THE HEADLINERS
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Aquakultre (Lance Sampson) - The Listening Lounge: Don't Trip
'The Listening Lounge offers lowlight and a sensory friendly space for festival goers to unwind and vibe with 'Don't Trip', an album from CBC Searchlight award-winning rapper and neo-soul songwriter Lance Sampson. The record will be looping through the evening so listeners can drop into the Lounge at their leisure.
Initially, Sampson envisioned the album’s sound as a tribute to every era of R&B. “I Can Wait”, featuring Chudi Harris, Zamani Miller, and underground Halifax rapper Nixx, is his homage to the classic mid-2000s rumpshaker sound reminiscent of Next’s “Too Close.” Elsewhere, the lush retro vibes of “Magic” reckon with Sampson’s upbringing from an absentee father. Continuing the family affair, Phoenix Pagliacci and O’Sound’s voices flow through the horn-propelled boogie funk of “You Got Feets”, with lyrics about a grandmother busting out her best moves. The album wraps up like a brown paper bag in Sampson’s closing collaboration with New Jack Swing duo DJ Chidow and Vadell Gabriel, bringing those house party vibes back in full effect.
Brandon Hoax - Tent Piece
Tent Piece - is an extension of MOVEMARROW. The piece uses ribbon, a material used as decoration and embellishment for different indigenous wear; like powwow regalia, ribbon shirts, and ribbon skirts. The piece is a three-dimensional structure for the viewer to move around; move through; dance around; dance through; stand around; stand inside.
You both meet.
The Tent is a structure to protect your body.
The structure is a body adorned.
The work moves from the viewer interacting with it; as well as from standing free within the environment, small movements made from environmental factors. Sweeping gestures from participation, small dances from standing still.
You both depart.
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Donica Larade - Blueprints of Memory
'Blueprints of Memory' will offer festival goers an opportunity to cyanotype small personal objects and preserve them in real time with Donica Larade guiding guests through the science, the process and the importance of preservation.
Website:
Jordan Johnson - Throwback Thursday
Jordan Johnson is going back to the building blocks of her arts practice, to create
moveable large scale paintings that reveal stories of belonging through texture, play
and colour. 'Throwback Thursday' invites guests to rewind and play.
Website:
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Krista Leigh Davis - Choreographies for Capitalist Ruins
'Choreographies for Capitalist Ruins' is a tiny glimpse into the Extremophile's world. Set in a small black box, Davis presents the video to share the feeling of examining microbial movements under microscopes where tiny drops of water can feel like an infinite universe: Dance, Dance, [More-than-Human] Revolution! A tiny revolution of care is unfolding at our feet. It’s playing out in the garden dirt, ponds and forest burns. In the gutters and guts of the cities. In impossibly contaminated land marked by fences and signs to KEEP OUT. This is resistance, with a seemingly preposterous playbook that just might lead us toward futures different from the ones we’re headed for. And you’re invited.
Two of Davis' video works in this series will be on display, and they will be accompanied live by the revolution's spokesmicrobe who will be sharing revolutionary exercises onsite.
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Rezound - Memory Stream
Rezound invites you to be part of an enchanting journey where stories and music blend into a living, breathing experience. At this year’s festival, Rezound will create an ever evolving ambient landscape, improvising with loops, samples, and the unique audio contributions of festival-goers all collaborating to create 'Memory Stream'.
Whether you share a personal memory, a snippet of a story, or a simple sound, your voice will become part of the collective soundscape. Each contribution will be woven seamlessly into the music, creating a unique, immersive experience that evolves throughout the night. Let your story become part of the tapestry!
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AND FEATURING
Abby Bent - Mother Tongue
Mother Tongue -- the first language that you learn, passed down, lineage and lines. A tin can telephone or acoustic speech- transmitting device, used to send messages, tell stories, relate to, or speak. This piece uses the general operational values of a
device known as a "tin can" telephone, sending sound vibrations from one point to another along a channel.
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Breaking the Silence - Maritimes Guatemala Network - Stories of family separation and reunion
The creation of a community mural representing participants’ stories of either having to leave family, or being reunited with family after a long separation.
