Contact Festival 2008: Between Memory and History

The photography exhibit runs through to May 22 at the Assembly Hall. I am also attaching one of the youth photos that is in the CONTACT Magazine
promoting the youth show done by LAMP youth participant Christian Bortey. The photo is called Pause 2007 (It’s a picture of Lakeshore Village).
For the second year in a row the Ontario Arts Council has awarded Nikki Goldman a grant to teach photography to inner city youth through LAMP
Community Health Centre. The youth sponsored by the South Etobicoke Youth Assembly who participate in the project not only learn actual tangible skills in photography but also walk away with a sense of self-esteem and pride. The project allows youth to gain knowledge in black and white photography, portraiture, processing film, darkroom procedures, digital cameras and image manipulation.

The exhibition for the CONTACT Festival provides the youth a chance to also learn about organizing an exhibition and the process behind submitting your work to a gallery. Thus the youth further their tangible skills in acquiring knowledge in a gallery exhibition while concurrently they are continually building their self-esteem, as they are able to see their finished work mounted and framed on a gallery wall. The youth increase personal pride and confidence in their
artistic abilities and express themselves through their art. For these youth this is a substantial experience, as they receive inner strength from the finished product.

The Student Artists of the Lakeshore Area (SALA) Present:

The Unveiling Ceremony of their new community mural at Yummy Pizza, 196
Royal York Road, on Tuesday, May 6, 2008 from 6:30pm until 7:30pm.

At the Unveiling Ceremony SALA will present their mural as a gift to the Mimico community. A number of community members contributed to the design of the mural by attending SALA’s community consultation and sharing their knowledge of the history of Mimico. The mural consists of three panels; the first representing the past, the second the present and the third the future. The central focus of the mural is a tree, which ultimately comes to dwarf the city that has grown in around it. It’s presence symbolizes the power of the natural world, as well as the knowledge that can be gleaned from one’s history.