By Caroline Homet  – Contributor

The team for the Bishop’s University Arts Festival, a student-led event held on our campus, is getting ready for a crazy week of events, from March 25 to April 1!

I met with BU Arts Fest co-directors Caleb Stemp and Alexis Paquin to talk about their aspirations for this year’s festival. 

Caroline: What is your vision and mission for this year’s Arts Fest?

Caleb: The art festival was created to unite the artistic disciplines and create opportunities for student artists to share their own work, but also to invite artists from outside. It’s really a multidisciplinary festival. We have contributions from departments like psychology, astronomy, physics, computer science, English…

Alexis: We also definitely want to open it to the community. I’m from Sherbrooke, and I’ve been here for quite some time, and there’s a rivalry between French and English communities. I want to break that barrier a little bit and open the festival to the greater Sherbrooke community and to show that even though we have the name BU Arts Fest, we want to provide the experience to as many people as possible. 

The themes of psychedelia, street art and technology also tie in with our mission and goal. We all thought that, not only do the themes relate to each other really well, but they also allow for more accessible and relatable events. 

Caleb: We realized that all of these sub-themes are forward-thinking. They’re looking towards the future, towards expansion and towards collaboration. We’re really relating art to culture as opposed to focusing on one art form. 

Caroline: I noticed you changed your logo recently. Why did you think it was important to change it? 

Alexis: That decision was a little odd, and it was odd for a reason. We wanted to create confusion and to boggle people’s minds. Having multiple versions of the logo that come out multiple times causes people to ask questions as to what we were doing. When, in fact, behind the scenes, it was all planned. 

Caroline: What are the biggest challenges you are facing so far? 

Caleb: I think people didn’t know that the Arts Fest existed. That’s been a huge goal this year to get the word out as early as possible and keep consistent marketing strategies to stay on people’s radar.

Caroline: What event are you looking forward to the most?

Alexis: Mine is the dance battle. I’ve been hearing comments about how people want the music at the Gait to be different. They want more thematic nights and two big ones were techno and hip-hop. I’m a big hip-hop head, so I wanted an old, classic, 90s-2000s type vibe. Bring your old Kangol hat, bring your old baggy jeans, bring your baby fat. 

Caleb: I think the hip-hop night is what I’m most excited for too. I feel like I should pick something else so we can advertise multiple events, but that’s what I’m most excited for.