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ARTHOUSETO
a place for the displaced
ArtHouseTO is an aspirational model of city sanctioned, community-led accessible and appropriate spaces in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) dedicated to creative convergence for community health. ArtHouseTO exemplifies the interdependence of health, well-being and the arts while legitimizing artists and their requirements by providing live work studio apartments mixed with affordable housing, community health orgs, community garden & community kitchen, multi-media arts production & programming space under one roof.
A PLACE FOR THE DISPLACED
ArtHouseTO envisions another possibility. It proposes a place of comparable proportions and scale that provides for the needs of those of us who have found ourselves displaced by condo development in the GTA. A Place For The Displaced.
Please visit our ArtHouseTO Pop Up Page to see how we are cultivating our own creative space in Riverdale, Toronto!
Please visit our YouTube channel and check out ArtHouseTV or AHTV and see how we are evolving our @arthouseto Instagram community!
Sketching possible futures
HOW IT STARTED
April 2020
During the time of global shutdown due to COVID 19, we found the need to process this new situation through our art practice, as artists do! We also found that during the pandemic, people have been turning to the arts to help process, to relax, to escape, as a balm, as therapy. Art is medicine.
Yet, there is a disconnect.
The arts are usually the first thing to be cut from a budget. When Ford came into office as Premier of Ontario, he cut $8 million from the Ontario Music Fund, $5 million from Ontario Arts Council base fundng and essentially eliminated the Indigenous Culture Fund, not to mention cuts to new safe injection sites, healthcare, legal aid, libraries, 50 Million Tree Program.... And that's just this government.
Quantifying the value of the arts is necessary, and thanks to the Toronto Arts Foundation's Toronto Art's Stats 2019, the proof is there. We know how impactful art is in our lives, yet, as a society, there is still a lot of work to be done to authentically and effectually support the artists themselves, to facilitate the space that's needed for artists to thrive in an urban environment.
After experiencing two renovictions from live/artist studios (to be replaced by condos which no former tenant could afford or would want to live in anyway!) We found solace in visioning the most positive, equitable, just, accessible places where all citizens can find safety and healthcare delivered through an arts lens. Physically surrounded by creative dwellings, shops and studios, urban farming, health and wellness spaces and creative endeavours. A community allowed to flourish around arts-based facilities that support multiple professional, private and public initiatives. Housing artists and accommodating activities that encourage community engagement at all levels, through the arts. All on one site.
ground floor
second floor
third floor
4th - 15th Floors
deputation to the ontario gov.
Tuesday June 30 2020
Bureau of Power And Light (BPL) presented an online deputation to the Standing Committee on Economic and Financial Affairs regarding a Covid Study on the State of the Arts and Culture Sector in Ontario.
During the 1 hour session, Members of the Provincial Parliament listened to our story respectfully. Two more organizations were given equal time to tell their stories followed by 40 mins of MPP initiated question and answer period. We are so grateful to have shared the space with fellow art orgs who both are magnetic centres to arts and culture for entire regions and diverse peoples. Cheers to The Sudbury Art Gallery, and Alliance de Producteurs Francophone du Canada (APFC).
Go here to read the transcript now. Soon it will be available on the Ontario Legislature website.
We also acknowledge the gift of contributing our story to the Public Record. It felt validating to use the formal governmental platform to introduce ArtHouse as an aspirational response to COVID-intensified pre-existing cultural crises. Arthouse is the gathering of existing innovative genius and creative success brought together in a new way that must also address widespread trauma and the disproportionate trauma experienced across marginalized communities revealed by the pandemic.
Thank you to everyone who answered our last minute calls for advice and messages of solidarity in undertaking the deputation ! We felt embraced by our trusted advisors and touchstones when we needed it throughout the fast-paced process from being alerted to the call, to applying, to being invited, to delivering our presentation. Thank you friends and allies for rising to the occasion, and championing our collective values. Gilad Cohen, Jessica Singh, Carolyn Taylor, Isabel Fryszberg, Councillor Mike Layton & Team, Surkhab Peerzada, Troy Jackson and MPP Jill Andrew & Team; you helped by influencing us to question our own messaging and to best articulate our vision to date !
The Right people At The Table
With municipal and provincial funding, partnerships with First Nations communities, Black communities, racialized communities, LGBTQ+ communities, creative communities, homeless encampments and their support networks, healthcare professionals, harm reduction initiatives, local organizations focused on social equity, poverty, accessibility, urban growing initiatives, renewable & sustainable energy & technologies, from inception through to fruition and operations, will be instrumental in the authentic realization and ultimate success of this project. Together with strategic partnerships, we imagine an emergent model, following the guidelines of universal design, for new builds that are community-led-and-operated in the GTA. We envision each hub tailored to and led by the communities they are in, each with an emphasis on affordable housing, healthcare, arts & culture and sustainable food production and distribution.
Contact us if you are interested in joining us on this project!
Follow @arthouseto on Instagram and join the conversation! We are currently reposting local art/activism, making connections and cultivating a community :)
follow @arthouseto on instagram !!!
ArtHouseTO is an aspirational art project that proposes nurturing new relationships between affordable housing, holistic healthcare and cultural spaces; Creative Convergence Hubs throughout the GTA designed for artists, healthcare practitioners, working together under one roof can provide safety, promote healing and support well-being in individuals and neighourhoods, especially underserved community members.
In its current iteration on Instagram, @ArtHouseTO, we are re-posting social justice initiatives, mutual aid requests, community events and showcasing local artists, lightly curated by the ArtHouseTO team. A vibrant community is active and growing organically by creatives and organizations connecting with each other. Promoting action towards a just, equitable and caring city, and provoking conversations that inform the ultimate vision of purpose-built and heritage-adapted physical buildings.
