Growing up in Calgary, Bethel Afework’s family lived a dynamic household heavily involved in all things art.
Afework’s high school years at Father Lacombe were filled with music and poetry.
It was the place where she began to cultivate her love of performance by joining a spoken-word poetry team.
While in high school, Afework volunteered at the YMCA, an experience that planted the seeds of inspiration for what would later become the Alcove.
When she started university, Afework found that her story wasn’t Calgary’s story.
She saw a city in desperate need of accessible creative spaces.
Eventually, this would be the gap she’d try to fill by co-founding the Alcove Centre for the Arts, a recreational art space.
Afework attended the University of Calgary for a double major in communications media and energy science & mathematics.
Her decision to pursue the two degrees was influenced by her personal inspirations and her father’s background as a mechanical engineer.
While Afework was at university, one of her friends put the worm in her ear that Calgary was missing a free space for people to create and connect.
“I was like, ‘That’s a genius idea.’ And she was like ‘ah I’ll never do it, so you can take it if you’d like,’” she said.
What’s Cooking?
That’s when, at the age of 18, Afework and her friends started exploring open mics around the city, where they found a ton of local talent just waiting to be cultivated.
Afework recited poetry at Lauren Nelson’s Pub on open mic nights, and eventually they gave her the opportunity to host a show herself.
“It was a very dingy bar,” she said. “It was a five-dollar cover, but we had poetry, comedy and music. It was a variety show.”
After her first show gained traction, Afework and her friends decided to make it a recurring event.
That’s when Raw Voices, the open mic show, was born.
While pursuing other endeavours, the idea for a full-time space was still on Afework’s mind.
She had a solid system with her friend, Sayson, who worked with her to promote the show.
But they were one person short under the Societies Act to organize a non-profit to get their ideal creative space up and running.
That’s when Dennis Lee came into the picture. Afework met him in 2015, and she remembered that they had shared similar ideas about fostering creativity.
When he caught wind of Afework’s plans in 2017, he expressed interest in joining the project.
“I feel very fortunate to have someone that I’m able to work constructively with,” said Lee. “It’s not by chance that Alcove is successful. So much of it has to do with Bethel’s personality.”
But when graduation came, the COVID-19 pandemic brought the world to a halt and redirected its efforts.
“It was that perfect time to lay low and just think,” she said.
Afework, Lee, and Sayson put their heads together to develop a business plan and decided that the right move was to run pop-ups.
They secured funding from groups like the Esker Foundation and the Calgary Downtown Association.
“Outdoor spaces, indoor spaces, commercial spaces, lobbies, hallways, I mean it, like crevices,” Afework says regarding all the different venues they took their pop-ups to. “We would bring a U-Haul truck’s worth of stuff and replicate what we wanted the Alcove to feel like.”
After a year of consistently curating spaces, Afework and her team secured more funding and their first location in the downtown core on 7th Avenue.
A second location, Alcove Beltline, opened later on 8th Street.
Full Plate, and eating good
While the Alcove is a thriving environment, Afework’s drive to foster community extends beyond the TD Free Fair Zone.
Right now, Afework co-hosts on a CJSW station called Soular Power Radio with Malika David, which airs on Tuesday mornings.
Originally, she came on the show as a guest speaker, but fell in love with the art of hosting and asked David if she could be her co-host.
At night, Afework is also one half of a band called BASK and works in the DJ scene, helping curate DIY spaces for EDM artists.
Throughout her artistic projects, Afework has amassed an important network of local artists who know her well.
“Outside of work, she is still the vibrant, bubbly person that everybody sees and knows,” says Mylah Abrar, a close friend who has known Afework since 2024.
Over her years of fostering multiple artistic environments, Afework has now noticed an identity shift in the city.
“Calgary is definitely in its infancy, so I think it’s cool because I think we’re seeing it percolate,” Afework said.