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Welcome to the First Annual (we hope) Forest Fest : Gabriola Sound Symposium. Held on the traditional unceded terrority of the Snuneymuxw nation, Forest Fest is a community gathering event focused on our connections through sound, at the intersection of art, nature, and embodied experience. Forest Fest is an invitation to have fun, and to discover the Gabriola Commons as a setting to experience our  community by listening, exploring and sharing  impressions of our sensory environment. We gratefully acknowledge all the help we have received from friends, sponsors and members of our community, in the hopes that this day will become a template for future events.

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With an open invitation to all ages and abilities, Forest Fest is a festival of participation and exploration. Discover the fundamentals of sound, find out about the physics and the experience of phenomena like Cymatics and Bone Induction. Experience installations that play with sounds drawn from environmental recordings and the Gabriola soundscape, create sound using your voice, play with found items, vegetables and water. Listen to the sounds of the forest, of animals, chainsaws, musical instruments, and experience audiovisual environments that bring the Commons to life through sound, light and animated spaces. Experiment with sound in immersive environments, audio experiments such as 'Loomcore' and site-specific sound explorations in the yurt. You will be invited to create alongside collaborators, demonstrators, and performers, and to reflect on your experiences in discussions with sound art practicioners and artists from many disciplines.

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Forest Fest will offer a multi-sensory experience of art leading to creative discovery that reaches far beyond a familiar entertainment structure, but one that fuels inspiration to create in the hearts of the Gabriola Island Community. Please join us!

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Dinah D., Mars Kurek, Andreas Kahre

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