The Winchester Park Public Art Project | Dispatch #3

During our first visit to Winchester Junior and Senior Public School we had the opportunity to work with educator Lee Hicks, and his classroom of remarkable young people.

Among the spring-inspired selfie puppets created are: seed man, guardian of the flowers, protector of dogs, and a hummingbird. 

Emmanuel College, University of Toronto Public Art Project

A few images of the recently completed collaborative project with folks at Emmanuel College, University of Toronto. The artwork is yet to be titled. 

75+ community members contributed to the conceptual development and building of the artwork, with the support of the artistic team both in community consultations and open studio sessions. Many thanks to Greg Powell for outreach and coordination support, and for approaching Red Dress Productions to begin with.

Red Dress Productions Artistic Team

Anna Camilleri -  Designer and Lead Builder
Tristan R. Whiston - Co-Lead Artist
Katie Yealland - Associate Artist, Photographer
Chantelle Gobeil - Associate Artist

Mixed Media Diptych
stone, smalti,vitreous glass, porcelain, and grout on cradled plywood

5' 6" h x 2' w x 2 panels

 

The Winchester Park Public Art Project | Dispatch #2

As we move forward into this (multi-arts, multi-community, multi-year) project inspired and based upon the stories and artistic discoveries found within the Winchester Park neighbourhood, we've begun to populate a dimensional neighbourhood map with the real and fantastical, the past and the present, and with our histories and imaginations.

ISIS Canada Community Art Weekend

Following The Art of Collaboration, our public lecture on Friday March 28, Tristan and I had the pleasure of designing and facilitating a community art weekend with the 40+ staff and students at ISIS Canada. 

Through a two day creative process, we adventured through a layered process toward creating and presenting collaborative art, along with meeting some of the challenges and inquiries through discussion, reflection, and consensus building. 

Here, we'd like to share some of what emerged:

paper collage

paper collage

The Winchester Park Public Art Project | Dispatch #1

We had a great first workshop with a group of seniors at Diane Frankling Housing Co-op. We asked about the words "senior" and "elder" to refer to a person of significant age -- reviews were definitely mixed on both words. Boomers was enthusiastically offered, which led to the group proclaiming itself the BLOOMING BOOMERS!

Thanks to Alvis Choi aka Alvis Parsley for creating a word/cloud tag with notes they recorded from our workshop:

The Art of Collaboration | A public lecture/presentation | 7pm, March 28, 2014

On Friday, March 28 at 7 PM, Anna Camilleri and Tristan R. Whiston will give a free public lecture on The Art of Collaboration, a presentation illustrated with images and short video clips that offers an overview of RDP’ s process of multi-phase projects and residencies in Toronto communities. 

The presentation – which will touch on models for artistic, and community engagement, consensus building, ethics, challenges, facilitation, partnerships, arts-based research, site-specific and public art, and the creative process –  will be followed by time for questions and informal discussion.

About Anna Camilleri and Tristan R. Whiston

Anna and Tristan have created and led a several multi-phase, large-scale multi-community projects and residencies in Toronto, and across Ontario, as well as national touring stage productions. Recent works include "Everyone. Everywhere.” (2013) in Etobicoke with Arts Etobicoke and Amnesty International, "Homage" with the Church Street Murals Project (2013), “Dwelling” with Diane Frankling Co-operative Housing (2012), and “Trace”, an interactive audio and performance installation that will tour Canada in 2014/2015.  

Anna and Tristan have a combined 40+ years of experience as multidisciplinary artists, and teaching credentials at many universities, colleges, and high schools. Camilleri’s “home” artistic disciplines are literature and performance and Whiston’s are theatre and music; and together, they entered the dynamic realms of socially engaged (ceramic, glass, and mixed media) public artwork in 2006.  They have been recognized with several awards and distinctions from the LAMBDA Literary Foundation, the Association of Independent Publishers, the American Library of Congress, and the Premios Ondas and the New York Festivals (for international radio broadcasting).

Please click on image for a larger view. 

Open Studio at Emmanuel College, University of Toronto

Thanks to Greg Powell and members of the Emmanuel College's Anti-Oppression Committee for inviting us to lead this community engaged mosaic project. 

Thanks to Katie Yealland for photo documentation. Here's a look into building the artwork, currently in process. 

Welcome Shaunga, Alvis, Kike, and Raz!

We're delighted and honoured to welcome Shaunga Tagore, Alvis Choi (aka Alvis Parsley), Kike Olajumoke/Kiki Mako-Joules, and Raz Rotem. 