WEBSITE
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Cecily Anderson - Willow Lantern Workshop
(Festival Night One - Friday, September 19 - Register for the workshop by emailing antigonightartfest@gmail.com)
Cecily will explore the art of willow lantern making in a free workshop Friday night (September 19). Participants will create a lantern using simple materials including willow, paper and fairy lights, and are invited to gather Saturday night for a lantern walk through the festival. Be part of the art while you check out the other installations and performances, illuminated by a bobbing constellation of hand crafted lanterns.
WEBSITE
Cyd Sparrow - This could be anywhere
This could be anywhere explores how nature combined with lived experience acts not as a passive backdrop to individual tales but has an active role in how we relate to personal and communal stories. This piece focuses on how ephemeral debris found in
nature can parallel queer identity to provide expansive and sometimes disruptive perspectives to how we discover belonging with ourselves and the communities we are a part of.
This work removes, replaces, and recreates layers of multiple environments to create new context in which to construct personal narrative. To expand individual stories relating to queer identity that can enrich communal lore beyond societal framework and institutions.
Ellis Pickersgill - Collective Anthologies
Collective Anthologies is a library of three books, with fabric pages stitched from recovered materials, themed:
Origins - Where do you come from? Who and what made you?
Actions - How do you build the life and world you want for yourself and your community?
Dreams - What does our future hold? What do you want to see for the world and for future generations?
We invite participants to answer these questions through words, drawings, color, etc. If they wish to be included, the pages will be transferred to the fabric pages in real time, growing the anthologies over the course of the festival, and be on display for participants to view, inviting them to see the power of collective storytelling.
Haley Ryerson & Ellen Gibling - Natural Elements
Natural Elements is a genre-blurring performance work by fiddler-composer Hayley Ryerson, in collaboration with harpist Ellen Gibling. Rooted in the traditions of Scottish fiddling and improvisation, this immersive musical experience invites audiences into a meditative exploration of melody, movement, and elemental
connection.
Accompanied by projected film of flowing water—cast onto a translucent sheet suspended overhead—the visual environment surrounds listeners, who are welcome to sit beneath the installation and be gently enveloped in light, sound, and motion.
Natural Elements invites stillness, attention, and presence in an intimate, sensory-rich atmosphere.
Featuring original compositions, Natural Elements offers an experience where intricate textures and intuitive musical expression coalesce with visual projection into a gentle, transformative encounter. This installation is a reminder that, much
like water, collective wisdom flows through and around us and is there to be had.
WEBSITE
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Hearts & Hands, L'Arche Antigonish - Rays of Hope: Stories of Belonging
Creating a large stained glass window that captures and reflects the rich tapestry of our lived stories of belonging.
WEBSITE
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Jacinte Armstrong - Paper Dance Constructions
In Paper Dance Constructions, dance artist Jacinte Armstrong
weaves movement, storytelling, and sculptural form into an
immersive performance. Audience members first write their own
short stories—personal lore—on a large paper “blanket.” Then, they
physically manipulate the paper, engaging touch, movement,
hearing, and vision. From within the paper structure, the experience
feels intimate and embodied; from outside, it appears visually
striking. Armstrong treats movement as a mode of thought—
revealing the stories held in body and mind—and invites the
audience to join in making those stories visible.
Janet Becigneul - Ghost Lore Tour
(Festival Night One - Friday, September 19 - Register for the Tour by emailing antigonightartfest@gmail.com)
Come join Janet Becigneul of the Haunted Antigonish Ghost Tour and learn about the world-famous ghosts here in Antigonish. From the Blue Nun and Red Priest to the fire ghost of Caledonia Mills, this town is renowned for its ghosts. In fact, the name “Antigonish” is most often associated with the ghost-inspired poem Antigonish (I met a man who wasn't there) by Hughes Mearns, which inspired a film and a few songs, including the David Bowie hit "The Man Who Sold The World" (famously covered by Nirvana).
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Kat MacDonald - The Human in the Screen
This multimedia work features a wearable mask with a built in camera that sends a live video feed to a projection on a multi layer cheesecloth screen. Viewers are actively working with this installation to create the artwork. They see themselves in multiple
versions, not only in the projection, but also in the shadows cast by the light of the projector. This invites the audience to question the effect of repetition of their image and how they are perceived. In an increasingly online climate, attention needs to be brought to our relationships to screens and out technological identities. This piece is also a reference to the "human in the loop" theory, wherein the human is reacting to the computer who is reacting to the human, and so on.
