How and Why It Is: Arts-Based Research in Community Engaged Public Visual Art

CTCHC Community Mosaic Project is a partnership between Red Dress Productions and Central Toronto Community Health Centres.

In community-engaged art contexts, we’re often asked: How do community consultations connect with the design? What is the relationship between you (the artists), contributors, and communities?

The answer – or, more accurately, the answers – are layered and nuanced. This narrative attempts to retrace and distill the collaborative process that we call “arts-based research”, or alternately, community consultation (of which arts-based research is the major component, and the foundation of our work in and with communities).

The backstory: In February 2011, Red Dress Productions was approached by CTCHC to partner on the CTCHC Community Mosaic Project. We spent the next year fundraising, imagining, and planning the project. In January 2012, we began.

Contribution stations with images and project information, along with flipcharts and markers and a suggestion box were installed in the centre’s lobby and the primary care area on 2^nd floor to welcome ideas. Extensive promotion and outreach was done both within the health centre itself, and beyond through grassroots networks and with community partners[1].

We met with more than 150[2]  project contributors to: inquire and listen; brainstorm ideas, themes, and motif; and experiment with visual expressions using accessible approaches to art making. We facilitated a total of 12 community consultations with program participants, community members, staff and board members at Central Toronto Community Health Centres – home of Queen West Community Health Centre and Shout Clinic.

At each consultation, we assume little or no prior knowledge of the project, who we are, or our approach to community art. We begin at the beginning: introductions and welcomes, a review of the project’s path and development process, where we are in the project at the time of the consultation, what we’ve heard from contributors at previous consultations, and where we were going.

Food, drink, art materials, and project handbills were laid out, and a projection system was set up. Transit tokens were made available to increase access, and, at two consultations, we had the support of an Anishinabe Elder, and a Cantonese and Mandarin interpreter. We worked hard to thread the voices of contributors from previous consultations.  On a practical level, we did this by recording discussion points and ideas (without personal identifiers), and photographing contributor-generated artwork at each consultation, which we shared these ideas and images at subsequent consultations.

Most of the consultations took place in specific programs at the centre including Four Winds, TRIP, Sketch, the Perinatal Program, Primary Care, an all staff meeting, and a Harm Reduction Open House. We also held three public consultations, which were open to anyone interested in being a part of the project.  Each consultation was designed to meet the needs of contributors, with the time amount of time available (from one to three hours), depending upon the program. We brainstormed in large and small groups, and had many one-to-one conversations. We made art with a range of materials including oil pastel, foam plate “carving” and printing, and collage.

Essentially, we invited contributors to move from spoken language into visual language. Many contributors said, “I’m not an artist,” or “I can’t draw.” We offered materials and encouragement: Try experimenting with colour, with shapes. If you move your pastel across the sheet, something will show up. We returned to our anchor questions: If there was an artwork on the CTCHC building that welcomed you and the communities you’re a part of, what might it be? What creates healthy communities? What does this look like?

 We also talked about the wall that the artwork would ultimately live on (at the front entrance of the building on Bathurst Street), and discussed public space, and other site-specific environmental and architectural elements. At the end of each consultation, we reviewed our findings from this participatory arts-based research – notes, brainstorm maps, sketches, prints, and collages – and together, we identified key words or phrases, themes, and visual motif.

The great volume of material produced through the consultation process – more than 200 small solo and multiple artworks, 20 pages of notes, and 15 flipchart brainstorm maps  – draws clear lines between the social determinants of health including access to safe and affordable housing, nutritious food, non-judgmental health care, and community engagement. Certain images and motif repeated; however, accompanying stories and perspectives carried distinct and often multiple meanings.

Let’s look at water, as one example. Water was drawn as lake, river, stream, and ocean. Water was also suggested by canoes, kayaks, and boats; sea and freshwater birds, beavers, fish, turtles, and Turtle Island itself. There were stories of selkies, merfolk, water spirits and sprites; deep water, still waters, and still waters running deep.

