WINNER OF THE TORONTO ARTS FOUNDATION'S ARTS FOR YOUTH AWARD 2022
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WINNER OF THE TORONTO ARTS FOUNDATION'S ARTS FOR YOUTH AWARD 2022 〰️
About
Never Gallery Ready aims to EDUCATE on the role and function of media, ANIMATE a variety of content, tools and tactics available to message-creators and FACILITATE the creation of works of art driven by individual and community voice. Never Gallery Ready’s inclusive cut & paste techniques allow community members of all ages and skill levels to: name themselves as artists and critical thinkers; react and respond to the messages they see around them; feel empowered to create new messages and share their stories.
Never Gallery Ready (NgR) is an arts organization providing media-literacy focused arts education to children and youth. Workshop series and projects explore media messages and content-creation through a variety of mediums, including: paper and digital collage, sound art, zine-making, site-specific installations, photography, video-loops and mashups, gifs, infographic posters, memes and emojis and emerging technologies such as augmented reality.
NgR workshops are rooted in collage concepts, culture jamming / counter-narrative tactics, social justice stories and emphasize making works for the intended purposes of spreading new meaning and amplifying marginalized narratives to the world. NgR’s digital arts programs involve literacy learning as it relates to building and maintaining online audiences in ways that are safe and ethical by directly supporting young people in uploading works to pixabay, giphy, youtube and various social media platforms.
Following a Chalmers Fellowship funded period of research (2014), NgR’s digital arts and literacy projects that incorporate audio/visual information accessed through analog, digital and personal archives/libraries. Never Gallery Ready (NgR) workshops and projects have been hosted by schools across 6 Ontario school boards since 2006. NgR is an official partner of the Toronto District School Board since 2016., and Google Arts and Culture Institute since 2019. Never Gallery Ready produces resources for media-makers and media literacy educators to explore with learners and support emerging creatives.
The #WeMakeMedia podcast provides insights into the art forms and media literacy framework at the core of NgR programming.
Recent funding partners include:
NEVER GALLERY READY team members past and present
Founding artistic director karen darricades
karen darricades is an artist, educator, writer, community activist and award winning youth worker living in Toronto. She have facilitated workshops and projects under the Never Gallery Ready banner to thousands of students and community members both inside the classroom and through community organizations throughout Southern Ontario since 2006. She is the host of the #WeMakeMedia podcast and the Head of Arts and Culture at Creative Commons Canada.
Her art works have been exhibited through Gallery 1313, Luc Sculpture Gallery, The Gladstone Hotel, Toronto Free Gallery, Toronto's Visual Fringe Festival, The World of Threads festival: a Common Threads International Exhibit, and commissioned works have been sold through The Textile Museum of Canada's shop. Her writing has been published in print for This Magazine, HERizons Magazine, Broken Pencil, Nukta Art, Peru This Week, and online at TextileArtist.org and Ca.CreativeCommons.net.
Artist Statement
Responding to and re-framing found images and existing environments is central to my community-engaged arts practice. My workshops are as much a product of my education in visual arts and linguistics (University of Toronto), photography and visual communications (EFET- École de Communication Visuelle, Paris, France), as they are of my brief but impactful experiences in a variety of fields (including film, forum theatre, publishing and anti-violence education).
community-engaged artist in residence
ELI CARMONA
Eli’s work is an exploration of video, motion graphics, poetry, storytelling, and their own relationship with the spaces they navigate as a queer-latine-nonbinary-immigrant, who grabs inspiration from daily life, textures, and the randomness of a chance. They currently work at The 519 as a communications coordinator, where they use their skills in activism and community building work. They are a volunteer board member of PODER Afro y Abya Yala Fuerza Feminista and a mentee of Never Gallery Ready. elieliz.com
Cyber Arts Co-op Student and Lit Kit Character Design
Charlie Hou is an illustrator and media maker. She is the creator of rk_smu, an alternate reality graphic novel. While completing high school at Toronto’s CyberArts Northview High School, she interned with Never Gallery Ready and designed characters for our augmented reality STEAM education products.
