Art Starts Gets Game Curious!

Art Starts has recently partnered with Hand Eye Society, a Toronto not-for-profit changing the way people think about and interact with video games through a number of innovative initiatives, programs and pop-ups. We will be offering support and mentorship as HES shifts their focus to increased outreach, media literacy and community engagement beyond the downtown core by bringing their ‘play and make’ initiative, Game Curious, to the Glendower neighbourhood. “Art Starts has been doing arts-based community programming for many years, so we’re very fortunate to be able to learn from an organization with so much experience in an area to which we’re relatively new,” says Sagan Yee, Game Curious’ Program Coordinator, on this new, exciting connection.

Game Curious is about ‘exploring the untapped art of video games, for people who don’t necessarily identify as gamers.’ And from speaking with Sagan, it is clear increasing access to games and their potential for storytelling is a significant aspect of the program and she highlights cost of technology and the misconception of video games as being predominantly violent as some of the obstacles to engaging in the medium. According to her, “Game Curious aims to break down these barriers by providing a physical space in which people of different backgrounds can explore a wide variety of titles, ask questions, and eventually learn how to tell their own stories through games.”

Game Curious began last week at our Glendower location and Sagan describes the first session as “lively” with about 15 youth, some as young as 5 years old, coming out to discuss the program and play a variety of games, a couple of the most popular being Scott Pilgrim vs The World and Space Race. The theme for this session was ‘games made or set in Toronto’ and Sagan explains that this was chosen “to get participants thinking about how games can reflect their own environments.” Some of the participants were so intrigued they’ve already begun developing ideas for their own games, sketching characters and brainstorming level designs. It is this natural curiosity that HES seeks to harness and channel to ultimately “encourage more diversity, inclusion, and creativity in the community and industry,” says Sagan.

It has been such a fulfilling opportunity working with and mentoring such a ground-breaking organization like Hand Eye Society, the first video game arts organization in the world, and Art Starts looks forward to the uniquely personal worlds the Glendower youth will discover and create as they get Game Curious this spring.

JUMBLIES: Interns at work!

For the past 3 months, 6 Jumblies Interns have been taken turns to design and lead activities at Arts4All under the mentorship of Liz Rucker. This is  part of our Jumblies Studio hands-on community arts learning process, funded by the Toronto Arts Council through Platform A, Cultural Human Resources Canada (CHRC), Employment Ontario through St. Stephen’s House. The interning artists are: Miranda Sharp and Mackenzie Konecny (visual arts), Julia Hune-Brown and Jackie Omstead (theatre and dance), and Lisa Bozikovic (music).
All their creative work will come together during this Dec. 8th open workshop and celebration.

JUMBLIES PRESENTS VISITING UK ARTISTS IN TORONTO

From October 27th to 30th, Jumblies had the good fortune to host a Toronto visit from John Fox and Sue Gill, community arts pioneers from the U.K (founders of the former Welfare State International, and now working under the name of Dead Good Guides). Their visit, although not directly a Platform A activity, contributed to Jumblies’ Platform A Mentorship efforts. Platform A-affiliated staff, partners, interns and mentored artists were able to learn and draw inspiration from their visit though a public  presentation, hosted by Arts4All at DPNCHC and a special and more intimate discussion circle held at The Ground Floor, attended by about 20 people. honoured to host and get to know these inspiring artists, who have such a strong influence on so many of us, and wish them all the best on the rest of their Canadian Journey!

Photos by Liam Coo

JUMBLIES LAUNCHES PARTNERSHIP WITH CANADIAN MUSIC CENTRE

On October 11th, Jumblies held a day long creative workshop at the Canadian Music Centre, including 22 participants: half composers and music creators, and half community-engaged artists from other disciplines. The goal was for the composers to learn about community arts and the community artists to learn about working with composers, in order to promote new awareness, collaborations and cross-pollination in Toronto’s art world. This workshop is part of Jumblies’ Platform A Bridging component, which is now also supported by the Metcalf Foundation’s Strategic Incubator Program.

photo by Katherine Fleitas (peacephoto.com)

Jumblies 2014 Interns

Jumblies is very excited about our crew of 2014 interns who help us deliver community arts workshops at the Ground Floor and with our colleague organisations Arts4All, MABELLEarts and Dundas First Nations School.

