This weekend marks the annual return of folk music enthusiasts (not a few of them York alumni) to the town of Orillia for the Mariposa Folk Festival.  To mark the fifty years that the festival has been running, York University Libraries, which holds the festival records, has curated a new exhibit of historical photographs, promotional material, posters and documents from past years.

Supplemented by photographs from the Toronto Telegram, this exhibit highlights some of the stars that rose through the ranks of Canadian performers, but also celebrates those working artists who found their niche at the festival. Music is at the core of this story but other facets of folk culture are explored, including street theatre, story-telling, craft and dance.

But what would an exhibit about a music festival be without some tunes?  The curator has peppered the gallery walls with some select QR codes that link back to our 2009 exhibit on the festival in which a number of artists gave permission for York University Libraries to host selections or whole concerts from the 1970s that were recorded live at the festival.

The exhibit opens Saturday, July 9, 2011 in the Market Gallery located in the South St. Lawrence Market, 95 Front Street East (south-west corner of Front and Jarvis streets). A collaboration between York University Libraries and the City of Toronto's Cultural Services Division, this exhibit will engage the community that visit the St. Lawrence Market until the exhibit closes on October 15, 2011.

The exhibit was curated by Anna St.Onge, archivist in charge of Digital Projects & Outreach at the Clara Thomas Archives & Special Collections with contributions by Vito Ciraco of York University Libraries' Sound and Moving Image Library (SMIL) and York University Department of Music graduate student Sija Tsai.

There is a press release announcing the exhibit here and a copy of the poster  available online at the city's Cultural Services Division at http://www.toronto.ca/culture/the_market_gallery.htm.