Meet kumari, our Culinary Arts Associate Artist!
kumari is a queer, genderqueer, mixed-race, Sri Lankan, multi-disciplinary artist, movement storyteller, food enthusiast and logistics nerd. They are one of the co-organizers of the Unapologetic...
View ArticleThe Bits and Pieces to Create
This week, SKETCH features Nima, an Independent Studio Artist and musician who grabs musical inspiration from just about everywhere. What’s your art practice? I’m a musician. I play the guitar, rap,...
View ArticleStay Passionate and the Rest will Work its Magic
Victoria Bacnis is a mixed-media visual artist and current Independent Studio artist at SKETCH. We chatted with Victoria on her art, working as a Creative Facilitator, and how a trip to Japan changed...
View ArticleRedefining Beauty, Empowering Self Love
Tanya Turton is a local artist, activist and entrepreneur. When she’s not at SKETCH facilitating the popular Weave program on Tuesdays, she’s connecting people to a stronger sense of self-love through...
View ArticleTelling Our Stories: A (very) brief history of black activism for arts and...
“I feel that art for social change functions as an ecosystem. It is the art of the artists, whether as individuals or collectives, who make it. It is the audiences and communities who are also...
View ArticleIntergeneracial: Telling the stories of Toronto’s black elders through...
Intergeneracial is an oral history theatre project for Black youth funded by ArtReach and the Toronto Arts Council and supported by Platform A partner Jumblies Theatre. The project interviews Black...
View ArticlePartnership bridges youth to technology
There are 10,000 Homeless youth in Toronto. On any given night, 2,000 will spend the night on the streets. Countless more are Toronto’s “hidden homeless”–living in below-standard housing, shelters or...
View ArticleSKETCH Gratitude!
SKETCH has a lot of gratitude for organizations–both big and small, local and international–that reach out to create charitable partnerships and collaborations that support youth engagement through the...
View ArticleShifted shapes, bodies of art
Skratch is an Edmonton-born, Toronto-based visual, hip hop and graffiti artist. He’s also a Visual Associate Artist at SKETCH where he facilitates visual- and mural-arts workshops. Here, he chats about...
View ArticleArt is What I Live By
Stephanie Bellefleur is a contemporary visual artist, mother, and Indie Studio Artist at SKETCH. She was born in Venezuela and raised in Willow Bunch, Saskatchewan by her French Canadian father. Her...
View ArticleFeeling free: Johanna’s story
I came to SKETCH for the first time over three years ago. I had always loved art but was shy about trying it, because when I was younger, I wasn’t given the belief that I could be successful at art. I...
View Article20 Years of Feeding Creativity at SKETCH
Sue Cohen, SKETCH Program Coordinator and our indefatigable food and environment advocate, reflects on the crucial role of food at SKETCH over the years. Twenty years ago–SKETCH’s Year One–we were at...
View ArticleReconciliation at the core of Courage Lab
This spring, SKETCH and Neighbourhood Arts Network launched the next wave of Courage Labs as part of an ongoing series of workshops and gatherings centred around arts and equity through an Indigenous...
View ArticleWhat does decolonization mean to you?
Dr. Audrey Hudson is an artist, educator, researcher, and a faculty member at OCAD University. Dr. Hudson recently defended her PhD thesis on Decolonizing Indigenous Youth Studies, and believes through...
View ArticleGrasping a Closer Connection
Born in Montreal, Opola Karim is a Toronto-based fine artist and crafter. She’s an acrylic painter who has recently been incorporating embellishments into her work. Here, Opola shares her creative...
View ArticleCreativity: It’s always been on my side
Chris Cruz is an artist, writer, and filmmaker who has lived in Chile, Vancouver, and, for now, Toronto. They have led a community-arts film-making program called Fright Film School over the past...
View ArticleBlack + Red Power = Solidarity
This year, there has been a resurgence of Black and Indigenous solidarity in the city with the #BLTMO Tent City occupation and the INAC sit-in. SKETCH spoke with 9th Generation Afro-Native poet,...
View ArticleYouth moving forward in Moving Home project
Facilitating an art project is not your typical idea of Master’s thesis. But for Amelia Merhar, it was the perfect way of taking her art and community activism to the next level. “I was trying to find...
View ArticleHat Fundraiser yields 700 Tokens for SKETCH
This summer, SKETCH got an email from the guys at Chronic Ink, a local tattoo studio. They wanted to fundraise for youth at SKETCH. They wrote that they knew “what art has done for us and our artists,...
View ArticleFrom SKETCH Artist to Masters Student
Amelia is a former SKETCH participant turned lead researcher on a collaborative arts research project called Moving Home. She’s using youth-created art as data for her Masters project in Human...
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