Luca Jesse Apel - Masks of Memory
An invitation to don one of ten masks depicting deities, demons, and benevolent woodland creatures from Slavic pagan folklore.
WEBSITE
Mary Beth Carty & Heather MacIsaac - Craft Ceilidh Session
(Festival Night One - Friday, September 19 -The Ceilidh will be a simultaneous event with the Lantern Workshop, followed by the Ghost Lore Tour)
Bring your fiddle, mandolin, whistle, guitar, dancing shoes, or accordion and hop in to this special Friday night tune circle! Or simply tap your feet and listen in! Hosted by Mary Beth Carty on accordion and guitar, as well as Heather MacIsaac on pipes and whistles, this open Celtic community jam will include Irish, Scottish, Cape Breton, and Acadian tunes, and whatever wildcards happen to fall into the mix!
Both hosting artists are multi-instrumentalists and singers who grew up in Antigonish. Mary Beth is an award-winning musician who is passionate about community-building through music and dance. Heather is a composer whose recent album The Moon’s Daughter is nominated for a 2025 Nova Scotia Music Award. Together they will welcome players into this acoustic circle for an evening of sharing, jamming, and positive vibes!
WEBSITES
https://linktr.ee/heathermacisaac
Qi Cai - Whispers on Fans
“Whispers On Fans” is a hands-on community workshop centered around the art of abstract lacquer painting on traditional round fans. Inspired by the ancient Chinese tradition of the “secret-telling fan,” this project invites participants to craft deeply personal, wordless stories through color, texture, and movement—an offering to Antigonight 2025’s theme, Lore: The Stories We Share.
In Chinese history, fans often carried hidden meanings and silent messages: a single plum branch on silk might express a longing to bend for love, while a pair of swallows could signal a desire to fly together. In this workshop, we reinterpret these coded gestures through abstraction—fluid colors replacing brushstroke symbols, texture standing in for poetry, and silence taking the place of speech. Each fan becomes a personal “letter never sent,” telling a story in whispers.
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Uriel Guerrero-Aconcha - Shared Portions
Sponsored by Arts Health Antigonish (AHA!)
Shared Portions is a participatory installation that transforms reused plastic takeout containers into glowing vessels of memory, care, and resistance. Instead of food, each container holds a recipe, a story, a photograph, a personal offering from someone in
the community. Visitors to the installation are invited to "order" a story and, in return, contribute one of their own. Rooted in the ethics of gift exchange, Shared Portions subverts fast food culture and capitalist disposability by turning plastic into archive,
connection, and ritual. Through workshops and shared meals, the project builds a collective kitchen of memory, a space where storytelling becomes an act of nourishment, resilience, and quiet love.
Share a recipe or story for Uriel's installation. Click to learn more!
Xin Liu - Jie Qi‘s Dragon
Jie Qi’s Dragon began as an art and education initiative grounded in the traditional Chinese calendar of 24 solar terms. It was designed to inspire awareness of climate change, environmental shifts, and cultural continuity, using the structure of dragon scales as a visual format to connect seasonal concepts with children’s drawings and multicultural imagination.
We once thought it was a creation. But its core visual structure was, in fact, drawn from something deeper — the unique surface patterns formed along the winter roads of Prince Edward Island, Canada. Shaped by cycles of freezing and thawing, human activity, and plant growth, these natural cracks closely resemble the traditional Chinese motifs of dragon patterns: linked beads, spirals, and the layered rhythms seen in ancient architectural ornamentation.
In this moment of recognition, a dramatic convergence of aesthetics and philosophy occurred:
What we believed we were painting was already being written by the earth.
What we called Jie Qi was always there — a pattern etched by time onto the skin of the land.
Cori MacInnis, ASAP Artist in Residence - Breathe
A series of watercolour portraits celebrating mothers and babies, painted to decorate the walls of the Highland Community Midwives Clinic and, hopefully, to inspire, comfort, uplift and reflect the experiences of the families that use the clinic in the future. The subjects were all clients of the clinic, photographed and painted by Cori MacInnis, an artist, art educator and mother.
Help Cori name the "Breathe' series and try your hand at a little watercolour to take home with you. What story do You see?
SPECIAL GUESTS
X Helping Hands - Henna Designs
Breaking the Silence - Coffee and Crafts
Antigonish Aikikai- Japanese Martial Art Demonstrations
Me Mudder's Cupboard Popcorn Truck