First-ever Peace Arts Festival to be held in Dawson Creek 

DAWSON CREEK, B.C. — Dawson Creek will host the first Peace Arts Festival, celebrating local artists with various displays and events throughout the city.

The Kiwanis Performing Arts Centre (KPAC) organized the event to draw everybody together to celebrate everything that is art.

Johanna Martens, Executive Director of KPAC, is very excited about the event’s first year and hopes it will return for many more years. 

“We are already thinking about next year and how we can even get more people involved,” said Martens. 

Martens said the event’s motivation is to bring the community together and change the bad reputation she has seen in the community related to crime and other activities. 

“The arts have such a huge impact on our mental health. Its significance and belonging bring people together,” said Martens. “There’s been a lot of kind of negative things going on around our community, people feeling lost and disassociated with wanting to be part of the community.”

The arts festival will feature local artists and performers showcasing their talents in music, visual arts, film, workshops, and more.

The festival will be held from June 6th to 9th, 2024, at various locations in Dawson Creek and its rural surroundings, including Rolla. 

The festival started as a grassroots community initiative in the fall of 2023 and has grown to include over 20 local community groups in some capacity.

Martens says they started with practically no budget but have become well-funded through small grants from the City of Dawson Creek, MLA Mike Bernier, the British Columbia Arts Council, and others. 

The festival will have multiple activities going on every day throughout the week for adults and children.  

Performers such as Saltwater, Hank, Lorissa Scriven, and Danny Hall will kick off the festival on June 6th.

The South Peace Garden Club Workshop on June 7th will allow residents to discover the joy of crafting and gardening with hands-on activities like creating origami pots, branded wire heart garden decorations, and flower threading pictures. 

On Saturday, June 8th, residents can experience a double feature: “Interstellar Civil War” and “Hard Reset.”

On the last day, people can experience the “Raku with Dori Braun and Kit Fast” at the Dawson Creek Art Gallery to learn about the Japanese style of pottery first made in the 1500s. 

More information on the Peace Arts Festival can be found on its website.