Water was cited as the foundation of all life: 75% of our planet composition is water, as is true for most plant and animal life. Direct connections were drawn between water, nutrition and sustenance, and environmental health and justice. Many contributors associated water to birth, motherhood, and parenthood. Some spoke of rushing waters carrying the voices of ancestors. Concerns were voiced for rising waters, diminishing shorelines, and the impact on Indigenous peoples. Others spoke of migrations across oceans to Canada.

As lead visual artist, it’s my job to produce a design that reflects contributors and the communities that intersect at the centre, and that threads visual motif, themes, stories, and nuances therein. The design must also be technically and artistically achievable in an open and inclusive studio environment, and have an aesthetic relationship to the neighbourhood – in this case, the Queen West neighbourhood. So, how is this done?

First, I don’t consider myself to be external to a process; I’m not a third party observer who translates. We exchange ideas and goodwill; the learning and sharing is mutual. I reviewed and reflected on all the ideas and notes and images in their totality – all voices, whether a community member contributed to one or three consultations. I looked for related elements, echoes, and threads. I listened closely to the quietest voices, and attributed value to those voices. I recognized differences in perspectives and lived experience. This recognition speaks to our mission as community artists: To produce original artwork that strives for innovation, technical excellence, and that elicits dialogue and creative exchange across difference.

I looked for related elements, echoes, and threads. I listened closely to the quietest voices, and attributed value to those voices. I recognized differences in perspectives and lived experience. This recognition speaks to our mission as community artists: To produce original artwork that strives for innovation, technical excellence, and that elicits dialogue and creative exchange across difference.

Inspired by contributors, I also conducted more text-based research on subjects including native and drought tolerant flowers and shrubs; tree physiology; Mississauga First Nations unceded territories (upon which Greater Toronto is built); the Law of Conservation of Energy; sky lanterns (also known as Chinese lanterns); Atlantic and Pacific salmon; migratory birds in the City of Toronto; and archival footage of Queen Street West from Trinity-Bellwoods Park to Augusta.

CTCHC Community Mosaic, 2012, detail

Finally, I walked about the Queen West neighbourhood, and took many photographs. This field-research was inspired by a young self-identified homeless contributor who said: “Look up. Look down. A lot of people forget to look at their environment. A lot of people don’t want to see me.” I allowed this contributor’s voice to guide me:  to enable me to see more, and differently. I saw: cranes and condominium towers; grasses and Eastern Red Columbine growing out of concrete; shoes strung on hydro lines; discarded coffee cups, feathers, and cigarette butts; sewer grates and birds nests; weathered paint, vacant storefronts, and many new home décor boutiques; and a lot of graf art and tagging.

CTCHC Community Mosaic, 2012, detail

Through the consultation process, contributors shepherd Red Dress Productions’ artistic leadership team, and I steward the progression of this arts-based research into a cohesive design – one that makes room for multiplicities, difference, and echoes.

We presented my first-draft design to 60+ contributors at our final public consultation on April 4, 2012. We invited feedback, which was offered and incorporated into the final design. Shortly thereafter, the studio was opened.

CTCHC Community Mosaic, 2012, detail

Consultation, of which arts-based research is the anchor element, is a collaborative dynamic process. It’s not a linear here to there event. It’s cumulative and circular. It loops, doubles back, and stretches forward to make room for more of us.

It is cultural democracy at work. It is how we make real our belief that all people should have opportunities, access, and tools for shaping their neighbourhoods and communities.

- Anna Camilleri

Lead Visual Artist for CTCHC Community Mosaic Project

Red Dress Productions, Artistic Co-Director

Postscript:

More than 350 community members contributed to the creation of the CTCHC Community Mosaic Project, which was unveiled on Wednesday June 20, 2012.

The CTCHC Community Mosaic Project has been made possible through the support of the Toronto Arts Council, the Ontario Arts Council, and the City of Toronto: Public Realm, Transportation Services, and the TD Bank Group.

