Making Room Community Arts is a radically inclusive, multi-disciplinary arts company in long-term residence at the Parkdale Activity Recreation Centre. We create celebrations and ceremonies, large and small out of the ground of everyday life.
We seek to return art to its rightful place in everyday life as a bridge between our inner and exterior worlds. We do this by bringing together people, places and things that have been previously kept apart: noise and silence, action and contemplation, rest and movement, artists and non-artists, the housed and under-housed – all through a process of collaborative art-making.
Our experience is that both art and silence comes out the dynamic tension between strong artistic leadership and our ability to quickly change directions in order to respond to the needs, stories and experiences of those who join us.
Art-making is as practical and necessary as food, shelter and transportation. These necessities are refused to those most in need. We are thus aligned with movements and endeavors in which people work together to find solutions to these needs.
There is an introspective aspect to our work as well. We believe that there is a contemplative centre in every person and this centre can powerfully be accessed through a process of collaborative art-making. We define contemplation as the ability to be aware of the artistic process and product simultaneously as a part of a single whole. It is all part of the art.
Making Room is part of the the Jumblies family of companies. Jumblies Theatre is an award winning, Toronto-based theatre company that stages large-scale performances that involve hundreds of community member and more than fifty artists through four-year residencies.
Mandate:
- To ask fundamental questions through the creation of compelling art (artistic vision)
- To explore contemplative and community arts practices (finding links)
- To bring diverse groups of people together (community building)
- To develop people’s skills and abilities through training and education opportunities (artist and member development)
Activities:
- Regular arts drop-ins and art-meditation sessions leading to annual large-scale celebration
- Celebrations of seasonal and life cycle markers, creation of new rituals
- internships, workshops, seminars, conferences
- Forming long-term and transformative partnerships and collaborations
- Renovating and occupying of indoors and outdoor spaces for our activities
