, umbilical cord yet to be cut. He confronted racism—one campaign featured black and white hands handcuffed together. Or three human hearts; red, sinewy, fleshy muscles, upon which were written the words “white”, “black” and “yellow”. His campaigns dealt with anorexia, domestic violence and repressed sexuality, each time garnering outrage from conservatives.
A retrospective of Toscani’s work is now on show at Mazzoleni gallery, which is based between London and Turin, titled Toscani Chez Mazzoleni. Do the images Toscani made 30 years ago remain relevant today? Are they now irredeemably dated, or pioneers of a new consciousness? The debate is live.
Oliviero Toscani’s San Francesco (2019)
© Oliviero Toscani. Courtesy the Artist, Mazzoleni, London – Torino
Bob Colacello
Thaddaeus Ropac, 37 Dover Street, W1S 4NJ, 2 June-29 July
It Just Happened is the fitting title for Bob Colacello’s first solo exhibition in London. The native New Yorker, born in Brooklyn and raised on Long Island, managed to ingratiate himself with Andy Warhol’s Factory scene in the late 1970s.
Colacello made himself available for every party Warhol hosted at his studio on Broadway, as well as the now mythic nightclub Studio 54, held at the Broadway theatre on 254 West 54th Street. Colacello went to all of them with his Minox camera. Eighty of his surviving photographs, shot between 1976 and 1982, are currently on show at London’s Thaddaeus Ropac gallery. The exhibition also includes letters, magazines and memorabilia.
Bob Colacello’s James Randall and Marisa Berenson, on their Wedding Day, Beverly Hills (1976) © Bob Colacello; Courtesy Thaddaeus Ropac Gallery
• The Art Newspaper is a media partner of London Gallery Weekend
The Best Photography Festival To Visit This June
Bienal Fotografia do Porto, Getxophoto, Belfast Photo Festival, Copenhagen Photo Festival, Fotofestiwal Lodz are among the photography festivals we selected this month.
Bienal Fotografia do Porto / Porto, Portugal / 18 May – 2 July
At its third edition, the Bienal Fotografia do Porto articulates a collective reflection on ecologies, and on the possibility to re-imagine possible, regenerative futures. Themed Acts of Empathy, the Bienal has a strong, theoretical thread weaving its projects together, mainly articulated through collective exhibitions. Four case studies present an interventionist model of action: these are sustentar, exploring urban and regional sustainability, vivificar, reflecting on social issues in low-density territories, expandir, offering a speculative dimension, and conectar, opening international dialogue and partnership. Photography and moving image come together as a tool to question asymmetrical hyerarchies, and provoke the way we navigate our planet today.
Bringing together the work of artists such as Sandim Mendes, Athi-Patra Ruga, Kudzanai Chiurai and many more, the collective exhibition Deep Blue explores memory and ecology, transcending and questioning the Western knowledge system through other, transformative spiritualities. Speculative Ecologies features various works by Ursula Biemann, Eliana Otta, and duo duo Hyeseon Jeong and Seongmin Yuk to interrogate relationships between humans and non-humans. In Light or Shadow of What Was and Still Is presents twelve Lebanese photographers addressing the events they witnessed over the last few years, through conceptual and intimate approaches. Displacements is issued from a partnership with the MA in Documentary Photography at the University of South Wales, led by Lisa Barnard. The solo exhibition Fading Senses, Sensitive Territories by Ligia Poplawska brings eco-anxiety and climate grief into the discourse, visually articulating our (lack of) sensory perception.
Across the whole month of June, the rich program of exhibitions is activated by tours, visits, workshops, celebrations and talks. Discover more on the festival’s website.
Getxophoto / Getxo, Spain / 1 – 25 June
Since 2007, Getxophoto brings images to the Basque city of Getxo, with the aim of making photographic fruition a participatory experience rooted in the radical defense of public space.
Outdoor installations are the festival’s highlight: images become part of the environment, entering a horizontal, participatory conversation with the public. This year, Pause! is the theme that will be spread across Getxo: with a suggested bibliography that enrichs the proposed visual narratives, Getxophoto is stressing the political potential of a pause in times of hurry, hyper-productivity and permanent connection. Is pausing the only way to reset the system, as we’re overstimulated by design?
