The Virtualian Festival: Ongoing, Online and Original!

Have all of your favourite concerts and events been postponed or cancelled? Are you craving a culture crawl? Then tune in every Saturday with ARTCi director Brunella Battista as she hosts the Virtualian Festival!

Brunella conceived of and created this on line celebration of arts and culture in response to the fact that people all over the globe are self-isolating due to COVID-19.

Brunella was particularly touched by the ways in which people were striving to connect in her native Italy. She reminisced about the Sundays when she would gather with her own family and they would jam, draw, paint, cook and tell stories. She wanted to capture the feeling of connectedness and intimacy of these gatherings somehow, that feeling of experiencing the arts in a communal way where everyone could participate on their own level, where they could engage with one another and ‘converse’.

To meet the world’s need to connect and create, Brunella founded and hosts "Virtualian", a festival of arts, dialogue, and connections every Saturday, at 4 pm PST. There are different artists, comedians, musicians, and interactive participatory experiences every time! Audience members can attend the festival from anywhere in the world using Zoom, a free web based video conferencing app.

The festival, which focuses on the process of arts engagement, is also free, however donations and sponsors are welcome to help support the artists, many of whom have lost revenue streams due to COVID-19.

Personally, I look forward to the Virtualian Festival each week. The variety of professional comedians, actors, musicians, poets, dancers, visual artists and writers featured is always entertaining. I find my spirits lifted and my world expanded in this hour.

Some artists already featured have been Ross Green, Jan Bannister, Michelle Hersey and Italian artists Blanxis.