I was really fortunate to have a passionately and hard-working team to work on the Community Arts Project. Reilly and Gustav had brought in different ideas and again, it was a pleasure to work with them. I decided to combine both arts explorer activities into one blog because both activities relate to one another.

        Our social justice issue we decided to focus on was on Canadian Aboriginal Women and Families in Toronto. It was a difficult issue to focus on because none of us were Canadian Aboriginal so we don't have an emotional attachment towards this issue. However, we treated with respect and feel impartial to it because then we can focus on our goal. Our goal was visibility and sparking conversations toward this Canadian Aboriginal women and families. Through my research, I thought I knew enough to not be ignorant in Aboriginal issues, but I was pretty shocked with what I found.

         According to Williams (1997), "Toronto is Canada's metropolitan centre with the greatest number of inhabitants, including the largest concentration of urban Aboriginals"(p. 95). Also, according to Environics Institute on Urban Aboriginal peoples study (2010), "Aboriginal peoples move to Toronto for work opportunities, education and family, and the amenities and services available" (p.16). I find these two facts show how Canadian Aboriginals make up a significant percentage of population in our urban city. We are so aware of immigration minorities in our cities but not so much of the original inhabitants of Canada. 

         I can sort of relate to the lack of resources to a place when it is highly populated by a certain race. I am an immigrant and I felt like it was difficult to adjust to this place without any sort of help from anyone with the same cultural background. Just as Canadian Aboriginal migrate to the cities, my parents hoped for a better living condition than we did back home. That is how I can relate to the unfortunate condition of lack of resources. That is why we wanted to provide information to our fellow classmates of this issue.

         After some discussion/creating a visual representation of our Big idea, Gustav offered the idea of creating a website of information to this issue. It was brilliant because it was one way a person can have a collective place in which has information and resources about Canadian Aboriginal Women and Families.

Visit Reguro.wikia.com on Canadian Aboriginal Women and Families in Toronto.

           However, other than the website, we also decided that we need to further reach out to the public. We thought of GUERRILLA ART! A most daring arts explorer activity! 

        Before we began our action, Reilly had brought one of her friends, an artist, to help us in our deed. We told her about our big idea and from there, she created the image (see on right). We discussed it and it was a fairly long conversation but we decided upon this image. Personally, I love the artwork and I love the ambiguity of it. Moira, the artist, wanted to relate an Aboriginal concept which is the medicine wheel and have a modern twist to it. It definitely relates to the last art element: balance. Social injustice means that there is a lack of balance in our society. This artwork portrays otherwise. According to Schirrmarcher and Fox (2009), "balance involves how an artist uses positive and negative space" (p. 143). To me, I see this image giving a priority to women and families and then the city of Toronto. It shows a empowering image without making a negative statement. That is why instead of creating a text within the picture, we left it as it is. Because then when people see it, they can interpret it any way! If they start to get curious and want to find out more about it then hopefully it can lead them to our wikia. Overall, I feel like artwork, especially street art should be left for the viewer to interpret it. We don't need an explanation of why it was made or how, just let the public appreciate it and create their own explanation of it. We can express ourselves in various ways and really it up to others on how to absorb it.

Below is a video to show the process of our action:

         Above shows our artwork on a public space. However, it is unfortunate because Reilly went back to the scene of the crime and it wasn't up anymore. The lifetime of our artwork was merely less than 24 hours but it was all worth the experience. It was really nerve-wrecking before we put it up but once the deed is done, it is like whole another level of emotion. Unfortunately, we were unable to get any reactions from the artwork but we hope from our hypothesis that it would result in a spark of conversation toward the issue.