The pervasiveness of the media space, the lack of empty spaces, paid vacation as a paradox meant to enrich production, the toxic desire for a perfect family, the actions of Buddhist monks against polluting companies, the state of vigilant sleep, and the threatening disappearance of darkness are among the stories Getxophoto will tackle: Mattia Balsamini, Ana Núñez Rodríguez, Stephen Gill, Arturo Soto, Julieta Tarraubella, Michal Solarski, Photographerhal, Mitsutoshi Hanaga, Tatiana López, Maider Jimenez are just a few of the artists involved.
With Elisa Medde, Alba Lafarga, Jon Uriarte, Marta Gili, María Ptqk, Luis Juárez and Azahara Cerezo, the panel Lock-in Vol.1 will activate talks and dialogues for a whole morning, while visits and anti-visits will activate the exhibitions all around the city since June 2. More information can be found on Getxophoto’s website.
Belfast Photo Festival / Belfast, Northern Ireland / 1 – 30 June
The selection of photographers involved in Belfast Photo Festival 2023 is vast and rich in the diversity of approaches it provides, all reflecting on what a Journey can, photographically speaking, mean today: what happens when the unreachable becomes at hand, and unknown worlds become visible and explorable? The centuries-old preoccupation takes new and surprising angles as it travels through different countries and perspectives.
Jordi Ruiz Cirera on the realities of migrants, refugees and deportees across Mexico, M’hammed Kilito on the Moroccan oaeses’ ecosystem as threatened by the climate crisis, Kristen Joy Emack, Alice Mann, Carlos Idun-Tawiah, Aki & Astrid Sinikoski collectively investigating the passage from childhood to adulthood, Colin Delfosse on a performative approach, drenched in urban culture, to the Congolese problems of pollution, deforestation, and lack of healthcare, Vasantha Yogananthan on the pervasiveness and echoes of the myth of The Ramayana: these are just a few of the stories intertwining in Belfast this June, accompanied by a rich program of events in town, plus online portfolio reviews. Find out more on their website.
Copenhagen Photo Festival / Copenhagen, Denmark / 1 – 11 June
For eleven days, the exhibition park of Refshaleøen in Copenhagen will be, accordingly to the festival’s theme, rewilded. “Rewilding” refers to a process of letting nature regulate itself without human interference: six artists have put this principle into place through different perspectives, with Nanna Heitmann portraying the way of living along the Yenisei River in Russia, Kristina Knipe examining queer rituals in New Orleans as a tool for healing and celebration, Daniel Hinks focusing on China’s fishing culture, Craig Ames elaborating on Anna Atkins’ botanical specimens legacy today through AI, Hilla Kurki exploring her mother’s garden, Erik Berglin wheat-pasting hand cut photographs of birds in cities all over the world. Additionally, Copenhagen Photo Festival will exhibit the traveling show On the Verge from the FUTURES platform, showcasing more than 70 artworks from 7 Futures talents Cian Burke, Mark Duffy, Pauline Hisbacq, Julia Klewaniec, Alice Pallot, Daniel Szalai and Ugo Woatzi. Parts of the program are also an exhibition featuring the 2022 Paris Photo-Aperture Photobook Award Shortlist, a group exhibition curated by Atla, and shows by talents from across Scandinavian photo schools.
Film screenings, workshops, guided tours, talks and panels will take place during the eleven days: find out more on the festival’s website.
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ALSO OPEN THIS MONTH:
Fotofestiwal Lodz / Lodz, Poland / 15 – 25 June
One of the first photographic events to be established in Poland as an initiative of Lodz’ Sociology Department, Fotofestiwal is a collectively-led festival fostering the dissemination of photography in always experimental ways. With a program to be announced, it will again take place this year tackling fundamental social issues. Find out more on their website.
PHotoESPAÑA / Madrid, Santander, Cantabria and other locations, Spain / 31 May – 3 September
A rich program of exhibitions, workshops, walks, and other activities featuring artists such as Joan Fontcuberta, Bernard Plossu, Roni Horn, Rehab Eldalil, Seif Kousmate, Bleda y Rosa, Fina Miralles and many more will be spread across the Spanish capital and other key locations for the 2023 edition of this international meeting point for photography, which has been active from 1998. Find out more on their website.
