Bellwether has been a long-standing favorite in Bellevue for the past 26 years. The traditional biennial show underwent a few changes this year. Instead of a three-month sculpture show, the city of Bellevue with the city’s Arts Commission turned it into a 10-day arts festival spreading mixed mediums across downtown.
The “reimagined” Bellwether launched on Sept. 14 with an opening party at the Bellevue Arts Museum and continued through the weekend with various performing arts showcases in Compass Plaza.
Curated by Seattle-based artist collective SuttonBeresCuller, Bellwether assembled more than 50 regional and internationally acclaimed artists to respond to the theme of connectivity and connections, exploring how artists can interact with and respond to the public and private spaces.
Sites for artwork and events include the Bellevue Arts Museum (free admission during Bellwether), City Hall, Compass Plaza and Bellevue Downtown Park. Each day featured a set of performances, and special events are planned for Saturday, Sept. 22.
Joshua Heim, the arts program manager, said Bellwether’s original goal was to attract people to Bellevue. Now with so many diverse people living and working in Bellevue, Bellwether’s current goal is to connect people.
“They’re already here, we don’t need to attract them. Now we just need to step up their participation, and not just in the arts but civically overall. That’s what Bellwether is now,” Heim said. “Our goal is to provide an experience and hopefully an experience that engages people to further participate in arts, culturally and civically.”
In addition to having more physical artworks on display, people can interact with artists who are performing, and they also can contribute to some of the artworks as well.
“It’s much more participatory,” Heim said. “It’s concentrated so the idea is to make it special over these 10 days.”
The shift in scope and programming is the result of a yearlong study of the arts downtown and a desire to ensure the Grand Connection pedestrian corridor is culturally vibrant.
“We seek to position Bellevue as the cultural hub of the Eastside,” Ben Beres, one-third of the Seattle-based collective, said in a release. “The shorter time frame will allow more temporary, time-based works to occur, bring a groundswell of people from the region to interact with cutting-edge, contemporary art, and show off the wide range of Bellevue’s cultural spaces.”
One focal piece to Bellwether this year is Margie Livingston’s “55 Laps.” Livingston will drag 10 paintings a total of 55 laps around the circular path at Bellevue’s Downtown Park, inscribing the canvases with the ground to create a new kind of landscape painting. She began her project on the first day of Bellwether, dragging her first painting around once. Each day with each new painting, she dragged it an additional lap around the park. The last painting will be dragged on the final day a total of 10 times — about five miles — around the park. Each painting will be on display at the Bellevue Arts Museum.
Bellwether will conclude Sept. 23. For a full list of dates and events, visit bellwetherartsweek.org.
