Tim JonesCreative Placemaking Award
Overview
What is "creative placemaking"?
18 Shades of Gay
Distillery Revitalization
Daniels Spectrum
The Award
Eligibility
Nomination and Selection Process
1. Submission Requirements
2. Award Selection Criteria
Creativity and Originality
Project Impact
Collaboration
Project Execution
3. Deadline for Submissions
4. Award Selection
How to Apply
Winner and Finalists
WINNER - LEAH HOUSTON
MABELLEPANTRY – TORONTO, ONTARIO
Leah Houston is an artist who has cultivated a 20-year multi-disciplinary community-based arts practice. Her work incorporates public space transformation, performance and community ritual with people of all ages and diverse backgrounds. For over 14 years, Leah, and her organization MABELLEarts, have brought together artists, other professionals and community members to transform a neglected thoroughfare into a vibrant community park.
Mabelle Park, located in the centre of a low-income and racialized high rise tower community is a compelling and innovative example of what is possible when diverse artists and community members come together to make art and solve problems.
At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Leah rallied her team to engage with community members to provide support and respond to needs. The team discovered that many in the community were facing food insecurity and convened various partners to strategize how to harness Mabelle Park as a site of community emergency response and connection. Over the course of 2020 and 2021, the team developed the MABELLEpantry, a full-service outdoor community food hub that has served over 600 families.
FINALIST - COLETTE “COCO” MURRAY
‘GRIOTS IN SIGHT’ – TORONTO, ONTARIO
Collette was a lead artist in Arts Etobicoke’s Augmented Reality (AR) in Islington Village for Toronto’s 2021 Year of Public Art. Collette’s dance narratives in AR bridge cultural context, history, race, dance movement and video to enhance the storytelling of murals on public buildings. She conceptualized the project, titled ‘Griots in Sight’ to address the community’s concern of a lack of people of color on commissioned public murals in Islington Village. A first generation Black Canadian of multi-ethnic heritage residing in Etobicoke, Murray combined AR technology and storytelling to overlay a new narrative to pre-existing historical murals, painted by artist John Kuna.
Collette uses cultural memory from the dance vernacular of African and Caribbean cultures to provide an artistic counter-narrative to the invisibility of Black presence and cultural stories in West Toronto. The integrated project reignited engagement with the existing murals and introduced creative stories from the African diaspora that attracted diverse communities to the area. Collete’s work aided in shifting perceptions of the Etobicoke township from that of a Euro-centred area to a diverse, equitable and thriving space of creativity and community arts.
FINALIST - MONICA WICKELER & NYLE MIIGIZI JOHNSTON
STORYTELLING MURALS & HEALING CORRIDOR – TORONTO, ONTARIO
Storytelling Murals & Healing Corridor is a collaboration between the artists and the urban design and placemaking not-for-profit, The Laneway Project. Together they have transformed a neglected public laneway into a beautiful, welcoming shared neighbourhood space.
This transformation on Central Hospital Lane introduces the city’s first Storytelling Mural and Healing Corridor, with a series of planters filled with Indigenous gardens and traditional medicine. The holistic transformation fortified the existing Indigenous narratives in the lane by celebrating contemporary traditional medicine. The Healing Corridor is accompanied by a Storytelling Mural, depicting the Indigenous story of The Gift of Jewelweed, which details the discovery of the curative properties of this plant by the peoples of this land.
The artists have fostered new city-building ideas, through visuals and events. The team have hosted community planting days and youth paint jams. In addition, the team partnered with Finding Our Power Together, an Indigenous nonprofit organization and assisted in a leadership capacity during the difficult period following the horrifying discoveries on the sites of former residential schools. Monica and Nyle hope that projects like this can contribute to increasing the visibility of Indigenous stories and cultures as a living part of the city.
FINALIST - ERNEST DAETWYLER
‘KW HOMELESS MEMORIAL / BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE’ – KITCHENER, ONTARIO
Downtown Kitchener has experienced a record increase in the construction of new high-rise residential and office developments. This development is occurring in parallel to a severe national housing crisis, a global pandemic and an opioid crisis that has disproportionately affected vulnerable community members.
A timely effort to design a homelessness memorial allowed for a meaningful integration of art in Vogelsang Green; a newly designed, people-focused area of downtown Kitchener.
The sculptural work is inspired by Suzi Gursoy, a person with lived experience of homelessness, who approached Ernest in Spring 2020 to develop a proposal for a Homeless Memorial. Suzi mentioned that when she found herself homeless for years, all that she possessed and valued was in her backpack.
The KW Homelessness Memorial Committee was formed by Ernest and includes representatives from a number of Kitchener-Waterloo based organizations. Through meaningful engagement, the committee consulted people with lived experience, responded to community opposition, created space to honour the least visible residents and promoted dialogue on topics surrounding homelessness and the right to housing.
