AFCY is one of 4 partners that are now each awarding micro-grants of up to $1,000 to up-and-coming emerging artists and collectives. Funded through the Toronto Arts Council, the micro-grants are part of a pilot project, called Platform A, that is testing new models for collaboration and resource sharing in the youth and community-engaged arts sectors.
AFCY is thrilled to announce the following micro-grant recipients:
Ascend Arts Collective: An art collective rooted in creativity, learning, sharing and enjoying the creation of art. Through weekly workshops facilitated by visual artist Felicia Samuels at the Ascend retail space, local youth will learn the basics of art creation, business development and event planning, with the opportunity to engage the community and test the market with their creations during a final showcase / pop-up shop.
Community Action Committee (Community Unite Project): By participating in a series of workshops in the Kennedy/Eglinton and Birchmount/Eglinton area led by resident elders, resident high school students, and two youth group coordinators, youth will learn how they can create healthy community dialogues. They will each use this learning to make a personal leadership statement pledging their involvement to their community on a self-designed ceramic plaque that will be showcased at a Toronto Community Housing building in the community.
Camelle Davidson: An Inter-generational collective of community artists participating in weekly workshops at a Toronto Community Housing building in the Glendower community (Birchmount/Finch) to create various pieces of batik art based on themes that best represent them as individuals or as a community. Called Visual Expressions, the project will enable participants to develop and display artworks that tell a visual story about their community, city, life, history and what they have learned.
Leila Dey (Dey Dreamers Program): Dey Dreamers is an artist development program for young women between the ages of 15-29 who would not have access otherwise to professional music services. Over 10 weeks, the program will engage young women to develop as recording artists by participating in full-day sessions at Sandbox Studios, in which they will gain performance and recording skills from community artists acting as presenters and mentors. The program will result in a recorded compilation of songs, which will be shared with the community.
Fitzroy Facey (The 8:45:66 Initiative): A collaborative project bringing together three generations, for a first-of-its-kind music program in the Malvern community. This initiative brings together a father and sons trio (an 8-year-old child, a 25-year old youth and an adult), who will collaborate to create and record 3 original songs. The songs will be performed collaboratively with people living in Toronto Community Housing senior care facilities during a series of interactive events that include hands-on music/instrument making sessions followed by interactive group performances.
Junior Lavagesse (16 Bars: Jae Lejit Documentary): The 16 Bars Jae Lejit Documentary will raise awareness about artistic health, leadership and innovation through the creation of a documentary film/video that demonstrates the hip hop artist Jae Lejit’s creative process and his method of fusing music, visual imagery, and community-engaged artmaking. The film, which will include interviews from members of the Victoria Village community, as well as a “soundtrack” featuring musical imagery from AFCY artists, will be unveiled in an exhibition/screening in the community.
Casandra London (The Casandra London Network Youth Program): The CLN Youth Program is a community driven initiative fusing together the art of theatre and journalism for diverse youth making social and political differences in marginalized areas. Over the course of three months, youth will attend weekly workshops where they will learn how to collectively create a play, produce an online video news report, and develop an event to showcase their work in the community.
Anthony Swan (Basement Apartment Films): Basement Apartment is a collective of 5 emerging filmmakers from priority areas of Toronto. The collective works together with the aim of mitigating the barriers faced by economically challenged filmmakers to entering the film industry by creating opportunities for emerging film makers to take their careers and professional development into their own hands. In weekly meetings the members of the Basement Apartment collective will share resources, develop skills and knowledge (through workshops, targeted mentorship and group work) and then apply those skills to the promotion, production and distribution of a short film, which will be created with additional crew members, and mentors from the community. The short film will be screened at an event at Cinecycle.
Platform A 