CENTRAL TORONTO COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTRES’ (CTCHC)
(Queen West Community Health Centre and Shout Clinic) mission is to act as a resource to improve the health and quality of life of the people and communities we serve. CTCHC achieves this through health promotion, harm reduction, education, community outreach, engagement, development and advocacy, as well as through the provision of innovative primary health care, counselling, support and dental services.

To find out more about CTCHC (168 Bathurst, south of Queen St. West), visit http://ctchc.com or call 416-703-8482

RED DRESS PRODUCTIONS (RDP) is a Toronto-based, not-for-profit, professional arts company that creates and disseminates interdisciplinary art and performance projects and works with/in communities on community-engaged public artworks. Since 2005, RDP has: directly engaged 2000+ contributors in the conceptual development and building of 7 community engaged public artwork projects; produced 5 original interdisciplinary stage performances; toured to more than 8 urban and rural Canadian communities; and created 17 paid apprenticeship positions for youth under the age of 25.

To find out more about Red Dress Productions, visit us online at http://reddressproductions.blogspot.com

All images are courtesy of Red Dress Productions and project photographer Katie Yealland.

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[1] Community partners include: Sketch, Meeting Place Drop-in (St Christopher House), Scadding Court Community Centre, YMCA House Residence, Youthlink, Supporting Our Youth (Sherbourne Health Centre), and Bleecker Street Co-operative Homes

[2] The 150 contributors cited here are specific to the consultation phase, which informs the conceptual development of the artwork.

Nomanzland on the Mainstage: June 15-17

 From June 15 to 17, Young People’s Theatre presents Nomanzland: Known to Police.

In Known to Police, resident’s from Toronto’s most notorious intersection find themselves backed into a dystopian corner by ‘the Man’. Armed with art, a conscience and the echoes of the Arab Spring, they must decide whether to run, hide, stand their ground, or come out fighting. Known to Police is a celebration of the resilience, vibrancy and swag of a community that often finds itself on the wrong side of society’s ‘you are either with us or against us’ speech.

Nomanzland, a performing arts program that brings together youth from different artistic backgrounds, encourages the use of poetry, dance and theatre to address issues that affect today’s youth. Most of all, Nomanzland hopes to provide an opportunity for reclamation – of both personal voice, and local space.

To learn more about Nomanzland, check out the NAN video profile.

In Times To Come: Citizen Media and the Power of Community

Toronto-based filmmakers Monica Gutierrez and Galen Brown discuss 3004 Studios, their community-engaged practice, and their current documentary film project about community organizing and self-determination in Placencia, Belize.  

How did you come to be involved in community-engaged media production?

Monica Gutierrez: During my formal arts training, we weren’t really exposed to how artists can be an asset to the communities. There’s an emphasis on aiming for genius and working in solitude. As I became interested in film, I became more aware that arts can be used to benefit a community. As a newer medium, video comes with less hang-ups than more traditional media like painting, lithography, or even film. It’s more accessible and there’s a lot more freedom for it to be used in different contexts.

Galen Brown: I met Monica in Guatemala. We were both working as ArtCorps artists, collaborating with NGOs in Central America.  That was really the beginnings of community work for me. I worked on 3 documentaries for ArtCorps and fell in love with that kind of work.

I actually started out as a photojournalist; I was always drawn to political and economic issues. I’m trained in economics and I’ve got a certificate in digital videography form Concordia. I’m really fueled by a passion to document moments in history for future generations. A lot can be captured in still images – even more can be captured in video.

MG: I’m interested in video and film as an alternate form of storytelling. I want to be a facilitator for those who don’t have immediate access to media tools and the knowledge to use them. To help communities to create their own media, where they benefit.

GB: We started 3004 Studios after our time in Central America. It’s a boutique media production studio. We’re really interested in longer term partnerships over one-time clients. We’re very community oriented – we want to bring high-quality video production to those who have minimal budgets. Video is such a great way to communicate.

How did you start working in Placencia?

GB: We both visited Placencia separately, while we were in Central America.

MG: It’s a beautiful place that supports more low-key tourism like backbacking; there aren’t a lot of hotels.