Fotografia Europea / Reggio Emilia, Italy / 28 April – 11 June
Since 2006, Fotografia Europea is one of the main international yearly appointments for contemporary photography in Italy, displaying historical as well as emerging work to the city of Reggio Emilia. With Luce Lebart joining Walter Guadagnini and Tim Clark’s artistic direction, this year’s edition titled explores the European countries’ sense of collective belonging, and the way it is shaped by myths and memory. Explore the festival’s program on their website.
Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival / Toronto, Canada / 28 April – 11 June
Toronto’s CONTACT photography festival presents a vast array of exhibitions and activities showcasing work by Canadian and international lens-based artists, which collectively come to critically frame the social, cultural, and political events of our times, and the way photography can reflect upon them, and intersect with them. Discover more about the exhibited artists and the offered activities of the festival’s website.
Foto Wien / Vienna, Austria / 1 – 30 June
With 110 venues, 350 artists, and 300 events, the tenth edition of Foto Wien will make Vienna host a festival of visual media, reuniting 90 partners among museums, cultural institutions, galleries, and off spaces, encouraging photography as a social tool fostering action. All information on the exhibition and events program can be found on Foto Wien’s website.
Summer concert season gets kickstart with Roots Picnic [Events roundup]
![Summer concert season gets kickstart with Roots Picnic [Events roundup]](https://www.mecreates.com/story/news/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Lucy-Kaplansky.jpg)
The following events are planned for this weekend throughout the region:
• The Roots Picnic returns to the Mann in Fairmount Park on Saturday and Sunday. Usher will bring his Las Vegas residency performance to Philly, and Ms. Lauryn Hill will co-headline and perform the entirety of “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the seminal album’s release. Award-winning American comedian, screenwriter, television and film producer, and actor Dave Chappelle will make his Roots Picnic debut performing with The Roots. The lineup also celebrates local talent, including a headline set from Lil Uzi Vert, the return of Eve during Black Thought’s Live Mixtape set, DJ Drama, Kindred the Family Soul, a State Property Reunion, and more. For schedules, tickets and more information, see therootspicnic.com.
• The epic struggle between good and evil comes to life as SALT presents “Jekyll & Hyde,” opening Friday and running through June 18 at its West Chester location. The show is based on the classic story by Robert Louis Stevenson and features a score of pop-rock hits performed by a live orchestra and some of the best local talent. “‘Jekyll & Hyde’ explores the darker depths of humanity, and brings to light that all people are commingled with both good and evil; all are capable of the dark night of the soul,” said Lauren McComas, president and artistic director of SALT Performing Arts. “While this is not our typical family-friendly feel-good show, it’s an important piece of art, and we are excited to present it with such incredible talent.” This weekend’s show times are 7 p.m. Friday, 2 and 7 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday. Friday is Dressy Attire & Champagne Opening Night. For tickets and more information, visit saltpa.com/jekyllandhyde.
• The Bryn Mawr Twilight Concerts series kicks off Saturday with a performance by Lucy Kaplansky with opener Cabin Dogs at 7 p.m. at the Bryn Mawr Gazebo. Kaplansky started out singing in Chicago folk music clubs as a teenager. Then, barely out of high school, she took off for New York City, where she found a fertile community of songwriters and performers including Suzanne Vega, Steve Forbert, The Roches and others. With a flair for harmony, she has performed on Shawn Colvin’s Grammy-winning “Steady On,” and on Nanci Griffith’s “Lone Star State of Mind” and “Little Love Affairs.” Tickets cost $15 for ages 13 and older at brynmawrtwilightconcerts.com.
• Night Lights, a sky lantern festival inspired by the traditional Thai Lantern Festival, comes to Maple Grove Raceway, near Mohnton, on Saturday and Sunday from 5 to 10:30 p.m. The highlight of the evening is the lantern release an hour after sunset. There will be fire pits, s’mores kits, games, food, snacks and alcoholic beverages. Fred Lee will provide live music. Tickets are required for ages 7 and up and cost $54.50 in advance for Saturday and $39.50 in advance for Sunday at nightlightevents.com. If not sold out, tickets will be availabe at the gate for $74 and Saturday and $64 on Sunday.