Kike, Alvis, Raz, and Shaunga are joining Red Dress Productions' artistic team as interning emerging community artists working on Promise in the Park: The Winchester Park Public Art Project.

Raz Rotem is an interdisciplinary artist and educator living in Toronto. Raz is a graduate of OCADU Sculpture and Installation department, a member of the Toronto Guild of Spinners and Weavers, and a recent graduate of Humber College Child and Youth Care program. As an artist Raz is interested in storytelling, myth, and legends as expressions of human longing for meaning, belonging and transcendence. Raz's involvement in community arts initiatives stems from a belief in the power of the arts to foster personal and social wellness. He is a Lead Artist for Weave (We Are a Part of the Fabric), a fibre based community-art project, which is a collaboration between the FibreWebs Collective, Supporting Our Youth (SOY, housed at the Sherbourne Health Centre) and SKETCH working arts. 

Kike Olajumoke/Kiki Mako-Joules is an artist-in-‘self’ training, currently attending at the Ontario College of Art & Design. Kike’s work consists mainly of self-portraits and more recently, artivist portraits of the world she see around her. She has often found a paintbrush to be dissociative from her desire to be as physically connected to the work she make as possible, and so her primary medium of expression has been through charcoals, pastels and oil sticks, replacing the paintbrush with her fingers whenever possible. Her pieces are infused with sculpture, photography, wood, textiles, found objects, and whatever it takes to come together in a symphony of creation and telling. Kike calls herself an artist-in-‘self’ training because: “ I am still trying everyday to find myself and my story through the magic of art and it is through this journey that I continue to find ways to connect this self to all the stories and issues that are inextricably linked to me in this world.” 

Alvis Choi (aka Alvis Parsley) is an artist, performer, writer, and researcher based in Toronto. Alvis’ work was presented at the SummerWorks Festival, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, Rhubarb Festival, Jane’s Walk, Radical Queer Semaine (Montreal), Meow Mix (Montreal), Pervers/Cité (Montreal), and Qouleur (Montreal) among others. Alvis serves on the Programming Committee of Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival and the Working Collective of Whippersnapper Gallery. They were selected as a finalist of Toronto Arts Foundation's Newcomer Artist Award and have received grants and mentorship from Diaspora Dialogues, Neighbourhood Arts Network, Vtape, Jumblies Theatre, Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin) and the British Council. Alvis' curatorial work was presented at Toronto’s Nuit Blanche, Chapter Arts Centre (Cardiff), Seoul International New Media Festival, Estonian Academy of Arts, Arad Art Museum, National Centre for Contemporary Arts (Saint Petersburg), the Australasian Cooperative Research Centre for Interaction Design (Brisbane), Osage Gallery (Hong Kong), and Videotage (Hong Kong) where they served as Assistant Manager from 2009 to 2011.In 2014, Alvis is doing a residency at lemonTree Creations. They also have projects and performances at the Art of the Danforth, Mayworks Festival, the Heels on Wheels Roadshow, and Encuentro 2014.  www.alvischoi.wordpress.com

Shaunga Tagore / Scorpio Rising: performance artist, community organizer, and intuitive counsellor through astrology and tarot. superqueero cis-femme of colour storyteller and healer. currently working on a collection of poetry and interlinked solo show: The Erasable Woman: A One Woman (Burlesque) Show. as an interdisciplinary artist she uses dance, theatre, burlesque, poetry/spoken word, music, and film to craft and share her stories. she trains and collaborates with ILL NANA/DiverseCity Dance Company and co-organizes the community driven workshop and showcase series Unapologetic Burlesque: Queer. Anti-Racist. Consensual. Not Your Average Burlesque. www.shaungatagore.com 

Thanks to the Ontario Trillium Foundation, Ontario Arts Council, and Toronto Arts Council for funding support, and to our many community partners for Promise in the Park: The Winchester Park Public Art Project.

Toronto Park Summit

Thanks to our friends at Park People for the Toronto Park Summit event today! Really inspiring, particularly as we enter Promise in the Park: The Winchester Park Public Art Project.

A packed house at Daniels Spectrum,  in Regent Park. 

Homage, 2013. Detail.

Red Dress Productions

Anna Camilleri -  Designer and Lead Builder
Tristan R. Whiston - Co-Lead Artist
Katie Yealland, Chantelle Gobeil - Associate Artists

Mixed Media
porcelain, stone, smalti, glass beads, glazed ceramic, vitreous glass, grout and resin on mahogany plywood

12' x 8'

Located at 389 Church Street