GB: The hotels that are there are smaller scale and independently owned by locals. At that time, a local community group, Peninsula Citizens for Sustainable Development, was involved in this fight to stop cruise ships from coming in to the area. When we talked with them, they told us a strip of mangrove swamp between the peninsula and the mainland where unregulated development is taking place. They are dredging coral reef and using it to make concrete.

 What is your goal for this project?

MG: We want to inspire people around the world, to show that you can remain in control of what’s happening around you.

GB: The film is unscripted, there’s no narration. We’ll follow community members through their daily life. We plan to be low-key, and unobtrusive in terms of equipment. We won’t be filming anyone who doesn’t want to be filmed. This is about community in every way. We don’t want to just focus on statistics and problem after problem. Overall, it’s about how the community is coming together and fighting outside influences.

MG: We want to spread the message as far and wide as possible. More awareness means more potential allies, which means support for the community in terms of longer-term sustainability.

How does this relate to Toronto?

GB: These beautiful places exist, but at the end of the day it’s someone’s home. They thrive off of tourism here, but to continue in this way means preserving for the future. There’s a parallel to the mega-quarry project here in Ontario. There’s money to be made with a quarry. It’s a project that affects ecology, the environment, and people’s lives, yet the real beneficiaries don’t live here. If you don’t live there, don’t dig there. It’s about ownership and responsibility, and respect of other people’s homes. The community in Placencia is really getting things done – they are an inspiration.

Lots of people in Canada go to Belize to vacation. There’s a connection. Every decision here does affect what happens there and which interests are awakened. Even if you don’t think you have an influence, you definitely do. That’s part of the reason our fundraising is community-based.

How does community-based fundraising work for this project?

GB: We have a Kickstarter Campaign. Everyone involved in the campaign is now part of a community allied with Placencia. There’s a sense of growing links, a heightened sense of community. We’re 80% of the way to our fundraising goal, and we have a week left!

To learn more and support the Placencia documentary project, visit the Kickstarter website at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2031845333/amunegu-in-times-to-come

Contact:

Monica Gutierrez: monica@3004studios.com or 416.788.1767

Galen Brown: galen@3004studios.com or 416.878.4258

Placencia Citizens for Sustainable Development: http://sites.google.com/site/pcsdbelize/

In Times to Come on Kickstarter: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2031845333/amunegu-in-times-to-come

WRTN/SPKN at the Triangle Program

WRTN/SPKN is a story writing and story telling project that took place at the Triangle Program with a group of LGBTQ high school students in grades 9, 10, 11, and 12.

For several weeks, we explored creative writing (particularly memoir) through practices including free association, “cut-up,” word strings, found poetry, and collaborative writing. We experimented with voice and form, and the relationship between the written and spoken, and visually explored word. Throughout our creative process, students were encouraged to claim their place as storytellers and experts in their own experience. I provided guidance for the work being produced, but students’ areas of interest (themes and motifs) led the project.

Our work together culminated in the production and presentation of individual zines. Student-creators gave me permission to photograph their work, and develop a video that anthologizes their zines. Together, we viewed the video and talked about what they’d like to see happen with it.

There was consensus amongst the students that the video should be posted and distributed online, and available to everyone as an educational tool. Triangle students particularly want to reach out to other youth who have been or are being bullied at school— and those who can make a big difference: school boards and trustees, school administrators, educators, and guidance counselors.

Many students said that if it weren’t for the Triangle Program, they wouldn’t be in school. Triangle students recognize education as a right for all students, and that safety, or lack thereof, reduces access to education for LGBTQ students, and many other students for a broad variety of systemic reasons. Triangle students would like their stories and creative work to be a beacon for all youth who are struggling with safety and acceptance.

–Anna Camilleri, artist educator

More Information

What is a zine?

A zine is usually a non-commercial, non-professional publication, kind of
like a magazine but with a twist. The main difference between a magazine
and a zine is that zines are not out there to make a profit but, rather, to add
other, often unheard voices into the mix. Zines are usually made out of
interest and passion and are often self-published by the writer/artist/creator.