• The Hawk Mountain Arts Tour, featuring more than 30 artists and businesses stationed throughout the Kempton valley plus a satellite location hosted by the Hamburg Area Arts Alliance at Etchberger Memorial Park, will be held Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Artists at the various stops will display pottery, wood and metal sculptures, and fine art paintings. The free driving tour takes place within a 25-mile radius of scenic Albany Township, and a printable map of the stops can be found online at hawkmountain.org/artstour. Printed maps will also be available to pick up at the Hawk Mountain Sanctuary’s Visitor Center, which is the first stop on the tour, featuring six local artisans. For information about participating artists, driving directions or other event details, visit hawkmountain.org/artstour.
• The Widoktadwen Center for Native Knowledge, City of Reading Public Works and PA Department of Health present the inaugural Good Medicine Indigenous Wellness Celebration on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Riverfront Park in Reading. Learn about Native American approaches to health and wellness and connect with local nonprofit and healthcare resources. The event kicks off at 10 a.m. with a Rally for the River, sponsored by American Rivers and co-hosted by Barrio Alegrίa and Berks Nature. Speakers will discuss the history of the Schuylkill River and how our health is intricately connected to the health of our land and water. There will be healthy cooking demonstrations, health education, vaccines, Native American dance demonstrations, music, arts and crafts and more. This family-friendly event is free and open to all. Visit widoktadwen.org/events/ for more info.
• Joan Osborne headlines the Upper Merion Concerts Under the Stars series at the Upper Merion Township Building Park on Friday at 6 p.m., with opener Jonah Tolchin. Osborne is an eight-time Grammy nominee and multi-platinum-selling recording artist. A native of Kentucky, she moved to New York City to attend NYU Film School but dropped out after becoming involved in New York’s downtown music scene. Her 1995 album, “Relish,” was a critical and commercial success and spawned the international hit single and video “What If God Was One of Us,” as well as “St. Teresa.” General admission tickets cost $25 for ages 13 and older at concertsunderthestarskop.com. A VIP option is also available.
• Turks Head Music Festival returns to Everhart Park, West Chester, on Sunday from 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Throughout the day, the two stages will feature eight local bands performing different genres of music, including rock, pop, folk, R&B, country and blues. Scheduled to perform, in order of appearance, are Tom Wang, Katie Barbato, Tree Walker, Will Borda, Strange Neighbors, Lost Northern Tribe, Flux Capacitor and Steve Liberace. The festival also features approximately 70 artists and vendor booths set up throughout the park to sell their products and high quality arts and crafts. Local vendors will be selling food. Admission is free. For more information, see turksheadfestival.com.
• The GoggleWorks Center for the Arts in downtown Reading will host a First Friday celebration from 5 to 9 p.m. featuring live performances, food trucks, a beer garden, vendors and other arts-related activities, including an opening reception for the National Juried Art Exhibition, featuring drawings, paintings, prints, collage and photographs. At 8:30 p.m. will be a public premiere of “From the River,” a documentary on the history of the greater Reading area, by local filmmaker Tracy Schott. Tickets for the film are $10 for general admission, $8 for seniors and $7 for students. For more information, see goggleworks.org.
• Luis Angel, also known as El Flaco, a Mexican singer, songwriter and musician who performs banda and other forms of Mexican folk music, will perform Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at the Santander Performing Arts Center, Reading. Angel became famous in 2003 when he joined the Mexican folk band Banda Los Recoditos, with whom he went on to release multiple albums and tour the world. He began his solo career in 2020 with the release of his debut single. “Reflexion.” Tickets start at $59.50 at santander-arena.com.
FEMA asks for photography and storytelling focused on climate resiliency
The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s ArtWorks program uses art to promote hazard mitigation, and it opened a new call for artwork May 1. ArtWorks is looking for photography that shows the challenges of adapting to a changing climate and how natural hazards affect our lives and communities.
Artists within FEMA Region 8, which includes Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming and 29 Tribal Nations, can submit artwork. Submissions should include images and stories about them, which can be text, audio or video and should focus on the artist’s approach to overcoming climate change.
