Journaling Your Cultural Collage

Journaling Your Cultural Collage

VIBE Arts Desire Lines

Journaling Your Cultural Collage with Jasmine Vanstone

About Desire Lines Workshop

Desire Lines is a multi-year program presented by VIBE Arts & made possible by the RBC Foundation and Pattison Outdoor Advertising. Each year, a cohort of equity-seeking, youth artists receive employment and mentorship opportunities to lead and curate their own hands-on art experiences for children and youth.

Journaling Your Cultural Collage: A Wellness Exploration is a reflective and explorative program that uses digital collage and various forms of journaling to affirm identity and practice self-care.

Focusing on found poetry, collage, and self-affirmations, 8-10 youth will explore the basics of Canva to create a printed anthology photo book that documents their collective wellness journey during this 6-week long program. Participants will be led through design elements such as color, composition, and storytelling to strengthen their artistic voice.

This workshop is open to youth ages 16-25, living in North York – BIPOC youth will be prioritized.

Please note the NYA’s office is up a flight of stairs and there are no elevators.

What will participants gain out of this program?

  • Tools for emotional regulation
  • Artistic expression
  • Physical print of their collage
  • Community

Location/ Venue:
North York Arts Office at the Meridian Centre for the Arts
5040 Yonge St. Toronto, ON, M2N 6R8

Enter through the Meridian Centre for the Arts main entrance towards the Box office and take the stairs up to NYA’s office.

Desire Lines Imagery

Dates: Every Friday – March 3th to April 7th

Time: 4:30pm to 6:00pm

Where: In-person, 5040 Yonge Street, above the box office

Price: Free

Applications are now closed, thank you to everyone who applied!

For this program, you will be provided with a tablet, or you can use your own laptop if you prefer. This course will be taught using Google Classroom.

Click here to learn more about VIBE Arts & RBC Desire Lines.

Program Lead: Jasmine Vanstone (VIBE Desire Lines Artist: Multi-media Artist)

Jasmine Vanstone is a Jamaican-Canadian multidisciplinary artist and arts administrator based in North York. A graduate of York University, she earned a BFA with honours in Visual Art and a concurrent certificate in Cultural and Artistic Practice for Environmental and Social Justice. In 2021, Jasmine graduated from Centennial College’s post-grad Arts Management program with aims to inspire and impact others, amplify their voices, and stay resilient through community engagement and arts education.

She is a cohort member of Sketch’s pilot co-learning initiative NextUp! Leaders Lab and an artist on VIBE Arts’ Emerging Artist roster. Jasmine continues to learn, experiment, and grow in every artistic medium she holds curiosity for and at every place that aligns with her mission to hold space for underrepresented voices.

Website: https://www.jasminevanstone.com/

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About Us

North York Arts (NYA)  collaborates with artists, arts organizations, and partners to develop, strengthen, and promote cultural programming and initiatives for North York communities

Contact us 

North York Arts
5040 Yonge St.
Toronto, ON, M2N 6R8

info@northyorkarts.org

647-477-6059

Monday – Friday, 9am – 5pm

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With Love, North York

With Love, North York

With Love, North York

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Six Community Centres. Six Artists. Lots of Love.

 

With Love, North York is a project designed to acknowledge and celebrate the land we are privileged to live, work, create, and play on, as well as the community that we feel lucky to serve. Throughout winter and spring, six new murals or visual arts pieces will be created across six community centres throughout North York, by six local North York artists.

Since the summer of 2022, NYA has been working with Toronto Parks, Forestry and Recreation Division staff to identify community centres across 6 wards of North York. Each community centre has been paired with an acclaimed artist who will work with the community to develop a new artwork! Throughout January and February 2023, six new visual arts pieces will be created. By spring 2023 the
artworks will be launched – we can’t wait!

We acknowledge the millenia-long history of these lands, its peoples and its history. We are honoured to work, create, and foster arts and culture on the traditional lands of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, Haudenosaunee, and the Mississaugas of the Credit River, or what is known today by many as North York.

There have been many milestones on these lands for time immemorial, one of which was the formation of the Township of North York 100 years ago. Given the history of this land, we understand this to be a very complicated moment for many that call this community home. Therefore, instead of just celebrating a number, we want to take this moment to commemorate the years of community creation and to give back to the place that has given us so much.

North York Arts is thrilled to commission a series of visual art works in six community centres in North York.