From <http://artmatters.ca/wp/2008/08/what-is-a-zine/>

The Triangle Program is one of three micro-schools that are part of Toronto District School Board’s OASIS Alternative School. Triangle classroom provides a safe educational environment for LGBTQ-identified youth. As the only LGBTQ-focused TDSB school, the curricula and pedagogical framework include LGBQT history and contemporary concerns including shifting notions and locations of LGBTQ community.

VIVA Launch: Roots and Bridges

VIVA! Community Arts and Popular Education in the Americas

¡VIVA! Community Arts and Popular Education in the Americas is a literary and transnational research project than spans five years and five countries. It integrates “place, politics, passion, and praxis” in the focus of building and sustaining community engagement and education through the arts. Included in the book, is a DVD of nine videos that showcase the ¡VIVA! project’s growth and evolution, and bringing it to life.

The event was hosted in a space provided by the Native Canadian Centre in the Annex, which is where the project was first implemented exactly eight years prior. That conference, “Harvesting Stories: Popular Education in Social Movements in the Americas” would shape and develop the ¡VIVA! project, picking up many people, stories, and ideas long the way.

As the project began to grow trans-nationally, ¡VIVA! showcased many different styles of education and artistic community engagement. Specifically, it also strives to identify certain tensions that exist among these programs, projects, and artistic movements. Below are brief overviews of just a few partner projects that are featured and make up the core of this book.

Kuna Children’s Art Project (Kuna Yala, Panama)
The Kuna people are an indigenous population living in Panama, specifically the Kuna Yala region which is home to more than 365 islands and over 36,000 inhabitants. The Children’s Art Project was developed through a variety of artistic mediums (drawing, murals, theatre, puppetry, crafting, music, and dance) delivered via workshops. Integrated with both Kuna and non-Kuna artists, the focus was in structuring the creative possibilities of Kuna children and youth to recover their cultural roots. Due to a lack of sufficient documentation, the ¡VIVA! Project’s main initiative in this program was to help ‘recover this experience by interviewing artists, animators, and participants.’

ArtsBridge, Changing Positions: Bridging the University and the City through Arts Education (Los Angeles, California – UCLA)

ArtsBridge is an education and outreach program that was developed through the School of Art and Architecture at the University of California. Its principle goals is to link students to community arts and social justice groups and schools for community learning.  The program also focuses on the under-representation of the African-American and Latino community in Los Angeles arts communities – examining the root causes in post-secondary education and developing academic and professional skills, arts development, curating, organization building, and more.

Jumblies Theatre/York University - Bridge of One Hair (Toronto, Canada)

Over the past decade, Jumblies Theatre has operated with York University in diverse neighbourhoods and communities to develop long-term projects in a multidisciplinary, artistic mindset. They have facilitated large-scale productions that involve the participation of both professional and public outreach. ‘The Bridge of the Hair’ project is a partnership between Montgomery’s Inn and Toronto Community Housing with a specific focus on the Mabelle community that houses many new immigrants and refugees from the Caribbean, Korea, Somalia, Russia, and Poland. This partnership began in 2005 with a 12-week program engaging youth (ages 12-16) in storytelling, photography, puppet-making, spoken word, video production, installation, and performance

To learn more about all partner projects and their objectives, as well as the ¡VIVA! story and its vision, visit the project’s home page here.

You can also buy it now at Between the Lines.

$24.95 CAD; Paperback; 240 pages; ISBN 9781926662510

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Alex Pollard is the Fall 2012 Intern at the Neighbourhood Arts Network

Creative Heartbeat of Malvern

 

What Are the Creative Heartbeats in St. Jamestown?

 

14th National Mural Symposium

Friday, October 28 at Toronto City Hall
Saturday & Sunday, October 29-30 at Warden Woods Community Centre, Scarborough

The National Mural Symposium 2011 is a professional development opportunity for mural artists, arts administrators, arts educators, public art consultants and creative developers of community space.