Picture This! 2019 Project Coordinator and Youth Mentor
Charmae is a community arts programmer and photographer, who brought her many skills to our photo hunt and animation components of Picture This! 2019, hosted by The Toronto Public Library’s Albion Branch in Etobicoke.
Picture This! 2018 Project Coordinator and Youth Mentor
Eloya Williams is a social media expert and youth leader who supported program participants 12-18 in creating works of photography and animation during our 2018 Picture This! program hosted by Toronto’s Stelle Lamoroux Community Centre in Scarborough. During her time she produced a 10 minute video guide The Guide For Young Creatives Sharing Art Works online and in real life .
Mixed Reality ARts Project (2020) Co-coordinator and Youth Mentor
Cathleen Calica is a queer filipinx multi-media artist, curator and producer born in Philippines, base in Tkaronto, Canada. She is the Director/founder of 187 Augusta, DIY community arts space for the past 3 years that mainly focuses on holding spaces for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Colour) identified women and LGBTQ+ communities. Her creative theme's are inspired about nature, spirituality, sci-fi, psychology, and the untold stories of the bipoc womxn and queers of colour. Find her work on Instagram @yunguava.
Picture This! Digital Arts Camp (2018) Project Documentarian /Photographer Mentor
Sama is a graduate of Ryerson University's Performance Production BFA program. She has worked extensively as a stage manager, program coordinator, and event manager for organizations such as the Illumine Media Project, Toronto International Film Festival, and Toronto Fringe Festival. She has led many creative projects and managed both small and large-scale events. Sama continues to work with art-based not-for-profit organizations, youth empowerment programs, and grassroots film and theatre initiatives across Toronto.
Sound Engineer, #WeMakeMedia Podcast season 2 - On new and digital literacies
Bayan Chacra is a sound engineer and voice over artist with more than 12 years experience in audio recording and mixing, supported by a diploma in Professional Sound and Business (Studio production major) from Metalworks Institute Of Sound and Music Production, and holds a post graduated degree in Post-Production from Humber College.
UX DESIGN ASSISTANT ON LOVE PARK PROJECT AND AUGMENTED REALITY EDUCATIONAL PRODUCTS
Aimua Ogboghodor. has 15+ years experience in design, advertising and experiential marketing. Aimua is a fellow of the Springboard UX/UI program and an alumnus of the DMZ Toronto Black Innovation Program. He lead the design process for the Boosty retail app, which aims to improve the commerce experience and the energy management of micro-retailers in Sub-Saharan Africa. When he is not indulging in my passion for solving problems using UX design, he practices self-healing through art and meditation.
Sound Engineer, #WeMakeMedia Podcast season 1 - Making Art in the Age of the Internet
Gabriel Munro is a writer, composer, and the Communications Director for Amarok Society, a Canadian charity that teaches mothers to become neighbourhood teachers in the developing world. He has recently received a Radio Broadcasting Diploma from Humber College, and continues working to ensure the accessibility of education overseas. gabrielmunro.ca
Program documentation and Google Arts and Culture Partner Page assistant
As a Humber College placement stunt in 2020. Kaeli Vanbendegem worked to support the massive undertaking of getting almost 400 exhibits metadata uploaded to our official Google Arts and Culture Institute’s partner page. She also documented our first (and last) in-person podcast recording at the Toronto Public Library in 2020.
What does Never Gallery Ready mean?
Gallery-ready art is art that is ready to be installed or hung in a gallery space. This term can be found in art exhibiting submission calls, e.g. “all artwork submitted for exhibition consideration must be gallery ready”. Never Gallery Ready is a title I came up with in 2006 to emphasize the process-oriented focus of my workshops. NgR is about thinking and interacting with ubiquitous messages, pushing back against dominant narratives in playful and creative ways, and spreading messages to audiences and peers. It’s not so much about the producing of pretty things but more about creating new meaning and art experiences for audiences that extend beyond the art world and gallery space. The title Never Gallery Ready has grown to take on new relevance with the proliferation of internet art, participatory-media landscapes and XR media futures.