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Our Mission
Artica provides a platform to celebrate the creative spirit of St. Louis culminating in our annual riverfront festival.
Each year, Artica invites artists of all genres and media to honor this city's history, push creative boundaries, and engage their communities through interactive art at our annual riverfront festival. The multidisciplinary nature of Artica Festival inspires collaboration between artists and fosters the development of new, contemporary works of art. This free, unconventional art festival is the culmination of our efforts to promote the advancement of local artists year round.
Since 2002, Artica has celebrated and supported the ingenuity, innovation, and imagination of St. Louis.
Our Vision & Values
We envision and work to support a world that nurtures creativity and ignites imagination!
Our core values include
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Accessibility
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Support for Artists
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Community Involvement
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Decommodification
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Experimentation
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Participation
Our Principles
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At ARTICA, we are committed to empowering artists and promoting their work. Our platform is designed to be a supportive space where artists can thrive, connect with a wider audience, and gain recognition for their artistic contributions. We are dedicated to providing a platform that celebrates artistic expression and fosters a vibrant creative community.
Art provides society with connection and context. Art promotes shared emotion and shared experience. Art communicates differences, similarities, joys, and fears. Art educates, it remembers the part and it predicts the future. Art is important. The ARTICA Festival is a celebration of this importance, one which arises from several core principles:
Everyone is a Creative Being
Central to the spirit of the ARTICA Festival is the affirmation that each and every person is infused with a wellspring of creativity. ARTICA nurtures the wildness and freedom for all to radically and experimentally express themselves.
Community, Cooperation & Participation
Everyone is encouraged to add to the experience of the ARTICA Festival. All are welcome to volunteer. All are welcome to create. All are welcome.
Our Currency is Creativity and Participation
The ARTICA Festival is free to attend and nothing is bought or sold on site. Board and staff work all year to create an art and artist focused festival as a community experience. Removing the estrangement of fiscal sponsorship, transactions and advertising frees the festival to be a creative collaboration of expression and wonder.
A Special Place
At the ARTICA Festival, art is a collaboration with the space. Artists are challenged and inspired by the history and the landscape. It is a benign filter that blocks the mundane and familiar. The environment compels creators to experiment and problem-solve which results in unique and innovative works. When ARTICA manifests outside the festival, this quality, uniquely filtered and forged, comes with it, whether it be a workshop, parade, community event or fundraiser.
Accessibility at Artica
Artica does its best to make the festival accessible to any and all including those with disabilities and difficulties to participate in the festival. The gate entrance and festival areas immediately inside the entrance are handicapped accessible including the drinking water, portable toilets, art installations, seating, and the Community Stage.
The fundamental nature of Artica, experiencing site-specific multi-media art in and around a site of urban decay and industrial detritus, necessitates that some locations of the festival are more difficult to get to. That being said, the staff at Artica is prepared to do everything they can to help participants get where they want to go and to experience as much of Artica as desired. We have alternative transportation available on site to help transport to and across more difficult spaces. Do not hesitate to find a staff member or volunteer to ask for assistance. The gate entrance is always attended.
Diversity at Artica
Artica, a multi-disciplinary arts organization founded to celebrate the creative community of the St. Louis region, aims to present a broad spectrum of artists, cultures and mindsets, to the greater St. Louis community.
We pledge to provide opportunity for people of all backgrounds to participate in the festival inclusive of race, ethnicity, immigration status, religion, age, geography, ability, sexual orientation and/or gender and gender-identity. In essence, we celebrate the differences and cultivate the unique spirit of each and every individual.
With our yearly festival we strive to include as diverse a group of creatives as possible, and throughout the year have community building activities and gatherings to foster our community and reinforce its growth and vigor.
The Team
The Founders
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Hap Phillips and Nita Turnage
The brainchild of Nita Turnage and Hap Phillips, Artica celebrated its first festival in 2002 with Exploring the Edge. Phillips and Turnage were inspired by the history and landscape on the riverfront and decided to reintroduce life to the urban wasteland. Artica invites St. Louis artists to peruse the land, lay claim to a spot (be it a thicket of brush, a gathering of trees or the remnants of a lost building) and create heaven within.
The Artica festival is unlike any other festival in St. Louis. From the unique post-industrial setting to the interactive nature of the event, Artica lives and breathes creativity and innovation. We have taken a very unconventional space that is decaying and ignored and turned it into a playground for artists and participants of all ages. Every person who attends must interact in some way… simply getting to the event requires interaction with the landscape and its history.
Our Sponsors
Artica is also supported by individual donators like you
The majority of our annual budget goes directly to support creative visions of local artists.