Carleton Presents: Healthy Cities—Building Community Through Creativity
By Brenna Mackay
Carleton’s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences will be hosting the next panel as part of their Healthy Cities series on Tuesday, Nov. 17 at 7 p.m. The series explores the many factors—from nature and housing to climate and art—that make a healthy city in 2020.
This upcoming edition titled, Building Community Through Creativity, brings together artists, activists, cultural workers and academics to share experiences and insights into how cities can centre the work of artists in serving people and strengthening communities.
“I’m really looking forward to fostering discussion between and learning from these wonderful panellists, who have so much wisdom and experience to share,” says Sandra Dyck, director of the Carleton University Art Gallery who will be moderating the event.
“They are passionate about and committed to putting artists at the centre of the capacity…and community-building work they do in the region.”
Panellists include:
- Jamaal Jackson Rogers – Ottawa’s former English Poet Laureate and Carleton University’s Music Program 2019-2020 Artist in Residence. He uses his performance studio, The Origin Arts & Community Centre, as his launch pad to teach, mentor and advocate for the arts.
- Mara Brown – the inaugural director of the Carleton Dominion-Chalmers Centre (CDCC). Her national and international work has led her throughout rural and urban centres supporting independent artists, non-profit organizations and corporations.
- Melanie Yugo – who has a multidisciplinary practice that focuses on activating community and cultural life in the public sphere. She co-founded Possible Worlds, an art, print and music platform in Ottawa, and Spins & Needles, a collective that engages communities through curated art and music experiences.
- Ellen Waterman – a music scholar with a strong focus on music in Canada and a flutist specializing in creative improvisation. She was appointed to the inaugural Helmut Kallmann Chair for Music in Canada at Carleton University in 2019 where she is developing a research program committed to investigating issues of diversity and decolonization of music in Canada through scholarship, research creation, and experiential learning.
- Danielle Printup is a Hodinohso:ni / Anishnaabe arts administrator and curator from Kitigan Zibi Anishnabeg, QC, with maternal roots in Ohsweken, ON. She has worked at Galerie SAW Gallery, the Indigenous Art Centre and the City of Ottawa’s Public Art Program. She currently works as the program’s assistant at Carleton University Art Gallery.
Attendees will hear about the panellists exciting projects and organizations, which address gaps in the city’s cultural landscape while imagining and creating better futures, now.
“Events like these are vitally important since they create a platform for diverse perspectives to embark on critical reflection and collective imagining,” says Printup.
“As cultural practitioners, we desire to develop worlds that we wish to inhabit, and the more we make time to work collectively and practice active listening, the more we can deepen and enrich our own creative practices.”
To learn more about the event and to register, visit the Healthy Cities website.
