Toronto Through My Lens

Posted on by Jenn Chan

 

Every community is made up of diverse individuals, each of whom has a unique experience of the city in which we live. These experiences often stay close to us, only loosely making connections with the stories of others who call the same city home. The mission of Through My Lens is not only to document life in the city just as it is, but also to bring all these unique stories together in one place, to ignite connections to our spaces and each other and to inspire positive action within our communities.

Starting on September 10th, people of all ages from all parts of the city will be embarking on a photo-taking adventure. We hope to give a voice to those who normally do not speak up for change, and through this project foster a stronger sense of community within our cities.

Each day during the project, participants will be given a different theme as the subject of their inspiration, ranging from people to potential to food. They will then submit one photo for each day, totaling 10 photos at the end of the project. We encourage participants to walk new paths, look in different directions, to promote creativity and to inspire themselves and others along the way. Our goal is to reach over 1000 people throughout the project, at least 50 of whom participate fully in the photo-voices collection.

These photos will be collected for online exposure, and a selection of them will be displayed together on October 1 as a photography exhibit. The images in this exhibit will serve as the centerpiece of dynamic community conversation. Together, we will discover new connections to our stories and develop new perspectives. Following the project, our goal is to use these stories to spearhead five city-building proposals that will positively impact community members.

We are passionate about our cities. We get energy from people. We are curious about the millions of stories that live where we live. We are looking to encapsulate the essence of city life from the people who live here and to share all our stories to promote creativity, civic engagement and a collective voice for change. We interact with others every day, and together we continue to weave the narrative that makes our community what it is today. We all have a story to tell – and Through My Lens is our chance to tell it.

A moment captured in concrete

Posted on by Jenn Chan

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!

Parkdale Garden Design Charrette

Posted on by Jenn Chan

This past weekend Exhibit Change hosted the Parkdale Garden Design Charrette in partnership with the Parkdale Village Business Improvement Area and Parkdale Liberty Economic Development Corporation. Both organizations are dedicated to the beautification and development of the Parkdale neighbourhood.  I planned an activity filled afternoon of design-driven community engagement for the community members of Parkdale.  The event hosted a diverse group of community members – youth, BIA board members and staff, community garden workers, residents, and a politician.

The icebreaker activity began the discussion of “What is Design Thinking and Playful Curiosity?” Participants learned that they already know about design thinking and playful curiosity. Design thinking is a process that is engrained in each of us; we all have our individual methods. Playful curiosity is the opportunity to remember that there are unlimited potentials and that true discovery happens when we don’t put any boundaries on our imagination. The participants demonstrated design thinking and playful curiosity by eating Oreo cookies and sharing their processes with each other. It was entertaining to watch all the different cookie eating techniques, one bite stuffers, multi-bite nibblers or split & lickers.

I asked the group to think about “What is a garden?” and to create a collage of images and words to show the collective expression of feelings and all the potential a garden has.  I was especially impressed with the youth’s mango and banana trees that they wanted in the gardens.  It was inspiring to see all the great ideas and the fun continued. Then we moved to 3D garden creations. The youth kept their fruit theme up with very realistic replica playdoh banana, strawberry and tomato. The others talked about big sunflowers, keeping the existing trees and  putting benches back into Parkdale among other great ideas.

Finally, we did an Action Mind Map which allowed everyone to talk about what the garden needs to survive and thrive. It was very touching that everyone wanted to contribute their time and do what they can for the future of the gardens.

The charrette was a public design workshop, which was held on May 15th, 2010 at the Masaryk Cowan community center at 1pm to 4pm, 13 people attended. The 13 participants were a diverse section of the community and represented many generations, ethnicities, genders, professions, commitment to the community and multi-disciplinary perspectives.

Finally, the participants all gathered for a group discussion “What does a garden need to thrive?”  Each participant had a stack of post-it notes and they started putting their suggestions up on the way, creating a mind map of action items that needed to happen for the gardens to make it. This collective effort showed that the gardens need a healthy dose of time, energy, resources – both financial and plant materials, people, love, sunshine, volunteers, ideas, spread the word, respect, it was certainly a great start to the conversation. Then each participant made a commitment in “How do you Exhibit Change?” by taking at least one action item off the board. This is the start to the community input.

Overall, I was certainly pleased with the imagination, design thinking and playful curiosity and the hot pink pipe cleaners were an added bonus.