The ‘River of Dreams’ portion of the Provocation Ideas Festival (PIF) kicked off its month-long run on Friday, Nov. 1, with an opening reception at Our Stōr(y) to welcome idea makers and the public.
Mark Rosenfeld, the festival’s founding director and president, said that ‘River of Dreams’ is a chance to explore things the community cares about and use all kinds of approaches to do it.
“We have a number of events that explore dreaming and asking the question, ‘where does Stratford’s best future lie?’,” he said. “In ‘Reimagining Stratford: Designing the future city’, we get to ask the question of what is the future for Stratford and what do we want out of it. River of Dreams lets us explore the power and ability to dream.”
Kevin September, owner of Our Stōr(y) and part of the River of Dreams section of the festival, was very emotional when talking about the realization of this part of PIF and how it is bringing the best out of those who chose to get involved.
“I started feeling this way a few weeks ago when things really started coming together,” he said. “About two months ago I asked a few artists to take part, and since then people have really stepped up with a lot of great original ideas. This has been the best kind of challenge, thinking about what art can be.”
Stratford Mayor Martin Ritsma gave a few brief remarks to help kick off the reception, saying how appreciative he is for the artistic culture surrounding the festival and how eager he was to finally see the festival commence.
“When we had the press conference down by the river a few weeks ago, I was struck by the river’s history, and something that struck me while I was there was that a lot of dreams have been born there but how many of them went unanswered because there was no way to realize them,” he said. “I see this festival as a way to realize those dreams, and I want to thank Mark, Kevin and everyone with the festival for allowing people to dream big.”
A complete event listing for the 2024 Provocation Ideas Festival in Stratford can be found here.