Parker Dirks is a visual artist with an interdisciplinary practice. At the Ground Floor, Parker has been doing silk screen printing and assisting with our Word & Images workshops. At MABELLEarts, Parker helped deliver the weekly outdoor series in Mabelle Parkette.  Parker is with us thanks to support from St. Stephen’s House/Employment Ontario.

Julia Hune-Brown is a theatre artist and dancer who recently returned to Toronto from leading theatre and movement workshops in South Korea, Cambodia  and England. She is leading our Family Dance & Movement and Adult & Youth Dance & Movement workshops with Jumblies choreographer Lilia Leon, and will be leading a theatre workshop at Arts4All with Jackie Omstead.

Mackenzie Konecny is a visual artist who came to us from the George Brown College Assaulted Women’s & Children’s Counsellor Advocate program. She helps with installations at the Ground Floor and facilitating art activities. At Dundas First Nations School, she helped students make puppets and costumes for their production of A Pageant for All Seasons. Mackenzie is with us thanks to support from St. Stephen’s House/Employment Ontario.

Jackie Omstead is a theatre artist and singer who came to us from Queen’s University. She helps facilitate our Voice & Sound workshop, does our social media work with Liam Coo, and is our resident office administrator. At MABELLEarts, she helped with the weekly outdoor series in Mabelle Parkette and will deliver a theatre workshop at Arts4All with Julia Hune-Brown. Jackie is with us thanks to support from Cultural Human Resources Council.

Miranda Sharp is a visual artist who loves to create comic strips. She has led comic strip creation workshops and assists with arts workshops at the Ground Floor and at Arts4All. She is the resident Jumblies font maker and creates most of our signage at the Ground Floor.

JUMBLIES: Before and After

Over January and March 2014, Alvis Parsley, a Platform A micro-grant recipient, led a pilot project titled “Before and After: Occupational Change of Migrant Workers in Chinatown” in addition to Platform A and Jumblies Theatre, support came from the Chinese Canadian National Council Toronto Chapter.

Art Starts Microgrant Recipient Profile

A DIFFERENT KIND OF MAP BRINGS A COMMUNITY TOGETHER

Nicole Little is an emerging artist, and a teacher. When she received the Art Starts microgrant award she was determined to see her interactive map-making project through in a classroom, the kind of community she knows all about.

 

 

The Dynamic Map project is a multi-disciplinary participatory project made with a grade 6 classroom from Lawrence Heights Middle School. Students, community members and professional artists are both makers and subjects in this multi-layered piece. No small endeavor, the Dynamic Map will be created through several group workshops and individual art making sessions. The project will culminate in the completion of a large-scale 3D installation of drawings, paintings and small ceramic pieces.

The intent of the project is to represent the community, in its complexities and many dimensions, from the kids’ perspective. This is a map where the streets and underpasses of Lawrence Heights are not shown to scale from a developer’s lense but rather where the laneways and shortcuts that lead home or to school are highlighted. This map will showcase the wild fauna and flora that exists often overlooked right in the schoolyard and the park. This map will be covered with portraits of community members that are important and have an impact – in the kids lives – that is the people they choose to represent their neighbourhood: their parents, teachers, friends.

This project will impact the artist as much as the community she is working with. In Nicole’s own words: “The microgrant has given me an opportunity to change the scale of my work. I tended to produce small, detailed work which relies on colour and heavy layers of time consuming detail. The map will be large so it is very lucky that some of the detail work is being “outsourced” to an amazing grade 6 class!!” And as any community artist knows, the impact of art projects is always a two-way street. Nicole says: “ The project immediately engages Lawrence Heights Middle School students, and I hope my experience as an artist and as a teacher will enrich the student’s year. A portion of the project involves creating portraits of community members. This has the potential to honour community contributors and to showcase the faces of Lawrence Heights. I am looking forward to meeting new people and hearing their stories”.