The intention of Ernest’s artwork is to inspire hope, acceptance and positive change. With a silent, non-intrusive and respectful presence, the artwork will contribute to an atmosphere of meaningful reflection about homelessness in our community.
Winner and Finialists
WINNER - LEAH HOUSTON
MABELLEPANTRY – TORONTO, ONTARIO
Leah Houston is an artist who has cultivated a 20-year multi-disciplinary community-based arts practice. Her work incorporates public space transformation, performance and community ritual with people of all ages and diverse backgrounds. For over 14 years, Leah, and her organization MABELLEarts, have brought together artists, other professionals and community members to transform a neglected thoroughfare into a vibrant community park.
Mabelle Park, located in the centre of a low-income and racialized high rise tower community is a compelling and innovative example of what is possible when diverse artists and community members come together to make art and solve problems.
At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Leah rallied her team to engage with community members to provide support and respond to needs. The team discovered that many in the community were facing food insecurity and convened various partners to strategize how to harness Mabelle Park as a site of community emergency response and connection. Over the course of 2020 and 2021, the team developed the MABELLEpantry, a full-service outdoor community food hub that has served over 600 families.
FINALIST - COLETTE “COCO” MURRAY
‘GRIOTS IN SIGHT’ – TORONTO, ONTARIO
Collette was a lead artist in Arts Etobicoke’s Augmented Reality (AR) in Islington Village for Toronto’s 2021 Year of Public Art. Collette’s dance narratives in AR bridge cultural context, history, race, dance movement and video to enhance the storytelling of murals on public buildings. She conceptualized the project, titled ‘Griots in Sight’ to address the community’s concern of a lack of people of color on commissioned public murals in Islington Village. A first generation Black Canadian of multi-ethnic heritage residing in Etobicoke, Murray combined AR technology and storytelling to overlay a new narrative to pre-existing historical murals, painted by artist John Kuna.
Collette uses cultural memory from the dance vernacular of African and Caribbean cultures to provide an artistic counter-narrative to the invisibility of Black presence and cultural stories in West Toronto. The integrated project reignited engagement with the existing murals and introduced creative stories from the African diaspora that attracted diverse communities to the area. Collete’s work aided in shifting perceptions of the Etobicoke township from that of a Euro-centred area to a diverse, equitable and thriving space of creativity and community arts.
FINALIST - MONICA WICKELER & NYLE MIIGIZI JOHNSTON
STORYTELLING MURALS & HEALING CORRIDOR – TORONTO, ONTARIO
Storytelling Murals & Healing Corridor is a collaboration between the artists and the urban design and placemaking not-for-profit, The Laneway Project. Together they have transformed a neglected public laneway into a beautiful, welcoming shared neighbourhood space.
This transformation on Central Hospital Lane introduces the city’s first Storytelling Mural and Healing Corridor, with a series of planters filled with Indigenous gardens and traditional medicine. The holistic transformation fortified the existing Indigenous narratives in the lane by celebrating contemporary traditional medicine. The Healing Corridor is accompanied by a Storytelling Mural, depicting the Indigenous story of The Gift of Jewelweed, which details the discovery of the curative properties of this plant by the peoples of this land.
The artists have fostered new city-building ideas, through visuals and events. The team have hosted community planting days and youth paint jams. In addition, the team partnered with Finding Our Power Together, an Indigenous nonprofit organization and assisted in a leadership capacity during the difficult period following the horrifying discoveries on the sites of former residential schools. Monica and Nyle hope that projects like this can contribute to increasing the visibility of Indigenous stories and cultures as a living part of the city.
FINALIST - ERNEST DAETWYLER
‘KW HOMELESS MEMORIAL / BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE’ – KITCHENER, ONTARIO
Downtown Kitchener has experienced a record increase in the construction of new high-rise residential and office developments. This development is occurring in parallel to a severe national housing crisis, a global pandemic and an opioid crisis that has disproportionately affected vulnerable community members.
A timely effort to design a homelessness memorial allowed for a meaningful integration of art in Vogelsang Green; a newly designed, people-focused area of downtown Kitchener.
The sculptural work is inspired by Suzi Gursoy, a person with lived experience of homelessness, who approached Ernest in Spring 2020 to develop a proposal for a Homeless Memorial. Suzi mentioned that when she found herself homeless for years, all that she possessed and valued was in her backpack.
The KW Homelessness Memorial Committee was formed by Ernest and includes representatives from a number of Kitchener-Waterloo based organizations. Through meaningful engagement, the committee consulted people with lived experience, responded to community opposition, created space to honour the least visible residents and promoted dialogue on topics surrounding homelessness and the right to housing.
The intention of Ernest’s artwork is to inspire hope, acceptance and positive change. With a silent, non-intrusive and respectful presence, the artwork will contribute to an atmosphere of meaningful reflection about homelessness in our community.