Charles Johnston

*Featuring keynote speaker Charles Johnston, C5 Artworks*

Symposium Registration Fees

Full symposium registration: $200
Full symposium registration (Mural Routes members): $175

Full registration includes:
-All sessions and refreshment breaks.
-Friday & Saturday continental breakfast & lunch
-Sunday breakfast

One day rates

Friday: $110 (includes Friday sessions 9:30 am – 4 pm, continental breakfast & lunch)
Saturday: $120 (includes Saturday sessions 9 am – 4:30 pm, continental breakfast & lunch)
Sunday: $100 (includes Sunday sessions 9 am – 12:30 pm, full breakfast)
Guest/spouse full symposium rate (accompanied by one full registration): $120

Link to full schedule of speakers, activities, and more, can be found here .
For secure web registration for this event, click here.
If you prefer mail/fax registration, click here.

For more information on this event, visit Mural Routes online.

The VIVA! Project Book Launch & Workshops

'VIVA! Community Arts and Popular Education in the Americas'

Book Launch and Celebration

Friday, Oct. 28, 6:30 – 9 PM
Native Canadian Centre

16 Spadina Road

‘VIVA! Community Arts and Popular Education in the Americas’ (SUNY Press and Between the Lines)-Compelling case studies of groups in Panama, Nicaragua, Mexico, the United States, and Canada using the arts for education, community development, and social movement building.

Hosted by York University’s Community Arts Program and local VIVA partners,
Jumblies Theatre and the Catalyst Centre in collaboration with Canadian co-
publisher Between the Lines, the launch will include an opening ceremony,
performances, poetry, and video screenings at 7 PM and 8 PM. Refreshments
will be served.

Co-sponsors: Between the Lines Press, York University Academic Innovation
Fund, Art and Communities Network, Community Arts Practice (CAP) @
York, Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean, Faculty of
Environmental Studies

Workshop Information:

Five of the international partners of the VIVA project coming to Toronto for the
launch will facilitate professional development workshops as part of the Arts
and Communities Network cross-faculty initiatives, funded by York University’s
Academic Innovation Fund (AIF).

Thursday, October 27, 6 – 9 PM: Sharing Lives and Cultures:
Community Media on Nicaragua´s Caribbean Coast

An evening dialogue with Margarita Antonio
Regent Park Focus Youth Media Arts Centre, 38 Regent Street (lower level)

Margarita Antonio

Margarita Antonio is a Miskitu journalist, a leader in regional Indigenous
women’s networks, and the UNESCO Officer on the Caribbean Coast of
Nicaragua. Founder of the Institute for Intercultural Communication of URACCAN
University, she helped develop BilwiVision, a youth-run community television
program. As a partner in the VIVA! Project, she co-authored “With Our Images,
Voices and Culture, Bilwivision: A Community Television Channel”. Margarita
will share Central American experiences and open up a dialogue with Toronto
community media activists.

Community partners: Regent Park Focus, Digital Storytelling Toronto (DSTO)
Academic partners: York University Academic Innovation Fund, Art and
Communities Network, Community Arts Practice (CAP) @ York, Centre for
Research on Latin American and the Caribbean (CERLAC)

Friday, October 28, 1 – 4 PM – Movement and Poetry Workshop with Amy
Shimshon-Santo
West-Side Arts Hub, York Woods Library, 1785 Finch Avenue West

Amy Shimshon-Santo

Amy Shimshon-Santo is a Los Angeles based performing artist (capoeira),
educator, and researcher. As ArtsBridge Director for UCLA’s School for the Arts
and Architecture, she prepared arts educators, built arts education infrastructure,
and cultivated K-20 community partnerships; she reflects on ArtsBridge in her
VIVA chapter, “Connecting the Dots: Linking Schools and Universities.” She
recently edited Art = Education: Connecting Learning Communities in Los
Angeles (UC Press), and has published poetry and short stories in addition to
social research on arts education, urban schooling, and community development.

