About the Festival

Come Alive in Guelph

The ArtsEverywhere Festival is the place where conversations, ideas, and artistic experiments presented on ArtsEverywhere.ca come alive in our home community of Guelph, Ontario, Canada.

Over four days, the festival offers lectures, conversations, music, artistic performances, circle gatherings, literary readings, exhibitions, and much more. As the publisher of ArtsEverywhere.ca, Musagetes co-presents the festival in partnership with the University of Guelph and the Eramosa Institute. Many other community partners collaborate with us to co-present specific events.

The Guelph Lecture—On Being

The festival’s inspiration and its signature event, The Guelph Lecture—On Being, celebrates its 20th year in 2023—a testament to the success of community initiatives and the life of creative ideas in Guelph. Since the Eramosa Institute launched the lecture in 2003, it has become a widely recognized series with each event consisting of a literary reading, music performance, and keynote lecture. Past literary guests have included Tanya Talaga, Lee Maracle, Miriam Toews, Sandra Birdsell, Rawi Hage, M.G. Vassanji, Michael Helm, Ann Hui, and Thomas King, among many others. Past lectures have been presented by Jeannette Armstrong, Joseph Heath, Madeleine Redfern, John Ralston Saul, Lee Smolin, Jaron Lanier, Louise Fréchette, Henry Mintzberg, Alexandre Trudeau, Severn Cullis-Suzuki, Guy Maddin, Atom Egoyan, Brigitte Shim, Janice Gross Stein, and Mark Kingwell. Our musical guests have included The Young Turban Professionals with Esmeralda Enrique, Martha Henry, Spencer Shewen, Spirits of Havana with Jane Bunnett, Oni the Haitian Sensation, Lauren Mann and the Fairly Odd Folk, Okavango African Orchestra, Midnight Shine, The Penderecki String Quartet, DJ Cyclist, Basia Bulat, and Sarah Neufeld. Many of the programs that we have presented over the years are available in full in our archives (see “Past Festivals” in the above menu).

ArtsEverywhere Keeps the Conversation Going

The ArtsEverywhere Festival aims to spark rich dialogues about issues, ideas, and challenges that are of the interest to our Guelph & Region audiences, and of relevance and interest to our national and global audiences on ArtsEverywhere.ca. By bringing to the gathering a diverse, informative, creative, and, sometimes, unlikely combination of speakers, artists, and musicians, the festival offers a program that connects to the ongoing work and needs of many organizations and individuals that wish to make the world a better place. For this reason, we involve a large team of volunteers, partner organizations & businesses, sponsors, and creative people who have a say in who we invite, how we frame the discussions, and how we keep the conversation going after the festival is over.

Land Acknowledgement

The ArtsEverywhere Festival takes place on the ancestral and treaty lands of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation of the Aanishinaabek Peoples. Throughout history, this land and these waters have also been home to the Chonnonton Peoples (“People of the Deer”), as well as the Haudenosaunee from the south, and the Anishanaabe and Métis from the North. We offer respect as we strengthen our relationships with them. We express our gratitude for sharing these lands for our mutual benefit.