On Now!: Youth-Led Arts Festival: 5th Annual BIG BAM BOOM (AFCY, June 4-9, Toronto)

“Toronto, ON (June 4-9, 2013) Arts for Children and Youth’s (AFCY) annual youth-led arts festival will take place at The Art Gallery of Ontario inside the Weston Family Learning Centre. BIG BAM BOOM (BBB) will showcases young talent from an array of Arts for Children and Youth (AFCY) programming. BBB will feature tasteful combinations of visual arts (photography, drawings, masks, fashion, paintings, murals and installations) and performance arts (Aboriginal dance and spoken word, African drumming, beat boxing, hip hop and dance).

Community Gallery (June 4-9, 2013)
The Community Gallery will feature a variety of artwork that were designed and inspired by children and youth in AFCY programs. These programs take place in schools and communities in Toronto’s priority neighborhoods. This year’s visual art exhibition will feature combinations of clay murals, photography, graffiti walls, and mixed media.

Special Pop-up Performances inside The AGO Galleries (June 5, 2013)
On June 5th some of the youth that will perform at the BIG BAM BOOM Performance Showcase will do teaser performances in front of the Public at the AGO that Wednesday. The AGO allows free admission for Ontario high school students after 3pm. The young performers will travel to the AGO via public transport and set up for the performance. BBB will provide local artists with multiple opportunities to showcase their artistic learning and talents as featured acts in the festival and as exhibitors in the gallery.

BIG BAM BOOM Performance Showcase (June 8, 2013)
Performances take place inside the Weston Family Learning Centre at the AGO. Balu Kanagalingam and Erin Amoah will host the BIG BAM BOOM Performance Showcase with a special performance by Emerging Hip-Hop group Plaitwrights

About Arts For Children and Youth (AFCY):
AFCY is a registered charitable organization. We ally with high priority communities and empower marginalized children and youth by engaging them in hands-on, community and school based arts education programs that respect existing cultural and community activity, resulting in participatory action and social awareness. To learn more about us, please visit http://www.afcy.ca. You can email us at info@afcy.ca or call us at 416-929-9314.

About BIG BAM BOOM Youth-Led Arts Festival:
BIG BAM BOOM (BBB) is a Youth-Led Arts Festival that celebrates what Toronto youth have to offer. This week long festival showcases young talent from an array of Arts for Children and Youth (AFCY) programming.
The BIG BAM BOOM Youth-Led Arts Festival is organized and carried out by the BIG BAM BOOM Volunteer Youth Committee. The Committee was established in 2011 as an extension from AFCY’s Youth Advisory Council. This Committee was created to focus on the ever-growing BIG BAM BOOM Youth-Led Arts Festival. Over time this festival has grown into a week long festival featuring tasteful combinations of visual arts (photography, drawings, masks, fashion, paintings, murals and installations) and performance arts (Aboriginal dance and spoken word, African drumming, beat boxing, hip hop and dance). This annual event has now become what AFCY youth performers and families look forward to every year. The BIG BAM BOOM Volunteer Youth Committee work hard into making the BIG BAM BOOM Youth-Led Festival a week to remember! To learn more about the BIG BAM BOOM Youth-Led Arts Festival and the BIG BAM BOOM Volunteer Youth Committee, please visit http://www.bigbamboom.ca. You can email us at bigbamboom@afcy.ca or call us at 416-929-9314.”

-submitted by Bright Osei-Agyeman, BIG BAM BOOM Festival Director 

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Youth-Led Arts Festival: 5th Annual BIG BAM BOOM (AFCY, June 4-9, Toronto)

“SAVE THE DATE!

5th Annual BIG BAM BOOM
Youth-Led Arts Festival

Exhibition: June 4-9, 2013
Free After Three: June 5, 2013
Performance: June 8, 2013

Art Gallery of Ontario
Weston Family Learning Centre
317 Dundas St W

About Arts for Children & Youth (AFCY):
AFCY is a registered charitable organization. We ally with high priority communities and empower marginalized children and youth by engaging them in hands-on, community and school-based arts education programs that respect existing cultural and community activity, resulting in participatory action and social awareness. To learn more about us, please visit http://www.afcy.ca. You can email us at info@afcy.ca or call us at 416-929-9314.”

- Submitted by Arts For Children and Youth (AFCY)

To read other ArtBridges’ posts about AFCY, please click here.
See ArtBridges’ Google Map for more information.

For ArtBridges/ToileDesArts sponsorship opportunities: Simon Constam, Sponsorship Director, simon@artbridges.ca, 905-537-7227
Return to ArtBridges/ToileDesArts homepage

Innovative Idea: AFCY’s Visual Mission Statement

AFCY shows its innovative spirit by partnering with Aaron Leighton to create its first illustrated mission statement

TORONTO, ON. (September 5, 2012):

“A picture, they say, is worth a thousand words. By extension, an illustration can enhance or even replace a thousand words. Arts for Children and Youth (AFCY) is so pleased to partner with Toronto illustrator Aaron Leighton to create the organization’s first visual mission statement.

“We have been talking about this for such a long time” says Julie Frost, AFCY’s artistic and executive director. “We hope representing our work in visual form will help better communicate what we do and how we do it. This is pioneering step for AFCY – to my knowledge there is no other Toronto arts organization that has translated their work into pictures. We are an organization driven by creativity; it makes perfect sense to me that we represent what we do artfully!”

“It all began when AFCY met with Aaron to see how we could partner. What resulted was that we both saw art making as a way to give back to communities in Toronto. It was that magical mix of good timing and meeting the right illustrator. His professional practice hinges on collaboration and building community through the arts, so we are really fortunate to have him on board for this project,” says Frost.

