We are pleased to announce the finalists of the $10,000 TD Community Arts Award. The award celebrates an organization that has made a significant contribution in Toronto by working collaboratively with culturally diverse communities and creating access to arts and culture.
The finalists for the TD Community Arts Award are:
ART STARTS
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Art Starts inspires long-term social change in Toronto's under-served neighbourhoods. They use the arts to engage residents, nurture resilience, cultivate life skills and inspire personal growth. Art Starts’ innovative model works sustainably in five under-resourced Toronto neighbourhoods as well as citywide. Art Starts brings together professional artists – dancers, musicians, visual artists, actors and playwrights – with residents of all ages. Together they create responsive, life affirming art projects that reflect the identities and aspirations of each community. For 25 years, Art Starts has created opportunities for vulnerable populations to develop the tools they need to reach their full potential.
JUMBLIES THEATRE
Jumblies makes art in everyday and extraordinary places, with, for and about the people and stories found there. Art uncovers the epic in the mundane, and community is open-ended, radically inclusive and based on people doing something together across real or perceived differences. Jumblies dismantles boundaries and connects apparently disparate elements; they strive to expand the sense of what art can mean and include, and how it can contribute to a more equitable and peaceful society. They collaborate with others with different skills and perspectives who share their vision and values. They support diverse emerging artists, projects and organizations in developing their own kindred practices.
URBAN ARTS TORONTO
UrbanArts is a progressive not-for-profit local arts service organization (LASO) linking the needs of those who create/make art, those who engage the artist as an essential element of their own development, and those who support UrbanArts because it adds value (sense of identity, lifestyle, prosperity) to the neighbourhood. UrbanArts is committed to the goal of building inclusive, engaged communities by enriching people’s lives through the arts, culture and heritage, with programs, services and resources delivered within the former City of York boundaries, with a focus on York South-Weston.
“The TD Community Arts Award is a celebration of the power of the arts to unite people and communities,” said Claire Hopkinson, Director & CEO, Toronto Arts Foundation. “The transformative work that all three finalists are doing in communities has a ripple effect on the rest of the city, showing us that through targeted and impactful arts engagement, neighbourhoods and the city at large are made better.”
The recipient for the award will be announced during Neighbourhood Arts Network’s Emergence Week on November 23, 2018.
Established in 2013 as the TD Arts Diversity Award, the award was re-named the TD Community Arts Award in 2018. The award is generously sponsored by TD Bank Group.