HARBOR WORKSEvents
Harbor Works hosts a variety of events that support the film and camera arts, engage documentary storytellers and focus attention on sustainable communities. Most notable are the Gallery’s opening receptions for exhibits—festive outdoor gatherings where visitors can meet the artist, converse with residents and observe one of Maine’s last working waterfronts. Guest lectures and gallery talks provide historical and geographical context to the subject on display, and give photographers an opportunity to discuss their craft. Accompanying performances by songwriters and musicians, whose lyrics speak of working landscapes and seascapes, draw a diverse crowd from nearby communities. Occasional storytelling by local naturalists and craftsmen bring wit and humor to the Gallery.
EcoCinema, presented in association with Frontier Café, Cinema & Gallery in neighboring Brunswick, Maine, features screenings of award-winning documentary and dramatic films about life and work in resource-based communities that are struggling for sustainability and environmental justice. Each film is a timely and emotional portrait of a marginal or unconventional place whose aspirations and challenges convey a universal message. Accompanying presentations by a director or cast member provide occasions for lively discussions of relevance to climate change, human ecology, alternative resources, documentary filmmaking and media activism. Frontier’s historic Mill 3, fashioned from reclaimed materials that express the spirit of conservation and animated by a mission to engage visitors with experiences that encourage discovery, offers a dynamic space in which to tell stories that educate and inspire. Major funding for EcoCinema is provided by The Nature Conservancy and the Chewonki Foundation.
Holidays and special events are occasions for Harbor Works to bring local communities into the Gallery. Cundy’s Harbor Days, a traditional, early August celebration featuring a parade, lobster crate race, local music and the blessing of the fleet, is a time for coastal residents to see the photographs and writings that children of Maine’s commercial fishing families created for This Place of Mine. The Holbrook Community breakfast, freshly-prepared at Holbrook’s Wharf by volunteers each Labor Day, draws more than two hundred residents, many of whom come to socialize at the Gallery. Downtown and All Around, an annual open studio and “shop local” event, sponsored by the Five Rivers Arts Alliance on the first weekend in December, draws mid-coast art seekers to Harbor Works for holiday refreshments and an off-season opportunity to see the Gallery’s collections, featuring documentary photographs of Maine’s working waterfront.
Please watch the calendar for upcoming Harbor Works and community events.