Sudbury’s Up Here festival, now on its 11th edition, is really all about discovering new things, said Jaymie Lathem.
“So we're trying out new things,” said Lathem, Up Here’s top banana (or general manager, if you want to get boring and official about things).
”We're bringing acts that don't normally come to Northern Ontario here, different genres and really intertwining both French and English performances. It's mural creation, it's installation, it's community, it's gathering and connection, but it's also discovering new things.”
Lathem was speaking to Sudbury.com from the festival’s staging ground in the former Village International Store on Durham Street Aug. 16.
Outside, Durham Street had been closed down for the day for a Maker’s Market and Family Day. Of note this year is the absence of the festival’s signature geodesic dome.
The organizers of Up Here, which started Aug. 15 and closes out today, Aug. 17, decided to close down Durham Street for just one day in 2025.
“Instead of having a multi day road closure, we wanted to just focus the road closure on Saturday, when we know we can close it quickly for one day and really fill the street and not have multi day closures where we're kind of focusing on construction for the geodesic dome,” Lathem said.
The festival is instead focusing on shows in permanent venues around the downtown, whether that’s The Refettorio, Knox Hall, Place des Arts and the Townehouse Tavern.
By doing so, Lathem is hoping that festival-goers spread out more around the downtown, thus supporting business owners, “really exploring little pockets of downtown and getting people to walk around and discover.”
Musical performers at this year’s festival include Inuk musician Elisapie, the OBGMs, Miesha and the Spanks, Bells Larsen, Ouri, Octopoulpe, BÖ.SENBERG, Belly Hatcher, Akeem Oh, Allô Fantôme and Sudbury’s own Will Powers and TRIN.
Making it sound super-fun, Lathem enthuses about Sunday’s mystery bus tour, which whisks festival-goers off to three concerts in unexpected places.
“It's all a secret, very much a secret,” Lathem said.
And then there’s the less-effemeral portion of the festival - the murals, which will still be there when it’s -20 C outside, and the 30 C temperatures experienced in Sudbury on Saturday are but a distant memory of summer past.
Festival founder Christian Pelletier provided us with a list of all of the 2025 mural locations, and we hit them all on Saturday, so check out our photo gallery.
If you’d like to see them in-person, here’s the list: 450 Notre Dame Ave. (artist Kezna Dalz), Dr. Edgar Leclair Arena, 158 St Agnes St, Azilda (artist Brody Burns), 43 Elm St. (artist Raven Debassige), HQ Nightclub, 37 Beech St (artist Dinho Bento), back of 81 Larch St. on Medina Lane (artist Curtia Wright).
“Every year the murals blow my mind,” said Lathem. “They're so impressive. Every artist brings a new style and new storytelling to Sudbury, and it really reflects so many voices that exist in all of our communities, rural and city based.”
In our mural tour on Saturday, we were able to visit with a few of the muralists while they put the finishing touches on their pieces.
Montreal resident Kezna Dalz’s mural on Notre Dame Avenue, close to the Food Basics grocery store, is of a musician playing a flute.
“I like to think of it as kind of a story of resilience and kind of learning to deal with and almost charm the chaos,” she said. “So the character on the mural is playing flute, and usually it would be like a snake charmer, but now it's kind of a flame charmer.”
The creator of the Beech Street mural, Dinho Bento, lives in Ottawa but is originally from Brazil. His mural depicts two faces, hands touching each other, vines and ginkgo biloba flowers.
It symbolizes that “no one is alone in this world,” he said.
The artist said he used to live in Hungary at one point, and there were a lot of ginkgo biloba flowers, and they symbolize hope, peace and resistance, “because it's one of the leaves that last so long during drought.”
Bento said he’s painted murals in 15 different countries on three continents, and he’s happy to take part in Up Here.
“I loved how people here are sharing their thoughts about this artwork,” he said. “So yes, I believe that all artwork should touch people in two ways. It's to make them feel and make them think.”
Heidi Ulrichsen is Sudbury.com’s assistant editor. She also covers education and the arts scene.