So much learning…

In the past two weeks, I have been growing my brain over and over by going to amazing events, each one so different but each one with great new information and the ideas are already brewing.

  • Common Ground – Social Planning Toronto symposium on schools as community hubs
  • Getting the Most out of Your Brain
  • The Power of Collective Wisdom – hosted by United Way, delivered by John Ott
  • TEDxToronto – watched it streamed live at the Centre for Social Innovation
  • The Art of Public Health conference – held at the University of Toronto Dalla Lana school
  • Treehouse Talks – hosted at MaRs Discovery District

Each one of these events, has made me reflect on all that is happening in Toronto and all that I want to do. I know that there are multiple axis and intersections here but to me they are all part of what makes Toronto healthy,vibrant and strong.

I am fortunate to be able to go to these events and to meet amazing people, hear truly inspiring talks and discuss in peer to peer breakout sessions.

It is overwhelming but at the same time I love the fuel to my brain.

Mayoral Debate

On September 17th, the Design Exchange hosted a Mayoral Debate on design and sustainable thinking.I was hoping for answers.

On September 29th, the AGO and ArtsVote hosted the Mayoral Arts Debate on arts and cultural planning. Again looking for answers.

As the candidates answered question after question, I could hear passion, anger, confidence and most certainly strong egos. As the candidates bantered and argued back and forth I tried hard to listen for key answers and platforms I can support.

Moving forward I am going to have to do some more research and gain a better understanding of what is being said and what is going to be done. I want to ensure Toronto gets the best leader possible. Toronto deserves a lot of things, but empty promises is not one of them.

National Curiosity Day

National Curiosity Day was on September 25, 2010. I don’t know what the history of National Curiosity Day is but I knew I wanted to be a part of it.

I learned that curiosity has its own definition to each person. To me curiosity meant discovering something new, trying something I have always wondered about and being a little more adventurous than usual. For others, it sometimes meant venturing into something you thought you might dislike but were willing to try and for another it was just fun to participate and to start thinking slightly differently. All great goals for the day.

For my National Curiosity Day, we ventured out to try geocaching. Geocaching is pretty much high tech treasure hunting. You go online and there is a wealth of geocaching communities.

We drove to the general area of our geocaching coordinates, we wandered around with our GPS trying to match the coordinates and discovered a giant tree was where our exact coordinates were located. We climbed under the tree and looked carefully, we discovered some shells that seemed a bit odd. Normally, in a geocaching adventure there is a small tupperware container to be found with a treasure, a log or some new information, but alas we didn’t find our tupperware…we had a lot of fun looking for the exact coordinates but sadly I felt a little bit of failure and will surely attempt this again.

Also tried new bubble tea and ordering Persian take-out for dinner. Food curiosity is always a treat 🙂

What a great first National Curiosity Day for me! Looking forward to next year!

I also encouraged others to go an try something new:

“On Sat., for curiousity, i went to the “Colours of the Spectrum” event at Art Metropole, there I made a rainbow of my colours. On to CAMH celebrating 9 plaques erected to honour inmates unpaid labour next – the secret handshake gallery…lastly 918 Bathurst Street Arts Centre… Curiousity got this cat and so i had to scat” ~ Honey Novick, Literary Director of St. Clair Artwalk

New Secret Find

I really like going to museums and talking to the security guards. They have such unique experiences from watching and maintaining the museum floor or a specific exhibit. Often out of people watching or boredom, they have the funniest little tidbits of information.

Some good examples:

1. At the Canadian Centre  of Architecture, the security guard pointed out to me that a model that was illustrating light and circulation patterns was made up of 96 layers of plexi-glass, something you would certainly need time to notice.

2. At the New Museum, the security guard who seemed intent on staying very serious let down his tough exterior when I asked him which “I Wish” ribbon he liked best. Each “I Wish” ribbon had a unique statement that represented wishes that people had contributed to a participatory exhibit. He had to think hard about it, but he said that his favourite was “I wish to be a famous baseball player” which he took for his son, one of 5 children. He also took several for his other children and his wife. I told him about a few new ones and said he would have to check them out.

3. At the Art Gallery of Ontario, a security guard told me about how the artist had very specific requirements about keep the piece intact and maintaining the integrity of the piece. The security guard took it upon himself to protect the installation process. The artist arrives after the piece is installed perfectly and takes a walk around the installation, picks up a hammer and smashes a mirror. The security guard was not impressed.

I look forward to more discoveries.

Riverdale Park Charrette

On Tuesday August 24th, I went to a Riverdale Park Charrette at the Toronto Design Exchange. The DX is a nonprofit organizations supporting and promoting Canadian design and is housed in the old Toronto Stock Exchange building. The DX always gives me a sense of historical design and accomplishment – things have happened here to shape Toronto and Canada.

The Riverdale Park Charrette was a treat to attend and participate in. I was surrounded by architects, landscape architects, community stakeholders from the library, Chinese Business Chambers of Commerce, residents, City Councillor Paula Fletcher, City of Toronto Parks and Recreation employees and Bridgepoint Health representatives. The setting was very professional and directed towards results.

The morning began on a lighter note, each team created a playdoh ideal Mayoral candidate. There were a many overlapping qualities. An open heart, hands reaching out to the community, grounded, big brain, visionary, voice of the people, sense of humour, listening skills and arts and environmental interested.

Then we had a long and in-depth description of the site, site restrictions, and current site activities.

