Do you enjoy crafts and painting? Do you know someone who loves bouncy castles and face painting? Are you or your family/friends/co-workers looking for a fun way to spend a day whirling giving a little bit back to the community? Well, have we got a deal for you! 

On June 13, Historic Markerville will stage one of its main cultural events in the Creamery Courtyard. The Icelandic Independence Day celebration is fun for the whole family. And, in order for it to be successful, we need some help with a few things:

🛠️ SETTING UP and decorating the Courtyard Saturday morning (the more the merrier) - helping set up a few tents, rearranging tables, and hanging some flags

✂️ CRAFT TABLE ATTENDANTS (2) - assisting kids and adults with a few crafty things 

🎭 FACE PAINTING (2)

🏰 BOUNCY CASTLE ATTENDANTS (2) - ensuring safety precautions are adhered to

🖌️ PAINTING HELPER (1) - assisting our artist-in-residence with a large, community painting project

If you can help, please email [email protected] and let us know what you'd like to help with.

Signy Holm is an artist living in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Her research-based and archeological-inspired practice focuses on the interconnectedness and lifecycle of various materials, and the inseparability of ‘nature’ and the synthetic or human-made world. Most recently she is interested in plastic pollution and its connection to fossil fuels in Alberta. She is the recipient of the ARTS Graduate Research Award (2026) for her master’s thesis, Wayfinding Through Waste: A Collective, Living Archive of Coastal Plastic. Signy is always looking for ways that art can help us engage with social and ecological issues within our communities. She sees her work as highly interdisciplinary, with crossovers between science, ecology and the social sciences, usually with a twinge of humour and playfulness!

Originally from Calgary, Alberta, Rakel Holm has a Bachelor of Environmental Studies with a minor in biology from the University of Manitoba, and is currently completing her Master of Science at the University of Winnipeg. Her thesis research examines the impacts of oil spills on ecologically, culturally, historically, and economically significant Red River Métis sites and resources. Working in partnership with the Manitoba Métis Federation (MMF), her research combines Métis knowledge with conventional scientific methods, including geospatial analysis, in order to develop an Oil Spill Risk Assessment (OSRA) for freshwater environments in Manitoba. 

DESCRIPTION OF RESIDENCY ACTIVITIES:
Signy and Rakel will spend their week investigating the shores of the Medicine River and Tindastoll Creek through walking, mapping, collecting and documenting objects through various creative interventions. Rakel, an environmental studies graduate student studying the ecology of freshwater ecosystems, and Signy, an interdisciplinary artist focusing on the interconnectedness of the natural and synthetic world, often within the context of shorelines, will be working together for the first time. 

They will also be researching the history of Markerville as an Icelandic settlement and its common threads with their paternal roots in the New Iceland region of Manitoba. Both regions, as well as Iceland, are deeply connected to bodies of water, something that  both sisters are passionate about in their work.