The Next Conversations: Exploring Bellevue

We’re back from the summer, with a twist.

The regular series at Vermillion will resume in October. For September, we’re doing a pair of conversations as part of the City of Bellevue’s great 10-day arts festival, Bellwether. 

This year’s Bellwether theme is “Taking Root.” To that end, the first conversation, on September 15, looks at how art and culture take root in a rapidly growing and evolving city. And the second conversation, on September 21, explores the ways in which Bellevue’s properties as a physical place have molded the culture of the city. 

Here are the details. We hope you can come.

A CONVERSATION ON ART AND CULTURE IN BELLEVUE

Saturday, September 15, 3pm – 4:30pm // Bellevue Arts Museum (510 Bellevue Way NE)

Guests: Benedict Heywood, Executive Director & Chief Curator at Bellevue Arts Museum; Genevieve Tremblay, artist, curator, educator, and community catalyst; and Vania Bynum, dancer, choreographer, and teacher

How do art and culture take root in a growing city? What is the state of art and culture in Bellevue? Where has it come from and where it is going? How is it made, and can it survive and grow? And how and where does creativity manifest itself, in a city that has focused much of its energies on business and commerce?

A CONVERSATION ON BELLEVUE AS A PLACE

Saturday, September 21, 3–4:30pm // Bellevue City Hall (450 110th Ave NE)

Guests: Maria Lau Hui, architect; Curtis Kukai, City of Bellevue Park Ranger & Environmental Programs Coordinator; and Raymond Cullom, CEO of Performing Arts Center Eastside

Explore Bellevue as a physical place, and look at how that place has driven the city’s culture. A number of things make Bellevue exceptional: the huge expanse of green space within the city limits, the steep ridge and valley terrain, and the proximity to water—and the city’s isolation from it as well, along with the architecture, the lack of a conventional street grid outside of the main avenues, and the city’s relationship with the surrounding megalopolis. How do these work together to mold the experience of the city?