The call for artwork lists examples of image themes, including social strength, building community, occupations, cultural values, traditions, improving infrastructure and protecting natural systems. Submissions can include up to five images to support one story.
Artist’s storytelling can include quotes, emotions, reflections or experiences that show how climate change impacts the artist’s life. The call for artwork asks artists to help raise awareness, inspire dialogue and encourage action to build a more sustainable and resilient future.
FEMA will award up to six winners $7,000 each for licensing and use rights. Children and adults of all ages are encouraged to submit artwork online by June 30.
Find more information and make a submission at Bit.ly/FEMAArtWorks and send questions or comments to FEMA-ArtWorks@fema.dhs.gov.
MMA Global India concludes IMPACT India 2023; unveils the Modern Marketing Reckoner 2023
MMA Global India, successfully concluded the highly anticipated MMA IMPACT India 2023 event on May 30, 2023. This immersive marketing conference brought together the brightest marketing minds in India. The event showcased a series of engaging panel discussions, thought-provoking keynotes, and enlightening masterclass session, making it a true banger in the marketing industry.
MMA IMPACT India 2023 was held at the Taj Santacruz in Mumbai. The event witnessed an incredible turnout of industry professionals, marketers, and stakeholders, all eager to explore and navigate the evolving digital landscape. The venue provided a fitting backdrop for a day filled with stimulating discussions and insights that resonated with attendees.
The much-awaited Modern Marketing Reckoner 2023- an MMA & GroupM initiative: Transform to Thrive, was officially launched at MMA IMPACT India 2023. The event featured insightful keynote sessions that explored emerging technologies, the impact of Generative AI on marketing, the digitisation of commerce, and the evolving landscape of media. These sessions provided attendees with valuable insights and knowledge, shaping their understanding of current and future marketing trends.
In the session on Emerging Tech, attendees gained valuable insights into the role of artificial intelligence, data tech, ad tech, and immersive innovations such as the Metaverse, AR/VR, and their potential to enhance customer engagement and drive business results.
The keynote session titled “Marketing in the Era of Generative AI: Challenges & Opportunities” explored the paradigm shift in the role of humans and AI in marketing. It discussed the transformational opportunities and formidable challenges that arise as AI surpasses humans in storytelling, image creation, melody composition, conversations, and virtual world creation.
The Digitizing Commerce session focused on crucial topics like O2O (online-to-offline) strategies, omnichannel approaches, and the power of exceptional customer experiences. The keynote session, “Creating A Seamless Omni-Commerce Experience,” delved into meeting consumer expectations of a seamless hybrid experience while rethinking omnichannel strategies. It provided insights on driving online and offline sales in the world of Digital x Physical convergence.
In the Media session, industry experts discussed new opportunities in connected TV (CTV), e-commerce advertising, voice and audio marketing, content marketing, influencer marketing, brand safety, and effective measurement techniques. The keynote session titled “Think CTV: What do we know about changing viewership & how does that redefine our marketing choices” highlighted the rapid growth of CTV as the fastest-growing screen on YouTube. It explored the changing viewership contexts and how brands need to redefine their media mix to meaningfully connect with premium audiences.
The combination of these keynote sessions and the comprehensive online primary study provided attendees with valuable knowledge about the industry’s perspective on ONDC, emerging technologies, digitising commerce, and media trends.
Moneka Khurana, Country Head & Board Member, MMA Global – India, emphasised the need for empowered marketers who can drive performance, leverage data and technology, and build brand reputation. She said, “While you are familiar with the theme, I would like to contextualise the theme differently, saying ‘Past vessels fail to contain the future’ and I truly believe so because this is really where we are, that too because of four key shifts that have happened across the board:
“Technology shifts (AI, 5G, Blockchain and more), Power shifts (From Center to Edge; from institution to an individual; from consolidated to fragmented), Boundary shifts (Be it office/home boundaries, be it hierarchy changes or blurring of roles) and Mind shifts (Due to Generational Differences and change in consumer behaviour) because there are generational differences, in the light of which we are living in a way more empowered world than before hence it needs empowered marketers with a greater voice, I would like to call them full-stack marketers who can drive performance, and leverage data and technology while building brand and reputation.
