Cat lovers invited to Regina's 1st feline-friendly café at Regina Public Library

The Regina Public Library and the Regina Cat Rescue have teamed up to open the Queen City's first pop-up cat café this weekend.

This weekend, the Dunlop Art Gallery at RPL is being transformed into a feline-friendly environment called Paw'd Up. Bookworms and writers have the chance to come and play with and kittens, and they're all up for adoption from the cat rescue.

Leading the weekend program is artist-in-residence Joanne Bristol, who grew up on a farm with many different animals. 

I'm interested in the politics of inter-species relationships and how humans have been a formative force, shaping the lives of other animals.- Joanne Bristol

"But I felt a special kinship with kittens and cats that were allowed into our house," Bristol said.

Bristol told CBC Radio's Saskatchewan Weekend she's leading a variety of art and writing workshops this weekend, looking at how people interact with pets, but also how pets interact and change the lives of their owners.

"In terms of my own creative work I'm interested in the politics of inter-species relationships and how humans have been a formative force, shaping the lives of other animals," she said. "But also I'm very interested in how animals affect human lives and so I try to make various forms of art, drawing, writing, photography, installation and performance that address those kinds of relationships between different species."

Bristol said she's going to try her best to provoke those same thoughts and ideas to the people attending her workshops this weekend.

"We're also going to go outside into the park and to think about questions of urban animals, to see who is invited into the city, who is excluded," Bristol said. "This can be a productive way to approach urban well being."

The Paw'd Up cat Café is open from noon to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.