2012 is the year that Calgary is the cultural capital of Canada. Coming up on March 15th is the first of a weekly event that hopes to have artists collaborating along with the public. I had a chance to quickly chat with the organizer of It’s AHHHH Live!, Vi An Diep, and find out a bit more about the event.

“I broke the words down. ‘AHHHH’ is the recognition of the spark of something seeing something, curiosity. ‘Live’ is the aspect of seeing something happening,” says Vi An. “We always know there’s cross-pollination of artists in the city, but they’re in groups. What I’d like to see from this initiative is that all of the arts community will combine their forces and resources to create a scene.”

“I fear that the whole cultural capital thing will be an excuse to spend a whole lot of money on a short amount of time, so it would be nice to see continual access to funds and generate work for artists so that they can consider it a full-time profession.” Vi An hopes that this will be a good way for the public to see the creative process up close, and that this event will create more support and stability for artists so that the city won’t lose artists when the next boom comes to Calgary.

It’s AHHHH Live! will be at the Epcor Centre at 5:30 PM on March 15, 2012. For more details, check out their Facebook page.