What is Folkfest?

In 1980, the City of Saskatoon and the Saskatoon Folk Arts Council formed a partnership to establish and jointly govern an administrative entity called Folkfest, Inc. Folkfest would assemble an annual cultural festival designed to showcase and celebrate Saskatoon’s ethnic diversity. Each Folkfest member community signed a contract with Saskatoon Folkfest, Inc., agreeing to assemble a volunteer-staffed pavilion offering food, entertainment, and educational displays reflecting their particular culture for a three-day period.

Unlike many similar festivals in Canada, encouraging Folkfest member groups to assemble physically separate pavilions reinforced the illusion that Folkfest patrons were visiting separate countries. The use of separate venues also facilitated the establishment of a culturally specific atmosphere for each cultural group.

Accordingly, during the three-day festival, patrons enjoy unlimited admission to these venues and special public transport by means of a ticket designed as a passport. Participating cultural groups submit information about their pavilion on a separate passport page that also features the names of that particular culture’s ambassadors.

India Pavilion is one of only a few of the original pavilions to have participated in Folkfest every year from the start.

What is India Pavilion?

India-Canada Cultural Association (ICCA) is the non-profit charitable organization that assembles India Pavilion for three days each year to showcase Indian culture. Like its host, India Pavilion is staffed entirely by volunteers and is primarily an educational enterprise whose goal is to offer insights into various aspects of Indian culture.

Why do we assemble India Pavilion?

For the three days of Folkfest, the Indo-Canadian community has direct control of its public image and this time must not be squandered. To the limits of its ability, India Pavilion attempts to put the community’s best foot forward at this time.

Focus on Fairness

Like its host organization, India Pavilion will not knowingly promote the cultural interests of one part of India at the expense of any other and maintains a secular focus. 

As a corollary to this principle, the pavilion follows an implicit organizational philosophy of “Friends Educating Each Other”. That is to say, each volunteer brings some expertise to the enterprise that they can share with others. With regard to the public, when a Folkfest volunteer answers a patron’s question, the patron has been educated. But when the volunteer cannot answer a patron‘s question, then the volunteer has been educated about what they don’t know.