the gathering space: October 2007

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

The Gathering Space found a home!!

Thankfully! Now that the cold weather is coming we are happy to announce that we've found a warm home for our project. Starting November 1st The Gathering Space with will open our studio at 2804 Dundas St. West. We'll be sharing space with 'Cool Hand of a Girl', popular coffee shop and local gem. Our studio will be open Wednesday to Friday from 12 to 6 and on weekends, while 'Cool Hand of a Girl' serves brunch, we will be out and about in the Junction neighbourhood gathering as usual.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Some things we've found

One of the research activities we've been doing for the Gathering Space has been finding interesting and unusual things around the neighbourhood, and here are some photos of a few of our found objects:
1) the strange remains of a lampshade, perched on a fencepost
2) an interesting piece of metal, maybe a belt buckle?
3) some very beautiful blue broken tiles at the construction site
4) a leaf among leaves

Junction Skies

here are some snaps of the skies above the Junction

Monday, October 1, 2007

Farm animals project

Another of our research activities is the Farm Animal Project. The Junction used to be home to the biggest stockyards in North America. To acknowledge and remember that, we've been leaving toy farm animals around the neighbourhood with tags saying "send us a story about a pet, the Stockyards, or another animal story" and our email address attached.
We've stared getting responses and it's so exciting!! We'll be posting some of them here on the blog soon. Stay tuned!

Junction textures

Here are some of the textures we found of the neighbourhood

The Gathering Space has opened it's doors...and windows and walls and alleys and garages and streets...

Welcome to The Gathering Space, a community arts project based in the Junction.

Our project is interested in collecting stories of all kinds about the Junction area and reflecting those stories back using art.
The neighbourhood is in a time of huge changing and shifting, and we want to document those changes, and the experience and history of the area that people carry around in their bodies and memories.

We originally wanted to open up a community gallery in a storefront on Dundas, but had trouble finding a place that was willing to rent for a shorter period of time. Instead, we've decided to turn the streets into our gallery! You'll find us walking around, taking pictures, asking questions, listening to stories, and getting to know the neighbourhood.

We're presently in our research phase, wandering around the neighbourhood talking to people and collecting things. During the Junction Arts Festival, you may have seen us at our partner The West Toronto Junction Historical Society's booth with our Journey story Judy. These days, you're likely to see us on our own with our mobile 'research station' bikecart, somewhere along Dundas Ave.

On this blog you'll find photos and stories and fragments and our thoughts and ideas of the Junction we've picked up during our time there.

Finally, we're getting the blog going!

The Monday Art Group at Evangeline

Currently the main project of the Red Wagon Collective is the Monday Art Group at Evangeline Women's Residence in the Junction, a neighbourhood in Toronto, Canada. Artists from the community gather every week with women living at Evangeline to make art. Last year we completed the Evangeline Transformation Project which was a series of banners designed by the group and installed inside and outside of the shelter. We also created a Quilt out of all the scrap knitting a crocheting that women do. The Quilt is used as the basis of a interactive performance piece about women and homelessness, which has travelled to conferences around the world.

Currently we have secured a small amount of funding to do a photo-voice research project on homelessness, aging and disability. We also have many plans for public art installations around the Junction.

The Gathering Space was the first project initiated by the Red Wagon Collective, out of which the Monday Art Group arose.

RED WAGON COLLECTIVE

Current Artists
NANCY VIVA DAVIS HALIFAX is an artist, educator, research whose work involves everyday practices, the use of artefacts, and the performative. She finds herself using a broad definition of art in order to reflect upon, research, and respond to community ideas, narratives and memories. She understands community as a radical place for transformation, using the arts as one of the tools for social justice and engagement. Nancy lives in the Junction neighbourhood.

KIM JACKSON has long been working as an artist and activist with knowledge production based on the everyday experiences and expression from the margins of capitalism. Her work takes the form of anti-capitalist performative social arts. She has worked with other community members from the Junction on “The Community Feast Project,” a huge dinner party which affords a space for people to break through the parallel realities engendered by gentrification. She is also engaged in an ongoing collective video project, the MoneyProject, which examines lives lived under capitalism. To date she is working on her Phd in Environmental Studies at York University.

Past Artists
LOREE LAWRENCE (Lead Artist) is an artist, educator, and consultant whose work with community-engaged art initiatives spans more then 20 years. As the Theatre Director at KYTES (Kensington Youth Theatre and Emloyment Skills) in Toronto from 1995 to 2000, Loree worked extensively with street-involved youth creating collaborative interdisciplinary performances combining theatre, video, music, movement, and visual arts. After moving to Vancouver, Loree became the Creative Director at Projections, a film and video mentorship project for street-involved youth; and directed Leaky Heaven Circus' youth project which won a Jesse Award for youth and community involvement. From 2005-2007, Loree worked with Jumblies Theatre on the Bridge of One Hair project in Etobicoke: as Lead Artist for Where I'm From performance/installation at Montgomery's Inn (2005); as Associate Artistic Director (2005/06); and Lead Installation Artist and Evaluation Consultant (Flying Squad) (2006/07). Bridge of One Hair was presented at Harbourfront Centre for Fresh Ground and World Stage in May 2007.

Loree completed an MA in Arts Education in 2006 and is a partner in Resonance Creative Consulting Partners with Margo Charlton. In Spring 2007, Resonance produced Moving Forward: a report on the Creative City: Block by Block for the Toronto Arts Council Foundation. Their current project is a national study of the evaluation of community arts projects for Canadian Public Arts Funders (CPAF).

