2015 Spur Guelph Festival

Each of us experiences the world differently. But what connects us all is language—a complex, inadequate system of communication that dazzles and frustrates us with its many forms. All our ways of being in, thinking about, and knowing the world around us depend on our use and understanding of language. Our cultures are shaped by the relationships we find in words written, spoken and sung.

Over three days, the Spur Guelph Festival offered lectures, conversations, musical performances, literary readings, film screenings and city walks that considered how we can imagine new possibilities for the world beyond the status quo. The festival invited us to pause and to think together poetically as we imagine our futures—and then go out into the world to bring them into reality.

In advance of the festival Andrew Vowels with the University of Guelph interviewed Lee Maracle about her recent writing, the legacy of Canada’s residential schools, storytelling, relations between Canadians and First Nations, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission:

View the 2015 Program PDF