Reclaiming Artifacts Opening

Part of the Community Arts Space: Recent Histories

In partnership with Art Starts, visitors will meet the young artists, facilitators, and project leads behind Reclaiming Artifacts to celebrate Lawrence Heights, the power of community, and the importance of youth voices.

About Reclaiming Artifacts

Reclaiming Artifacts invites visitors of all-ages to explore the “discovery” of artifacts found during the construction of a condo in the year 2050. With support from Art Starts, design researchers Calla Lee and Prateeksha Singh collaborated with youth artists from Lawrence Heights to create these fictional clay artifacts, resulting in a multimedia exhibition that meditates on the neighborhood’s ongoing revitalization. Residents of Lawrence Heights, one of Toronto’s largest community housing projects, have been in the midst of a sweeping revitalization process.

In collaboration with artist Aitak Sorahitalab, Art Starts Program Manager Mia-Skye Sagara, and youth facilitator Wendy De Souza, Lee and Singh designed workshops allowing the artists to imagine objects representing the lives of current and future residents, found in Lawrence Heights through gentrification. The fictional clay objects become artifacts that represent the experiences and values of each artist, and also suggest a shared future for those of us who live in the Greater Toronto Area.

Reclaiming Artifacts is led by youth artists Ayesha Barazkai, Siddiqa Barakzai, Akashiaa Beckford-Stone, Amina Malik, Kianna L.Morgan, and Sutanya Samuels.

About the Community Arts Space: Recent Histories

Inspired by the transformative aspects of ceramics, both real and metaphorical, the Community Arts Space is the Gardiner’s incubator for arts-based community projects. In collaboration with local artists, designers, and collectives, the Museum will mount five public projects that examine how cultural knowledge is passed on or performed, and the role of a museum in cultivating the so-called lived and living memory. Learn more

The 519 is committed to the health, happiness, and full participation of the LGBTQ2S community. A City of Toronto agency and a registered charity with an innovative model of Service, Space and Leadership, The 519 strives to make a real difference in people’s lives while working to promote inclusion, understanding, and respect.

In 2017, The 519 provided in-kind space and resources for artistic workshops in support of the development of two process-driven projects, NU_FORuMS and Collecting Personal Archives. For Community Arts Space 2018, The 519 will again provide workshop space for a process-driven project, supporting the delivery of knowledge and skill-sharing serving the LGBTQ2S community in Toronto and beyond.

Akin Collective is a Toronto-based arts organization that provides affordable studio space as well as arts-based programming through its sister non-profit organization, Akin Projects. Akin provides space to nearly 250 visual artists, designers, and creatives in studios that maintain a friendly and inspiring atmosphere where people can work on creative endeavors and entrepreneurial undertakings of all kinds. Akin builds community through monthly art critiques, free or low-cost workshops, open studio events, gallery tours, exhibitions, as well as various other projects. During the Community Arts Space’s inaugural 2016 cycle, Akin Projects mounted Place/Setting, an exhibition hall project delivering all-ages clay-making workshops and community events. For Community Arts Space 2018, Akin will provide six months of free studio time at one of its studios, as well as kiln firing access.

For 25 years, Art Starts programs have benefited thousands of people living in marginalized Toronto neighbourhoods by providing a safe, supportive and inclusive environment for self-expression and creative collaboration. They afford opportunities for vulnerable people of all ages to contribute to the creative ecology of their neighbourhoods, using the arts to help end the negative cycles associated with marginalization and poverty.

Programming Partners

Angry Asian Feminist Gang

Asian Community AIDS Services

Invisible Footprints

Margin of Eras Gallery

Rice Roll Productions

Titiesg Wîcinímintôwak // Bluejays Dancing Together Collective