“We updated our logo and website in 2008. Creating a new visual mission statement is the organization’s push to a more unified look to all of our marketing materials and a means to showcase our high capacity to work creatively and collaboratively,” says Frost.

Leighton’s whimsical style fits the organization’s current look and brand identity. He developed a digital illustration so that we can adapt it to all the marketing and communications materials we produce, such as our brochures and newsletters and on our website and even perhaps on our social media pages.

“We had so much in common with what Aaron was doing for artists. Our goals aligned so well. At AFCY, our motto is to Cultivate Creativity, Engage Community. And what Aaron is doing with the artist collective, the Nook, is very similar, ” said Frost.

The new logo and website look reflects AFCY’s professional personality, and appeals to the organization’s audience.

This change coincides with AFCY’s exciting new 2012-13 programming.”

-posted with permission from Julie Frost, Executive & Artistic Director, AFCY

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En scène les arts (L’Association franco-culturelle de Yellowknife, 16-27 juil.)

«Le camp artistique «En scène les arts» met l’accent sur le cinéma et les arts de la scène. Les deux disciplines convergeront vers un spectacle commun qui mariera la danse, théâtre et le cinéma.>

- soumis par Marie Coderre, Directrice générale, L’Association franco-culturelle de Yellowknife.

Lisez notre mini profil de l’Association franco-culturelle de Yellowknife.
Veuillez s.v.p visiter la carte Google pour l’information de contact.

Festival Miroir sur la francophonie nordique (L’Association franco-culturelle de Yellowknife, 7-8 juillet)

(cliquez sur le programme pour l’agrandir)

L’Association franco-culturelle de Yellowknife présente:
Le festival Miroir sur la francophonie nordique
“Les arts de la rue en blanc!”

de 14h à 22h
les 7 et 8 juillet 2012
Somba K’e Civic Plaza

- soumis par Marie Coderre, Directrice générale, L’Association franco-culturelle de Yellowknife.

Lisez notre mini profil de l’Association franco-culturelle de Yellowknife.
Veuillez s.v.p visiter la carte Google pour l’information de contact.

Youth Arts Festival: AFCY’s 4th Annual Big Bam Boom! (Toronto, June 9-10)

AFCY’s 4th Annual
Big Bam Boom! Youth Arts Festival
June 9 & 10, 2012
At the Harbourfront Centre, York Quay Centre

-posted with permission from Julie Frost, AFCY

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Emerging Youth Arts Educators Residency Program runs until May 7 (Arts for Children and Youth, Toronto)

photo by AFCY

“Arts for Children and Youth (AFCY) is introducing a new Emerging Youth Arts Educators Residency Program that will feature youth visual artists inside the Toronto Island ferries on Lake Ontario.  AFCY’s emerging youth artist Stephanie Spafford will set up a pop-up visual studio as a means to generate artwork and to converse with diverse public audiences right on the ferry.

Come see the emerging art star of AFCY in action! On the ferries you will see our youth artist throughout the week of May 1 – 7, 2012, from 11 am – 2 pm each day. This event just happens to coincide with National Youth Arts Week.

“AFCY is the first community arts organization to have been granted such a privilege, and we are thrilled to be partnering with City of Toronto – Waterfront Parks. ­­The impetus of the project is to provide opportunities for our city’s up and coming artists to produce art in innovative and unexpected urban places – to AFCY, Lake Ontario is a wonderful wide-open studio that can provide young artists with lots of inspiration. For the first time ever, youth will make art directly on the water, while the ferries are traveling. Here the youth artists will be able to engage with the passengers, gain fresh understandings about this unique urban area, and be part of the existing cultural activity”, says Julie Frost, AFCY’s executive and artistic director.

The program’s intention is to generate new cultural intersections, where youth and diverse Toronto audiences can merge, interact, learn and participate in exchanges of knowledge, culture and story.

Frost’s vision to infuse art in unexpected areas of Toronto was received very well by the Waterfront Parks staff. With this new program young artists get the opportunity to infiltrate Toronto’s harbour with artful activities.  The islands have a wonderful history with many of Toronto’s artists living there. Harbour residents maintain that they live in a very unique culture. With this program, we hope to celebrate and capture this uniqueness in the artwork that is generated.

“This is our second program that engages city commuters: AFCY also operates the Youth X Press mural program in partnership with the TTC.  In this program, youth design and create original public murals on discarded bus-side panels that are then mounted onto the sides of TTC buses and travel across Toronto,” says Frost.

Stephanie Spafford is a member of AFCY’s Youth Advisory Council and has been serving the council since 2007. She also sits on our Big Bam Boom Volunteer Youth Committee – a group of dynamic AFCY outh artists who collectively design and operate our annual youth-led Big Bam Boom Youth Arts Festival at Harbourfront. Spafford is a visual and performing artist. She is a recent fine arts graduate of York University. Stephanie has performed as a vocalist at venues across Toronto including the former Paramount Theatre, the Underground, the Royal Conservatory of Music, the Canadian Opera Company and the Harbourfront Centre. Stephanie has been affiliated with AFCY since the age of 13.

About AFCY
AFCY is a registered charitable organization. We ally with high priority communities and empower marginalized children and youth by engaging them in hands-on, community and school-based arts education programs that respect existing cultural and community activity, resulting in participatory action and social awareness. To learn more about us, please visit www.afcy.ca. You can email us at info@afcy.ca or call us at 416-929-9314.”

-posted with permission from Shehreen Ladha, AFCY

Read ArtBridges’ profile on Arts for Children and Youth (AFCY) here.
Please see ArtBridges’ Google Map for contact  information.