Willowdale: Goulding Community Centre – Mural by Laura Yang

Don Valley East: Dennis R Timbrell Resource and Community Centre – Mural by Melisa Sofi

Eglinton Lawrence: North Toronto Memorial Community Centre – Mural by Margaret Cresswell

York Centre: Roding Community Centre – Mural by Bryan Taguba

Don Valley West: Jenner Jean-Marie Community Centre – Mural by Yasaman Mehrsa

Don Valley North: Oriole Community Centre – Mural by Serene Chan

Laura Yang

Willowdale - Goulding Community Centre

Meet Laura

Laura is a Chinese-Canadian illustrator and designer who loves to use colorful aesthetics and compelling storytelling to convey messages and ideas. Her work explores human emotions, feminist values, and cultural diversity, with the hope of establishing personal connections with audiences and fostering community building. As a multidisciplinary artist, she is passionate about using dynamic figures and creative forms to cherish all the meaningful things and moments in her life.

Melisa Sofi

Don Valley East - Dennis R Timbrell Resource and Community Centre

Meet Melisa

Melisa Sofi is an Albanian-Canadian cross disciplinary artist based in North York. She is a recent Illustration graduate from OCAD University. Inspired by themes of identity, interpersonal relationships and the creative process, her work often blurs the line between narrative and documentary.

Margaret Cresswell

Eglinton Lawrence - North Toronto Memorial Community Centre

Meet Margaret

Marg is an award-winning muralist who spent her final year of study in Florence, Italy and graduated from the Ontario College of Art, in 1994. Over 20 years ago she began working as a muralist and, after requests for commissions, she opened her own studio, Murals By Marg, in 2001. In 2007, Marg was invited to exhibit her large-scale paintings at the Biennale Internazionale Dell’Arte Contempranea in Florence, Italy. Since 2015, she has painted over three dozen public art murals in the City of Toronto. In 2017, she was awarded a Certificate of Recognition from the House of Commons for her mural in Richmond Hill as part of Canada’s 150th Anniversary. Marg continues to exhibit her paintings and has works in private and public collections in Canada, the USA and France.

Bryan Taguba

York Centre - Roding Community Centre

Meet Bryan

Bryan Taguba is a painter, photographer, community organizer and activist with the Magkaisa Centre. He was born in the Philippines and came to Canada at age 9. His mother worked as a caregiver in Toronto. He works as an artist facilitator and teacher in various programs for “at-risk” youth in Toronto. He has worked on several city funded mural projects across Ontario and has led facilitation and advising for Magkaisa Centre’s “Maleta Stories” Arts and Culture Project, exhibited in 2010, 2012 and 2015. Inspired by the pedagogical framework outlined by Paolo Freire that centres the perspectives of everyday working people, Bryan strives to use the visual arts as a tool for consciousness building, community building, and social transformation.

Yasaman Mehrsa

Don Valley West - Jenner Jean-Marie Community Centre

Meet Yasaman

Yasaman Mehrsa is a Toronto-based visual artist. Born and raised in Tehran/Iran, she got exposed to art from a young age. She completed her studies with a Bachelor of Visual Communication in Iran and later achieved Bachelor with honours in Visual Arts from Brock University in St. Catharines/Canada. Yasaman uses both digital and traditional mediums.

Yasaman’s work is often representative of awareness of the human-nature relationship. She believes that nature is both all around us and deep within us. Inspiring by nature, she creates storytelling arts and expresses different emotions in each of them to inspire her audiences to discover their imagination, feeling, and interaction with the natural environment.

Serene Chan

Don Valley North - Oriole Community Centre

Meet Serene

I am a Chinese-Canadian creative and an expert daydreamer, who utilizes my passion in storytelling to produce digital and traditional imagery that provokes child-like wonder and captures nostalgia. My work draws on my interest in mental health, East Asian history and mythology, and all things fantasy. I strive to create awareness in the beauty of Asian cultures and otherwise marginalized communities. Alongside my art, my versatile background includes my academic education in business and years of entrepreneurial experience exemplified in three of my start-up businesses. When I’m not painting, you can find me working with my hands- sewing, making resin crafts, and thrift flipping.

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About Us

North York Arts (NYA)  collaborates with artists, arts organizations, and partners to develop, strengthen, and promote cultural programming and initiatives for North York communities

Contact us 

North York Arts
5040 Yonge St.
Toronto, ON, M2N 6R8

info@northyorkarts.org

647-477-6059

Monday – Friday, 9am – 5pm

Join Our Network