Blockfort Gallery to host street festival complete with food, art and performers

About a dozen rtists are working with 83 Gallery to create a collaborative mural on the back of Blockfort Gallery as part of the Alley Islands Festival Saturday. Credit: Courtesy of Geoff Collins

Alley Islands Festival, a full-day street festival hosted by Blockfort Gallery, will return this weekend after a two-year hiatus. 

The festival will run from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday within the gallery’s main space, located at 162 N. 6th St., and the building’s surrounding alleys. Adam Brouillette, co-owner of Blockfort, said artists, crafters and small businesses will line the alleyways outside the gallery and surrounding buildings, each providing a unique experience for festivalgoers. 

There will also be performance stages, galleries open to attendees and local food trucks and breweries, according to the website.

The festival initially began in 2017 to celebrate the graphic art murals painted along the outside walls of the gallery, Brouillette said, and in 2018, the gallery hosted the first version of the festival, complete with live music, vendors and a different set of murals. 

However, Brouillette said 2018 was the last time the festival was able to officially happen until this spring. Artists around the gallery continued to repaint the murals in 2020 despite the ongoing pandemic, but he said this is the first year the festival will come back and the first time they have revamped the alley since 2020.

“So the murals were the impetus for that, the beginning of that,” Brouillette said. “And then that kind of grew into like, ‘Well, what else can we do to make people feel welcome and make people feel like they want to be downtown and to celebrate these sort of, like, overlooked spaces?’ ”

Brouillette said there will be live-painting panels where All People Arts — a nonprofit organization that aims to unite people from the South Side of Columbus through art, according to its website — will have professional muralists to teach kids ages 10-16 how to paint murals.

Festivalgoers will have the opportunity to pursue two markets with about 20 rotating vendors and pop-up shops including Found Goods, Kaytchup, Jen & Tonic Botanicals and Style by TK, according to the festival’s website. 

The festival will also include comedy acts by Glitter Bois, a storytelling session by Speak Easy and a circus act by The People’s Circus, Brouillette said. 

“There’s a brass band that will march through the festival and perform on one of the stages, variety of DJ sets, hip-hop, heavy rock bands, indie bands, singer-songwriters,” Brouillette said. “All that stuff will happen kind of mixed through those two areas.”

During the festival, Brouillette said 83 Gallery, a local art gallery, will host its own exhibition. Nick Stull, co-owner and gallery director of 83 Gallery, said the show, “Death, Taxes, 83 Gallery,” will be open to the public throughout the entire festival. 

“When Adam Brouillette reached out to us about doing this reunion show at his space, we were very interested because I personally really love the ecosystem of Blockfort,” Stull said. “They do a lot of different cool things, they have a lot of different cool spaces in that building, so we were excited.”

Geoff Collins, co-founder and head of operations for 83 Gallery, said the exhibition will act as a reunion show within Blockfort Gallery’s main space. He said the gallery has invited back artists who have previously worked with them for this particular show.

“What we’re doing is we’re doing a large group show,” Collins said. “So we have over 100 artists, over 200 pieces of artwork, and it’s just a large group show.”

Stull said 83 Gallery will also create a collaborative mural with about a dozen artists on the back of the building. The theme of the mural aims to incorporate the branding for the gallery exhibit with the Alley Islands mural festival, he said.

Brouillette said the alleyways make a great place to host this festival because they create a sense of discovery for those who have not been able to get out much or experience a festival since the pandemic began. 

“You’ve been inside for two years,” Brouillette said. “Come outside, listen to music, see art, hang out with your friends, have some food, buy some stuff from vendors that have been waiting two years to sell you stuff.”

Tickets for Alley Islands Festival are $10 and are available to purchase in person the day of the event. The proceeds for the festival tickets will go back to the artists.