LIZ FORSBERG is a community artist and musician living in Toronto's Junction neighbourhood. Her work explores themes of urban ecology, memory and public space and manifests itself in the streets, alleyways, parks and ravines of Toronto in collaborations with community groups such as Lost Rivers, Toronto Public Space Committee and Jane and Finch Community and Family Centre. She is currently working on a collaborative project with the Art Gallery of York University and youth at the Jane and Finch Boys and Girls Club entitled Black Creek United.

AMY KAZYMERCHYK is interested in the physical, tactile and interactive aspects of experimental filmmaking. She is currently focusing on making personal essay films that document her relationship to landscape, location, home and travel. She resides in Toronto and Vancouver where she is discovering her love of film culture, curating and programming, throwing parties, and collaborating with artists on wild film adventures.

She holds a Bachelor of Media Arts from the Emily Carr Institute. Her films and videos have screened at festivals such as the Cineffable Lesbian Film Festival in Paris, The Boston Underground Film Festival, and The Women's International Film Festival in Seoul. Her film What don't you understand about "I'm leaving again?" recently won the best Cinematography Award at the 50/104 Film Festival in Saskatoon. She is currently promoting and touring a Retrospective of Allyson Mitchell and Christina Zeidler's film and video work that she initially curated for Vancouver's Queer Film and Video Festival.

Amy is excited to be working with Loree Lawrence again, after they first met in Vancouver while working together with Projections- Film and Video Training and Mentorship project for Street Involved Youth. Amy has continued to contribute to Community Arts Initiatives including curating for Gallery Gachet and coordinating and and facilitating Anti-Homophobia and Anti-Racism workshops with the Access to Media Education Society.

NOAH KENNEALLY is a performance artist, an arts educator and researcher, and a visual artist. Based in Toronto, he works in many media - including physical theatre, storytelling, community-engaged arts, visual arts and puppetry.

Working as a designer, facilitator, researcher, performer and builder, Noah has collaborated and worked in Toronto recently with Shadowland Theatre, Theatre Rusticle, Blue Ceiling Dance Projects and is currently an associate artistic co-coordinator with Jumblies Theatre.

Noah is the Head Assistant Deputy aide of Imagination Recalibrations for the arts research and performance company Cardboard heart Imagination Laboratory.

Past Events

Captialism and Culture in the Junction: February 2-15, 2011. The Quilt project will again be displayed at the Capitalism and Culture exhibit.
Junction Arts Festival 2011: Installation of Quilt Project infront of Evnageline Women's Residence on Dundas West and Hienztman. Come knit and crochet with us and talk about the precarity of housing
Junction Home Movie Hearth: Home Movie Screening . TH 27th 7:30pm . Bring your own home movies, garage sale rescues, or flea market gems to screen- or just come and watch nostalgic images from the 1930-80’s. Popcorn served fresh! Come early to privately preview your films and repair them in our clinic at 6:30pm.
Home Sweet Home Exhibit Opening. TH April 3 5-7pm . Join us in celebrating our final exhibition, a presentation of 13 community collaborations and neighborhood interventions. Toronto artists collaborate with students from Lucy McCormick, long-time shopkeepers along Dundas W., children, seniors and residents of Evangeline House, to create engaging and interpretive photography, textile, sculpture and installation projects that explore their relationships to ‘home’ and the Junction. Please bring a small meaningful object that can be incorporated into Kaitlin Gate’s Precious Possessions work. Exhibition will run until April 30th..
Junction City Centennial Celebration & Centennial Day . SAT 12th, SUN 13th, MON 14th . Along Dundas W. Check out blog our for event, location and time updates. www.gatheringspace.blogspot.com
Birds, Bees and Bushes: Local Ecology Forum with Richard Joos . TH 17th 7pm . Do you ever consider where you are – ecologically? Although we humans are accustomed to food and entertainment from around the world, to vacations anywhere we choose (typically tropical in our winters), and generalized scientific research, we’re often blind to our immediate microclimates, watersheds, forestry species, and the seasonal changes of bird populations. If you knew this place 300 years ago you would remember it as being far more ecologically vibrant. It could be again – if we rearrangeour priorities around long-term ecologically sound, native plant and bird friendly, environmental values.
May Day Community Feast . TH May 1st 5-10pm . Join us in celebrating the life of The Gathering Space and our time in the Cool Hand of a Girl cafe. Please bring a potluck style food and beverage contribution, and join us in a toast to the health, happiness, and longevity of the Junction.
Before and After at the Contact Photography Festival . May 1-31 at the Agora Cafe 3015 Dundas W. www.contactphoto.com . A photo exhibit of historical and contemporary photos of the Junction, featuring places that no longer exist, sites under construction, and storefronts in flux.
Open Workshop Days . W & TH 12-6pm, F 11-4pm . Along with our regular activities, artists in the Home Sweet Home exhibtion have created new projects for visitors to engage with. Sarah Cullen will be leaving her Mapping/Drawing Devices onsite for people to take out on walking adventures. Kaitlin Gates will continue to accept precious possessions to sew into paper hands. Shannon Phair and Patrina Ng’s Dear Toronto exhibit will offer letters and envelopes for eager writers; and Kim Jackson’s environmental sound installation will record visitor’s comings and goings throughout the month. The Gathering Space will be mounting our final project, The Neighborhood Dip, a lottery style neighborhood intervention grab bag that will inspire you to play.

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