The Pangaea Diversity Cafe, featuring local artists and musicians and a lot more, maybe even a juggler this year is all set to go for Oct. 19 at the Penny Foster Building downtown.

 “ We’ve brought a lot of community organizations together. So it’s just an informal get-together. You don’t have to come and listen to a lot of lectures, you just come and have a few refreshments, and relax and enjoy yourself,” said Roy Pogorzeski, one of the primary organizers of the event.

The organizations have been holding diversity cafes  every two or three months since last September at a variety of locations around the city.

The first one was at the Southern Alberta Art Gallery and featured numerous local artists.

“It was about bringing local artists together,” he continued.

 They also had a myth busting session at  city hall, to examine stereotypes.

What does Lethbridge taste like? Bison and corn or potato and sage for vegetarians according to Dodolab, an Ontario based arts and design program. They do innovative, community  involved projects designed to create discussion and debate.

In Lethbridge’s case, at the request of University of Lethbridge Art Gallery’s Josephine Mills, Dodolab’s Andrew Hunter and Lisa Hirmer wanted to create a dialogue about food and where it comes from.

So they and about a half dozen volunteers talked to approximately 750 people on campus including students and staff as well as to  several different classes. They spent most of the week on campus canvassing students and staff about which two ingredients which most exemplified Lethbridge, asking them to choose between zucchini, corn, potatoes, edamame, sage, chickpeas, shrimp, bison sausage, bean sprouts and cactus.

The shortlist was chosen, not only according to what ingredients are grown or produced in the area, but also which ingredients were associated with settlers like Japanese and Chinese people.

“It is about creating a dialogue with people about where their food comes from,” said Dodolab’s Andrew Hunter.
Hunter was impressed with the response.

 “We’ve done projects in other places and they have been like pulling teeth. People just didn’t want to talk to us. But here, we were talking to people in a hurry on their way to class and they really wanted to  stop and talk to us,” he observed. While they have done a variety of different projects including creating a travelling menagerie about local animals in Thetford, land use in Charlottetown, songwriting about work and labour in Hamilton, Lethbridge  was the first time they designed a pizza for a community.

While the  Bowman Arts Centre’s new exhibits have been up for a week already, the opening reception is Oct. 1.
““There was so much happening last week, that it is impossible to see everything,” said curator Darcy Logan.

““And it’s a nice complement to Arts Days.”

Medicine Hat artist Linda Carney premieres “Vanishing” in the Bowman Arts Centre Music Room Gallery.

 It features a series of watercolours featuring endangered and vanishing species like eagles.