During the summer of 2010, the adventure camp programs at Today’s Family were fortunate to be able to participate in the Artasia program.
More than 200 children from the camp programs were among 550 young artists from across Hamilton participating. Children all across Hamilton were asked by Culture for Kids in the Arts ARTASIA facilitators “what do you love about Hamilton?” and “what would you change about Hamilton?”The above postcard is a response to one of these two questions.
The program is a city-wide arts education initiative combining visual arts and recyclable materials. It is arts education, children, youth mentors, arts apprentices, corporations, government and community organizations working together to create a public art installation that expresses the children’s thoughts and creative stories about Hamilton.
The overarching goal is to provide a voice to children and their view of their city, their home – realizing the potential through the eyes of a child. The project challenges the children to look at their community with both a critical and inspirational eye.
The 2010 exhibit displayed works created by more than 500 children, including eighteen, ten-foot-tall story-telling totems and 500 postcards giving a voice to the children’s thoughts about their community.
This year, another layer of sound will be incorporated into the program. We’re very excited to hear about Culture for Kids in the Arts recent success with the Canada Council for the Arts Artists and Community Collaboration Program in Media Arts.
In collaboration with the 500 children participating in the Arts Education ARTASIA project this summer, Culture for Kids in the Arts will produce 5 new sound site specific installations (one for each participating agency – YMCA, Wesley Urban Ministries, Eva Rothwell Centre, Boys and Girls Club and Today’s Family) in collaboration with “one of Canada’s great sound artists”, Victoria Fenner.
Victoria Fenner’s work was recently aired on CBC; her piece is the second piece in part one. It is called After Exile – the entire piece is about adventurous sound and storytelling; you may be interested in the entire segment. http://www.cbc.ca/livingoutloud/episode/2011/05/27/may-27-2011/
We’re very excited about the opportunity to impact in our neighbourhoods.
Save the date for the opening on Thursday, August 25!
More to come…
