Year 5, Pushing Forward

Basin Arts entered Year 5 (Aug. 2020–Aug. 2021) in the thick of a global pandemic, but creativity never stopped — it simply moved outside. We launched outdoor dance and movement classes, and continued youth classes safely outdoors. Professional dancers found a safe way to continue training through our PLATFORM Outdoor Dance Residency program, and our young dancers even performed live on the Parc International stage in Downtown Lafayette, bringing a bit of brightness to a difficult year.

We kicked off our very first Window Wonderland, turning downtown Lafayette into a walkable gallery of visual art installations during the holidays. We created a short-film in response to the pandemic’s death toll, encouraging our community to practice safety during a covid surge. On social media, we launched Art Circle, a weekly feature spotlighting the vibrant artists in our community. And, we even got our very own “Basin Brew” when Reve Coffee chose Basin Arts as its 2021 Reve the Movement partner contributing proceeds from the coffee back to our organization.

Year 5 also marked the beginning of the ProjectSpace Residency, a new artist residency and exhibition program. The inaugural ProjectSpace Residency exhibition, SHARP by Drake LeBlanc , brought bold visual storytelling into our space. Later that year, Hagit Barkai and Clare Cook collaborated on The Panic of Fixing Things, further exploring the intersection of visual art and performance. Both of these inaugural projects helped to shape our annual ProjectSpace Residency which begins its fifth artist cycle very soon!