Chula Vista will hold its first ever arts festival on Saturday — the latest in a series of ongoing efforts to strengthen the local arts community.
The inaugural Chula Vista Art Fest is set to bring together dozens of local artists who will display and sell their work on the courtyard outside Chula Vista City Hall. City officials say the event will also feature food trucks, live painting and music, dance performances and a screening of “Spider Man: Across the Spiderverse.”
“I don’t think we’ve ever done anything like this before,” said Erwin Magbanua, Chula Vista’s principal librarian and cultural arts manager. “We’re really excited.”
Chula Vista has a rich history of festivals and performance art, but has few places for artists to physically gather and hold exhibits. Many local artists end up leaving the South Bay to find opportunities to share their work, Magbanua said.
“It was always a feeling like, well, we have to go out of Chula Vista,” he said. “We have to go up north to see or to show off our work. And we'd love to just literally drive down the street and be with our neighbors, in our neighborhood, to show off our art.”
In recent years, the city has made it a priority to strengthen the local arts scene, setting aside $300,000 of federal pandemic relief funding for local artists and to begin the process of transforming a former YMCA building into an art gallery.
Organizers hope Art Fest will be another place where local artists can connect with each other and with the South Bay at large.
“This is really providing them an opportunity to be highlighted,” said Karla Mendez, Chula Vista’s community engagement specialist. “Showcased in their own home – in their own community.”
The Chula Vista Art Fest will take place on the courtyard outside Chula Vista City Hall on Saturday from 12 p.m. to 9 p.m.