“Hence its key to upgrade skills and capabilities for a world where marketing is not a sidecar attached to a motorcycle but the engine that drives it. With that context, it was a no-brainer which was Rethink, Rebuild and Relearn to create winning marketing organizations 2.0,” Khurana added.
Amit Jain, MMA India Board Chair and Chairman of L’Oréal India highlighted MMA’s commitment to creating an ecosystem that empowers teams to anticipate the future of marketing. He said, “MMA is emerging as a credible platform for a lot of marketers and stakeholders. MMA is an organisation making an impact on the modern marketing community in the country and it believes in helping marketers and their partners solve their impediments to growth.
“The kind of work being done here is cutting edge and I can assure you that you will be seeing some state-of-the-art marketing which you will have access to in the months to come. MMA is not going to be about just creating good content, but much more beyond that and this is an important commitment the board has made to itself. The approach it is taking is creating an ecosystem that empowers the teams to anticipate what is beyond the corners,” Jain said.
During the event, three highlights stood out, captivating the attention of the audience:
Highlight 1: Annual Report Launch: Modern Marketing Reckoner
The much-awaited Modern Marketing Reckoner 2023- an MMA & GroupM initiative: Transform to Thrive was officially launched at MMA IMPACT India 2023. In the past few years, the annual report has come to be relied upon for key perspectives on growth, trends and forecasts in the Indian advertising and media industry. This year’s report again reveals several exciting, emerging trends for 2023 that are transforming the way we interact and consume information.
Filled with rich insights, this report is a 360-degree tool for marketers to take on challenges and get acquainted with adaptation techniques to navigate various uncertainties in 2023!
Highlight 2: Report Launch: Winning with DATA – The CXO’s Handbook
MMA India has recently unveiled the CXO Handbook titled “Winning With Data,” recognising the pivotal role of digital data in achieving success. This comprehensive guide is the result of a collaborative effort involving esteemed contributors such as Accenture, Google, Unilever, Flipkart Ads, and Vserv AudiencePro.
It represents an extraordinary endeavour, uniting our data partners and data council to present a cutting-edge resource for thriving in the data-first era. The handbook delves into the three primary categories of data: 1st, 2nd, and 3rd party data, offering valuable insights for firms to comprehend their customers, decipher their intents, make informed inferences, and refine their strategies accordingly.
Moreover, it highlights the escalating demand and vast opportunities for digitalisation while emphasising the importance of online privacy and the necessity for actionable measures by marketers. The handbook further emphasises the significant potential for campaign performance enhancement through the harmonious combination of human expertise and advanced machine learning technology.
Highlight 3: Decoding MMA India Survey: Industry’s Outlook on ONDC
A comprehensive online primary study was conducted in which 175 respondents participated. The objective of the study was to gauge the industry’s perspective on ONDC (Open Network for Digital Commerce) regarding the level of awareness, challenges and opportunities to be a part of the ONDC ecosystem.
The study aimed to explore the potential benefits and challenges associated with ONDC and its potential influence on the future of digital commerce. Additionally, the survey sought to assess the likelihood of companies adopting ONDC and identified the key factors that could sway their decision in favour of or against its implementation.
The study received feedback and valuable insights from over 175 respondents across the industry, whose perspectives were further discussed during a panel discussion. Attendees of the discussion gained valuable knowledge about the survey findings, shedding light on the impact and potential opportunities that ONDC presents within the digital commerce landscape.
Noteworthy highlights from the data include:
- An impressive 90% of respondents expressed their likelihood to adopt ONDC in some form within their companies.
- A significant 73% of respondents believed that ONDC could effectively level the playing field for small and medium-sized businesses in the digital commerce space.
- According to the respondents, ONDC holds the potential to transform digital commerce through market expansion, interoperability, and cost reduction.
- The majority of respondents, comprising 51%, expressed a strong belief in their company’s high likelihood of adopting ONDC in the future, while 39% considered it somewhat likely.
- A notable 54% of respondents believed that consumers would greatly benefit from the implementation of ONDC, gaining access to a wider range of products and services.
‘I felt extreme confusion: was I one or two people?’: Katie Cuddon’s sculptural explorations of motherhood
Fired up by the experience of raising a child in the pandemic, the sculptor discusses her latest works exploring the ‘incredibly physical’ relationship between mother and baby
