‘Art in Just Recovery,’ 2023. Multi-media digital collage. Guelph, Canada.
Some questions can only be answered from inside the experience — and this project was built entirely on that premise.
★ Funded by Ontario Trillium Foundation, SSHRC, and seven additional institutional partners
★ Research component: arts-based methodology for community well-being in pandemic recovery
Art In Just Recovery
What does recovery look like as we move through the ongoing effects of the pandemic?
Seventy people reflected on the emergent future while examining their lived experience of the pandemic — not as a retrospective, but as an active, ongoing process of making sense of what happened and what comes next.
Hosted by Art Not Shame in partnership with the Guelph Neighbourhood Support Coalition, the project ran online and in-person workshops exploring care and connection in the context of recovery. Seven lead facilitators were paired with seven emerging facilitators, strengthening facilitation capacity within the local arts community at the same time. A parallel research stream captured insights into how the arts can support individual and collective well-being. Video.
Facilitators: Maeve Hind, Kavya Yoganathan, Ahmri Vandeborne, Alexa Collette, Charity Cruz, Mia Weber, Alexa Collette, Mei Lein Harrison, Gaia Lukomska, Braydan Pettis, Christina Fish, Manny Chukwu, Carla Reimer, annais Linares.
Community Organizing Team: Nasra Hussein, Amy Kipp, and Gil Maurice
Social Artist Lead and Facilitator: Melanie Schambach
Partner Organizations: Art Not Shame & Guelph Neighbourhood Support Coalition
Funders: City of Guelph, Canadian Mental Health Association, Guelph CHC, Canada Health Communities Initiative, Windsor Essex Community Foundation, Ontario Trillium Foundation, The Guelph Community Foundation, JP Bickell Foundation, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