The many layers of the dynamic map reflect the complexity and inherent interconnected-ness of every single relationship fostered by living in community, making art in community.

JUMBLIES: Platform A interns at work at Jumblies and its Offshoots

Throughout the winter, nine emerging community artists were supported by Platform A to work with Jumblies Theatre and offshoots in a number of a wide number of projects.

Adrienne Marcus Raja with Adam Vaughan, Ruth Howard and Rosario Marchese  upon receiving the Al Levitt Award during the Jumblies Ground floor opening.

Arber Makri speaks with residents minutes before the Mabelle Parade in February 2014.

Jonathan Valelly and Kristi White serving  fish soup at the Pathway of Life Celebration with Making Room Community Arts.

Faeghan Williams takes part in the PARC cake walk with Making Room.

Jonathan Valelly and Shelly Lahay make accordion books at Making Room Community Arts.

Lisa Bozikovic plays with Anne Lederman during the December 2013 Artfare Essentials.

Miranda Sharp helps make a shopping cart float at a drop-in workshop at MABELLEarts.

Amy Siegal with Ruth Howard and Michael Burtt after receiving her Certificate of Participation in the Jumblies Artfare Essentials Workshop.

 

Adrienne Marcus Raja, Liz Rucker, Miranda Sharp, Pam Snell, Ruth Howard and Faeghan Williams raise a toast.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

all photos by Katherine Fleitas, Peace Photo and others.

AFCY: Basement Apartment Films

Basement Apartment is a collective of 5 emerging filmmakers from priority areas of Toronto. In weekly meetings, the members of the Basement Apartment shared resources and developed skills through workshops, targeted mentorship, and group work. Their goal is to apply these skills towards the promotion, production and distribution of a short film, which will be created with additional crew members and mentors from the community.

 

 

Through their combined network of contacts, they were able to reach out to many marginalized independent filmmakers that were happy to work on their film for the learning experience.

 

 

 

 

 

The participants outside the Basement Apartments collective are:

4 Actors

3 Camera Department

2 Sound Department

2 Production Assistants

1 Art Department

1 Set Photographer

for a complete production of 18 people.

After a workshop where they learned how to write character breakdowns and put up listings for actors, Basement Apartment Films was thrilled to receive an astonishing 297 applications for their film. This posed to be quite the challenge considering they only had spots for four actors, but they were able to pull it off!

 

 

 

 

“The biggest lesson we’ve learned is how to adapt to changing circumstances and limited resources – to be able to change as circumstances change, let go of preconceptions and see potential instead of disappointment. That will help us in any and every aspect of film-making in the future.” – Anthony Swan

We can’t wait to see the end result!

Art Starts Bridging Initiative Profile

A SHOOTING, A PLAY, AN EFFORT TO UNDERSTAND THE ART STARTS WAY

The Bridging component of Platform A specifically aims to galvanize connections between under-resourced neighborhoods and well-established arts companies and institutions. At Art Starts we are committed to bridging the gap between communities and professional artists, blurring the lines between “high” art and community-engaged art practices – always building two-way roads. We aim to facilitate artistic collaborations and artist/community pairings in the neighbourhoods we have been working with for years. The Bridge initiatives will take various forms such as partnering with professional companies to perform and facilitate creative workshops in a local basketball court, a TCH communal room or maybe even the local laundromats, to field trips to galleries, theatres, or the symphony – anything is possible! These events will always include a spaces for direct, hands-on interaction between the artists and the audience/community. The intention is to engage diverse and under-represented communities in creating new opportunities and increasing access to arts experiences in innovative and collaborative ways that will both increase audience and membership as well as benefit communities directly. One of the Art Starts bridging initiatives is showcased in Living Toronto Journals’ special issue exploring the theme of BRIDGES.

Read more about our Art Starts Lawrence Heights community’s visit to the Tarragon Theatre in the Fall of 2013

http://livingtorontojournal.wordpress.com/2014/01/28/a-shooting-a-play-an-effort-to-understand/