The Weyburn Art Gallery is gearing up for Culture Palooza, as part of the annual Culture Days Celebration. Culture Palooza is a weekend full of events that showcase different cultures within the city. Harwinder Kaur is organizing a Rangoli creation to represent part of Weyburn’s Indian community.
“Rangoli, it's mainly colours because if we split the word, the first four letters are R-E-N-G, it means colours in Hindi.”
Rangoli is a design created in the entrance to a space to bring in happiness and prosperity. It is created by using a variety of mediums to fill the design with colour.
“It will be a big design. We are just going to roughly draw with chalk and then outline it with a colour. We are going to use plain white flour and colours and then rice. If somebody wants to try, they can come. Otherwise, it's usually, you know, one or two person job."
Traditionally, Rangoli is drawn on special occasions and celebrations, Kaur mentions Diwali, weddings or other festivities as examples.
“Back home in India, it's usually people in the South, they make Rangoli. They used to have floors that were not made from marble or anything. They were raw floors, so just to give it a design, they used to use brick powder and then other things from the home of different colors, turmeric, flour, to make something look fancier. It's mainly to welcome happiness in the home.”
Kaur herself is from Punjab but moved to Canada in 2010, she lived in Ontario until moving to Weyburn in 2022. She says the Indian community in Weyburn is very diverse as many Indian cultures are represented around the city.
“We have so many different communities here because of India itself, we have people from different regions. We are from Punjab and we are Sikhs. We have like people from Gujarat, they're Hindus. Then we have people from South, they're Hindus and Christians too. We pretty much get along at all the occasions.”
The event will be held at the Weyburn Credit Union Spark Centre this Saturday. It is free to participate and will be running from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.