1. Greetings from The Public!

Happy Spring! Through the ups and downs of this transitional time, we’re moving from sowing our visions and ideas to getting ready to sprout many exciting events and programming that we’re thrilled to share with you this month. Read on!

2. The Public News: In the Studio

Writing While Black: Exploring Urgency Access and Intersectionality

As part of this year’s Mayworks Festival of Working People and the Arts, we’re looking forward to co-presenting Writing While Black with Whitney French, a workshop that will take a look at zines written by people of colour and specifically the means in which indie print-culture can galvanize movements for racialized people. Part group discussion, part reading salon, part creation lab, the workshop will explore the strength within alternative print media that grants unlimited potential for activists of colour to push their movement(s) forward. Stop by the studio on Saturday, May 6th for one of two workshop sessions being offered at 11am and 2pm. You can register for Writing While Black here, and check out the full Mayworks festival program here!

SEW IT! Pop-up Shop

The women from SEW IT! (Sewing Entrepreneurship for Women in Toronto) are holding a one-day pop-up shop at The Public next month, where they’ll be sharing and selling their personal and collective creations made throughout their program. The SEW IT! program at Newcomer Women’s Services Toronto helps newcomer women develop their fashion and beauty business ideas, while connecting them with community supports. Stop by the studio on Saturday May 27, anytime from noon to 5pm and find out more about the SEW IT! program here!

A (not so) farewell to our Research Assistants

We recently had the pleasure of working alongside an amazing line up of talented and brilliant research assistants. As they wrap up their projects this month, we want to say thank you and farewell (but really, see you again very soon at our celebratory karaoke bash!) to Jessica, Marsha, and Mercedes! From figuring out the histories and possibilities of space booking systems, artist residencies, and running a collaborative art gallery, to proposing ways to challenge gentrification in our neighbourhood, these special people have really gone the extra mile to help us create a new studio space that aligns with our values.

Thank you, Mark!

We have reached our latest milestone in our new studio journey: finishing the installation of all our new custom furniture! Many thanks to our friend and woodworker Mark of Willers Furniture for building ways to literally support our work with beautiful and creative furniture, including a production and tool area, meeting and workshop zone, lounge, mobile storage, and shelving! You can admire and learn more about all his work here!

3. The Public News: In the Gallery

Parkdale Artist Residency Call-out for Applications!

We believe that art should be accessible—created and enjoyed by everybody—and inspire change. With this in mind, we are launching a pilot Parkdale Artist Residency program running from May 1, 2017 – June 5, 2017, culminating in an exhibit for the gallery, which will be on public display through June and July 2017.

We’re looking for artists of any age and stage of career, who are from, live in, or are involved in the Parkdale community to create work under the theme of “Resilient Communities.” The artist’s exhibit should honor and celebrate Parkdale’s ongoing histories of resistance and resilience, engage or relate to the neighbourhood, and be rooted in principles of social justice and anti-oppression. We ask that all proposed projects incorporate plans for a community consultation mid-way through the project, and culminate in an exhibit in the window gallery space, and an artist talk to launch the exhibit.

We strongly encourage applicants from historically underrepresented groups, including but not limited to Black and Indigenous people, people of colour, women and trans people, individuals with disabilities, LGBTQ2SAI community members, non-status people, and others who have experienced oppression in more mainstream art spaces.

Mayworks Festival presents: Art and Tomatoes

This April and May, The Public Gallery will feature Art and Tomatoes, a visual exhibition and public installation that highlights and reflects on the Justice For Migrant Workers’ Harvesting Freedom campaign. It was organized to mark the 50th year in which migrant farmworkers have come to Canada to feed our families yet have no access to citizenship, marking one of the most important workers’ rights, anti-racist, migrant justice mobilizations of 2016. Art and Tomatoes also serves as a conduit for the unapologetic demand of its organizers – young, queer, gender nonconforming, Indigenous and people of colour – to be recognized as artists and leaders in their communities. Check it out from April 8 to May 30 at the corner of Lansdowne Avenue and Seaforth Avenue, and find out more about Art and Tomatoes in the Mayworks festival program here!