Academic partners: York University Academic Innovation Fund, Art and
Communities Network, Community Arts Practice (CAP) @ York, Dance Dept.
Community partners: West-Side Arts Hub, Toronto District School Board

*CANCELLED*: Saturday, October 29, 10 AM – 4 PM Community Mural Production
Workshop with Checo Valdez
Davenport-Perth Neighbourhood Centre, 1900 Davenport Road

Checo Valdez

   *Please Note: The Checo Valdez workshop has been cancelled*

Checo Valdez is a well-known graphic artist, political cartoonist and
muralist who teaches at the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana in
Mexico City. He has recently developed a training program in community-
based mural production, and has coordinated mural projects all over
Mexico, in particular with Indigenous communities in the south, as well
as in Europe and North America. His method is elaborated in his chapter
in the VIVA book, “Painting By Listening.” He has exhibited widely and
has trained many people in participatory community mural production
throughout Mexico and internationally. In recent years, this has resulted in
more than forty murals in Indigenous communities in Chiapas, Mexico.

Academic Partners: York University Academic Innovation Fund, Art and
Communities Network, Community Art Practice (CAP) @ York, Centre for
Research on Latin America and the Caribbean (CERLAC)
Community Partners: Latin American Art Centre Collective, Canadian Latin
American Art Projects, Mural Routes

Sunday, October 30, 2 – 5 PM Personal Legacy Lecture and Demonstration
with Diane Roberts
West-Side Arts Hub, York Woods Library, 1785 Finch Avenue West

Diane Roberts

Diane Roberts is a Caribbean Canadian theatre artist working from an
AfriCentric perspective, which has informed the development of The Personal
Legacy Project and The Arrivals Project in the past five years. She is currently
artistic director of urban ink productions, that develops and produces aboriginal
and diverse cultural works of theatre, writing and film, integrating artistic
disciplines, and bringing together different cultural and artistic perspectives
and inter-racial experiences. Her chapter in the VIVA! book, “The Lost Body:
Recovering Memory – A Personal Legacy” reflects on the process she has
developed to help actors explore their ancestral histories, through both archival
and embodied research.

Academic partners: York University Theatre Dept, Academic Innovation Fund,
Community Arts Practice (CAP) @ York
Community partners: West Side Arts Hub, Nomanzland Theatre and Young
Peoples Theatre

Monday, October 31, 6- 8 PM, Public seminar on “Chocolate Woman
Dreams the Milky Way” with Monique Mojica, José Angel Colman Pérez,
and Alberto Guevara
Beit Zatoun, 612 Markham Street

Jose Colman

VIVA Project partner José Colman, Monique Mojica and Alberto Guevara will
speak about the collaborative and intercultural creation process in producing the
ground-breaking play “Chocolate Woman Dreams the Milky Way” at the Helen
Gardiner Phelan Playhouse in May of 2011.

An established senior artist, José Ángel Colman Pérez is a master storyteller
and oral historian and was the first professionally trained theatre artist of the
Kuna people in Panama. Best known for his work in cultural recovery through
theatre, José was a major leader in the Kuna Children’s Art Project and
contributed to the chapter in the VIVA! book, “Planting Good Seeds: The Kuna
Children’s Art Workshops.” He was brought to Canada by Monique Mojica to
direct “Chocolate Woman Dreams the Milky Way.”

Monique Mojica (Kuna and Rappahannock nations) is a Toronto-based
actor, playwright and artist-scholar spun directly from the web of New York’s
Spiderwoman Theater. Her first play Princess Pocahontas and the Blue Spots
was produced in 1990 by Nightwood Theatre and Theatre Passe Muraille, on
radio by CBC and published by Woman Press in 1990. She is the co-editor,
with Ric Knowles, of Staging Coyote’s Dream An Anthology of First Nations
Drama in English, vols. I & II published by Playwrights Canada Press. Monique
is the catalyst for the exploration of devising a dramaturgy specific to Guna
cultural aesthetics, story narrative and literary structure through the production
of “Chocolate Woman Dreams the Milky Way”. Her collaboration with VIVA
Partner José Colman represents a deepening of the intercultural exchange
around epistemological issues.

