The Caligari Project is a unique, multi-disciplinary, city-wide, public festival, celebrating German Expressionism in its many forms, encompassing visual arts, film, music, dance, theatre, puppetry and a speakers series happening in Regina, Saskatchewan from September - December 2016.

 

During this three month city-wide arts festival, more than 20 arts activities and events will be held under the banner of The Caligari Project.

 

The Caligari Project is a project of the Cabinet Collective Inc., a nonprofit, Saskatchewan-based, interdisciplinary, artist-run organization with a mandate to present unique multidisciplinary arts events that engage the community through a variety of diverse creative modes with a focus on specific themes and an emphasis on collaborative, cross-disciplinary creation and presentation.

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Why celebrate German Expressionsism?

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Since the late eighteen-hundreds, and especially after WWI, the art of Expressionism, later known as German Expressionism, has been aggressively defying the materialistic view of art as mere reflection of the visible world. For, to create, is for Expressionist artists but a uniquely personalized and passionate reaction to the deep-seated anxieties and desires of modernity and post-modernity. The demise of German Expressionism after 1933 in the hands of the Nazis is a painful but powerful testament to the subversive potential of the movement, which at that time has come to encompass visual arts, literature, music, theatre, and certainly film. Indeed, the unique ability of Expressionism to bring out the hidden and the repressed, and to challenge the status quo in art, but also in life, has secured its longevity for over a century now. 

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- Dr. Christina Stojanova, Department of Film, University of Regina,

Curator, Film Series The Cinematic Legacies of German Expressionism (January-September, 2016, Regina Public library)

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Organizer, The Art of Expressionism Speaker Series (September-October 2016, University of Regina)