4. The People News: In the Community

Indigenous Resistance & Environmental (In)Justice in the Age of Trump and Trudeau
Thursday, April 6, 5:30pm-7:30pm at the Multi-Faith Centre of University of Toronto

This panel featuring guest speakers Tori Cress and Deborah McGregor, will discuss the recent approvals of a number of pipelines and energy projects from the Kinder Morgan pipeline to the Dakota Access Pipeline, and their (neo)colonial context and implications. Panelists will discuss the importance of grassroots resistance to these racist and destructive projects both in contemporary Canadian and American contexts. Find out more info here!

Sleep Out at John Tory's: Shelter Now!
Thursday April 22, 7:00pm - 7:00am at Bloor and Bedford

It’s been two years since Mayor John Tory declared that one homeless person’s death is too many. Yet since then, 87 homeless people have died in Toronto, and the City has refused to open additional spaces for the homeless even though Toronto shelters continue to see appalling levels of overcrowding. OCAP is hosting a sleep out this month to drive home this unacceptable situation and the need for accessible shelters for the homeless. Find out more about the sleep out here, and watch the trailer for the event here!

Toronto Book Launch: “Queer Returns: Essays on Multiculturalism, Diaspora and Black Studies”
Wednesday, May 3, 7pm-10pm at the Gladstone Hotel Ballroom

Rinaldo Walcott’s latest book Queer Returns: Essays on Multiculturalism, Diaspora and Black Studies is launching next month, featuring a conversation between author and OISE professor Rinaldo Walcott and Andrea Fatona, professor in the Criticism and Curatorial program at OCAD. Queer Returns brings the reader back to foundational assumptions, claims, and positions that require new questions without dogmatic answers by looking at the complexities that diaspora and catergories of queer and Black bring to multiculturalism and queer politics. Find out more about the launch here!

5. The Public News: On the streets

Natalia is looking forward to wrapping up her class at George Brown, along with this extended winter-like weather. She is excited for spring, spending time outdoors, returning to kickboxing training, and looking forward to focusing on music projects.

Anabel is back in the dance studio rehearsing and choreographing a piece for One Year Later: Seasons of Grief and Joy, a dance showcase organized by Shaunga Tagore featuring QTPOC performers exploring celebration, resilience, and purpose in the face of devastation and violence, on at the Palmerston Library Theatre next month. She will also be facilitating a day-long anti-oppression workshop for the faculty of The CREATE Institute for expressive arts therapy education at the end of May. In other news, her adoption of a retired racing greyhound is finally well on its way and she looks forward to welcoming home her new furry friend this June!

Sheila is recovering from rock stardom, wrapping up her thesis and Open Studio classes at OCAD and can't wait for warmer and sunnier days. She's speaking on a MagNet panel later this month, working on a new issue of Shameless, and excited to ramp up work with the Youth Advisory Board. In May, she'll be taking a free motion embroidery class, and getting used to being on the other side of the classroom, as she prepares to apply to a PhD program in 2018.

6. What we're working on

• Outreach materials for The Youth Opportunities Fund
• Annual report design for the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network
• A national youth engagement initiative for EQUITAS
• A Women’s Equality project for the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario 
• Facilitation of a women's retreat for the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario
• Branding workshop facilitation for the Ontario Association of Consultants, Counsellors, Psychometrists and Psychotherapists
• Book design for (Un)Knotted for Sexual Assault: The Roadshow
• Anti-oppression and visual literacyworkshop for the advancement team at OCAD University
• Resources for healthcare providersfor PASAN
• Website re-design for PASAN
• Prisoner letter-writing pamphlet for PASAN
• Site edits for Teen Health Source
• LGBTQ Youth campaign materials for Planned Parenthood Toronto
• Website re-design for SACHA
• Re-brand and site re-design for The Housing Help Centre
• A marketing and communications strategy for Tangled Art + Disability

7. What we've done

• App review report for Answer at Rutger's University
• Spring 2017 Issue of Sex Etc. magazine and lesson plan
• App design for a Hep C E-Book for CATIE
• Annual report design for CATIE
• Direct mail fundraiser for the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network
• Report design for the Presidential Task Force at OCAD
• Guide to Focus Group French report layout for the Ontario Women's Health Network
• Health Circles French report layout for the Ontario Women's Health Network
• Co-design of a sexual health activity book for Planned Parenthood Toronto
• Social media images for The Federation of Canadian Municipalities

8. Housekeeping!

You can find us in the studio every Monday to Friday 9-5pm, or view what’s on in the gallery window anytime at the corner of Lansdowne Avenue and Seaforth Avenue!