Alberto Guevara is an associate professor in the Theatre Dept at York
University, is the coordinator of the Community Arts Practice (CAP) certficate
for Fine Arts, and was the assistant director of the play “Chocolate Woman”.
Originally from Nicaragua, he integrates performance and politics, and his
research has focused on the theatricality of violence in Nicaragua and Nepal.
He is the creator/edtor of InTensions, bringing together scholars and artists on
themes related to the theatricality of power.

Academic partners: York University Theatre Department, Academic Innovation
Fund, Drama Centre, University of Toronto
Community partner: Centre for Indigenous Theatre

Arts & Equity Workshop: Planning for Community Arts

FREE Arts & Equity Workshop: Planning for Community Arts

2:30-6:30pm, Tues Oct 11^th 2011; Peace Lounge at O.I.S.E. (252 Bloor St. West)

This interactive workshop will explore tools and approaches for equitable planning processes in community arts. Learn about practical resources for community-based project planning, including training tools and guides provided by the Rainbow Health Network. Explore personal and community/political contexts, process and product, and aesthetics and ethics through arts-based activity and discussion led by Anna Camilleri. Share your knowledge and shape the Arts & Equity Toolkit currently being developed by the Neighbourhood Arts Network and Manifesto Community Projects.

This free workshop includes refreshments and a resource package. Space is limited! Please register by emailing Yvette@torontoarts.org before October 4th. The workshop takes place October 11^th and is part of a larger series. Other Arts & Equity workshops will take place on November 23, January 18, and February 8.

Questions? Please contact skye@torontoarts.org or call 416 392 6802 x212.

Workshop Details:

Why Community Arts? 

with Anna Camilleri

In this one-hour workshop, we’ll explore motivations and nuances for working in community engaged artistic practices. Through arts-based activities and discussion, we’ll explore the personal and community/political contexts, process and product, and aesthetics and ethics, and how and where they intersect.  We’ll also touch on approaches and strategies for dynamic collaboration and project planning. All materials will be provided in this participatory workshop.

Anna Camilleri has been cultivating a multi-disciplinary arts practice since 1995, incorporating creative writing, public art, visual art, storytelling and performance, and research. She is founding Artistic Co-Director of Red Dress Productions, a not-for-profit arts company that works with/in communities on large-scale, community-engaged public artworks and creates and disseminates interdisciplinary art and performance projects. She is currently in her second year as Artist-in-Residence at the Triangle School, Canada’s first and only alternative high school for LGBT students. Anna has led five large-scale community engaged public artwork mosaic projects, all of which are located in Wards 27 and 28 in southeast downtown Toronto. Anna has performed for the last fifteen years, and been hailed as a “storytelling siren” (Pride Toronto)—“tough, visceral and funny” (Atlanta Journal Constitution) “cultural agitator” (Now Magazine). She has been recognized with awards and distinctions from the LAMBDA Literary Foundation, the Association of Independent Publishers, and the American Library of Congress.

Arts and Equity Toolkit

Leah Burns

While enjoying a tasty meal, learn more about the Arts & Equity Toolkit and the Engaging Diverse Communities consultations that are informing it. Shape the toolkit’s development by sharing your own experiences and learning, and help us figure out what might be missing.

Engaging Diverse Communities is a research and education project of the Toronto Arts Foundation’s Neighbourhood Arts Network, and Manifesto Community Projects. Engaging Diverse Communities aims to strengthen relationships between the arts and social service sectors in order to build capacity for artists and cultural workers to increase access and reduce barriers to cultural participation for culturally diverse communities.

 

Integrated Anti-Oppression Framework

Rainbow Health Network

Through an interactive activity and discussion, learn more about intersectional oppression and the integrated anti-oppression framework. Discover the Rainbow Health Network’s free training resources, which can be used for both personal and professional development.

The Rainbow Health Network is a catalyst and a resource for activities promoting the health and wellness of people of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities, in Toronto and beyond. We are committed to equity-based, community-based, anti-racism and anti-oppression values. We strive for representation of the full diversity of our communities and commit to building partnerships to achieve this goal.

These workshops were made possible by funding from the Ontario Ministry of Culture’s Cultural Strategic Investment Fund.