St. John’s Cathedral will be transformed into a lush jungle on Saturday for an immersive combination of art and music.

Saskatoon artist Monique Martin says the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra will be performing a slate of beautiful music while being framed by live trees covered in colourful paper butterflies.

Using a silkscreen, Martin has been handcrafting the collection of butterflies since 2019. Nearly six years later, she has 25,000 of the little creatures, each one a bit different than the others. The artistic endeavor started as a way to remind her art students that change can be positive during the Covid 19 pandemic.

“They are all hand-drawn…so there’s no computer involved. I don’t send it off to a printer. These are printed by me, each layer is pulled by hand,” she explains. “It takes a village to put it together, an art installation of this scale. And it takes years of dedication of the same people believing in the concept, and they’re all here today making it happen.”

The immersive experience taking place on Saturday is titled Metamorphosis.

“I want everybody to breathe and put their phone away. Don’t think about technology for a minute. Don’t think about what’s going on around the world, cause there’s lots of negatives all around the world right now. Just be in the moment. Breathe. Lay on the floorcloth. Dance.”

Martin says the music accompanying the display is guaranteed to move the audience.

She says SSO executive “Judith and Mark did such a good job of picking the music. People will cry. There’s no way you couldn’t cry listening to this.”

The 7:30 show on Saturday is sold out, but the SSO is now offering a 2:00 p.m. showing to make sure no one misses out. Tickets are available at saskatoon symphony dot org.