As a group we addressed goals and concepts for the design of the park site. Through dotmetrics we determined the top 5 concepts for the design portion of the day. I was surprised that the whole process was very orderly and VERY quiet, something I am not accustomed to when I do Action Mapping with coloured post-it notes and encouraged collaboration.

By the end of the day, I am happy to say that our Team had the most colourful solution of pathways, community based projects, and something that pleased every team member – who were representing a full spread of interests. Our team offered a full accessible walkway that doubled as a sitting area and amphitheatre, a picnic area near Bridgepoint Health, a market place for kiosk vendors, a legalized graffiti wall to promote public art and expression, a tinker town area for hands-on intergenerational learning, a pathway to healthy living with exercise stations and a grand idea to have a hot air balloon viewing station.

The Riverdale Park Charrette brought me back to my architecture roots and reminded me that my foundations are strong in design, but I am proud to say that I do keep community building and social return as my highest priority.

Puzzling Discovery

While putting together a 3D Empire State Building puzzle with 3 of my friends I learned some lessons of team bonding, using your strengths, recognizing your weaknesses and supporting your team mates. We pulled out all the pieces, put the hockey game on and set ourselves a goal to finish in 4 hours; we thought this was going to be a leisurely addition to our evening, it quickly turned in an educating experience. As we began sorting the pieces, it was evident that we each had very different strengths.

Ed and Troy were only interested in participating when the hockey game was boring or during a commercial, their attention level was waning. Wandee and I were much more dedicated to the process. Wandee has her puzzle strategy well honed, I followed suit as she started to sort the pieces by colour. After we sorted all the pieces into colour we started assembling the pieces. I found that I am a better support puzzle participant. I was very good at sorting pieces with fine detail, finding specific pieces to finish a section and supporting the Wandee as she speedily put section after section together, but alas I was not keen on how slow my sections were coming together, I felt ineffective on my own but much better as part of the puzzle team.

Eventually, we put the whole thing together and it was very satisfying, unfortunately we were far over schedule we actually had to take a break, go to sleep and finish the next morning. So even though it took 2 times longer than anticipated it was surprisingly fun! Wandee was truly the puzzle hero of the weekend, she was so focused, deliberate and would have stayed up all night to finish it if we had let her.

I am a Dimsum Timbit!

Throughout the past few months, I have been participating in the Ripple Effect program. Together, with Johnny Leon Tong, I interviewed members of the Chinese Canadian community who are involved in politics, community and leadership about their views of Chinese Canadian youth, civic participation, political currency and personal motivation. We were lucky enough to be able to hear from Cathy Winters (Maytree Foundation), Karen Sun (Ward 19 city council candidate), Kristyn Wong-Tam (Ward 27 city council candidate), Godwin Chan (Ward 6 Richmond Hill city councillor), Tam Goosen (former school trustee), Ken Chan (Ward 27 city council candidate).

Here’s the video:

A moment captured in concrete

This is the pinnacle memory I have that solidified my passion for community engagement. I remember specifically watching that one young gentleman scavenge the supplies to find the right pieces, taking extra care to make sure his tile was exactly the way he pictured it while ignoring his classmates as they made comments about how long his 1 tile was taking compared to their 2 or 3 tiles and instead spent all his time carefully creating this masterpiece. Thank you!

The “Power of One”

DimSum Timbits is 2010’s Ripple Effect** project. DimSum Timbits represents our Chinese Canadian identity; it is our culture, our community, and our connection. We formed this project to “raise awareness of the past and present experiences in the Chinese Canadian Community and to create ongoing ‘ripples’ for a more equitable, inclusive and sustainable society.”

The “Power of One”

Each of us is responsible for our impacts and actions.  Through participation we build community.  Through community we build a voice.  Together, we are more powerful than we are alone.  It all starts with one.  You.

Submit your best artistic representation of dim sum and timbits together, whether it is a drawing, a doodle, a sculpture or a photograph.  Help us demonstrate how much we can accomplish together as Dim Sum Timbits.

Send to jennifer.chan@exhibit-change.com by July 30, and look out for the YouTube compilation to come.

**Ripple Effect is a 4-month leadership training program for Chinese youth between 18 – 30 years old residing in Toronto. It aims to nurture civic leadership within the Chinese community for the development of an inclusive and healthy Toronto.

CCNC Toronto Chapter is an organization of Chinese Canadians in the City of Toronto that promotes equity, social justice, inclusive civic participation, and respect for diversity.

Building blocks

Lego pieces are well known as interlocking building blocks.

Lego pieces build foundations.

Lego pieces are better together than alone.

While at the Canadian Centre for Architecture, there was a wall of lego pieces, this sparked a conversation between Ed and I about lego pieces and the way they represent different people.

There are the “regular” pieces – they connect with everything, they are the solid foundations, they are the pieces that are reliable, workable, trustworthy and are part of every connection.

Then there are the “unique” pieces – they are parts of special connections, they build bridges, they are the pieces that are intricate, independent, experimental and stand apart from the rest.

Ed pointed out that he is a “regular” piece, he is part of the bigger picture and is always part of a team. The colour of the pieces may change, but all the “regular” pieces follow a certain pattern, they support the structure and value their positions.

Ed said I am a “unique” piece, I am different than the “regular” pieces but fit in with them to build structures. The “unique” piece is always going to be recognizable as different and will be easily picked out from the rest.

All the pieces work together, they play together in a box and are all happy to build something new and magnificent. What kind of Lego piece are you?