Hello community! What a wonderful whirlwind February was!
Early February found us participating in the HomeGround Festival at Oppenheimer Park. We were swamped from the moment the festival opened, connecting with a 100+ DTES community members, many of whom made the most stunning upcycled plastic art creations!
We loved collaboratively creating art with everyone from Elders to children to longtime volunteers and even Parks staff! So many new ideas generated for using found and recycled materials for art creation!
In late February, we had a table at the DTES Artist Resource Fair! We were very busy again from the outset! People made collages, wallets, eye glass cases and even customized scissors cases and folders!
We also loved answering questions from community artists about the Artists in Communities Residency and our experience applying. Our hope is to share as much knowledge and skills as we can about the AIC application process with DTES members and hopefully we'll see lots of people from the community applying next year!
Our last event of this busy month was a session in the Art Room at Carnegie Community Centre! This is such an amazing space with a regular group of artists who are incredibly talented.
It was wonderful to meet some of the core artists who use the space and also have a bunch of drop-ins! Spending 4 hours together allowed us to go much deeper with the creation process and get to know people. People tried out new things with the plastic, including weaving it and trying out different textures and techniques.
Through all of these events, we asked community members what they want to see happen in the residency. We also realized yet again, how important and healing the process of creation itself is, in whatever form it takes shape.
We received a lot of requests to show folks every step of the Plastic Fantastic art creation so they can take it back into the community and do it for themselves and others. This is the essence of community centred art for us - sharing every bit of the knowledge and skills so that it belongs to the people.
Thank you to all the board members, staff, volunteers, community members who have welcomed us so warmly!
Keep an eye out here for upcoming events as we continue expanding the residency with Plastic Fantastic and moving into exploring other art forms such as poetry, sculpture etc.