DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE

When it comes to community arts education I have seen countless young children and youth engaged in art making aimed to change their communal landscape, or prompt the reimagining of their street or home or rec centre through the making of murals, plays, poetry or a song. Thankfully, I have participated in many of these creative encounters in Toronto’s many diverse neighbourhoods.

These artworks are indeed positioned for youth engagement, to build on the existing urban landscape, and to generate fresh communal energies. But what I want to talk about here, and what essentially fuels my advocacy for high quality community arts education is what lies beyond the aesthetics of a mural, the steps of a dancer or the words of a script. I am most interested in the stories behind the art. I focus on acknowledging and celebrating each layer of the collective experiences that transpire within the art makers during a community arts program.

I believe the trajectory quality of art is its capacity to generate meaning and narrative. It has the innate ability to reawaken the senses and tap into what makes us human. These processes allow us to cultivate new understandings of ourselves, and of our social realities. I believe there are many layers to every community arts activity. There are narratives to every creative communal experience. AFCY’s approach to arts-based programming involves layers of creative engagement focused on humanistic principles. This starts in our AFCY office where we use stories to inform each other of our work (we start every staff meeting, for example with a story circle; each person shares a work experience in a story).

But meaning is also made, and stories cultivated and told within communities – outside on the streets, in youth shelters, in schools, in hospitals, or in public housing where AFCY programs operate. AFCY’s signature program is called Community Sharing. In the program young people become more aware of how their art making can be a means of giving back to their own communities and to the larger social scene. Essentially program participants donate their art
to a social service agency such as a Seniors’ Home, Shelter, Daycare Centre or Children’s Aid Centre. Alternatively, they may choose to give their work to a neighbouring school or public library. Sometimes youth will donate their time through performances, which often take place in a local, non-traditional venue, such as a shopping mall. In this way, the young participants can share their creative learnings and engage the many social layers of their neighbourhood.

This notion rests on the idea that art can be utilized as a communal connector, whereby youth are engaged in multiple layers and levels of creative engagement. Within these layers lies the potential for them to discover a “newness” about their community and about themselves. Here the arts become an accessible, liberating and inclusive means to reflect on our social reality. They allow people, especially young people, to re-imagine their place, design solutions, and collectively and individually, create the steps necessary for achieving the change they have envisioned.

Many remarkable art forms are produced by young people in schools and community venues. And yes, this art is purposed to excite, inspire and communicate the ideas, dreams and emotive qualities of the young artists, but what is equally important, is their holistic engagement and the
new insightful connections that they forge in and around their own communities.

- Julie Frost, Executive & Artistic Director
Arts for Children and Youth