Harnessing the power of research to learn and generate new insights, enabling the arts community to be strategic, focused and adaptive.

Navigating Impact:

A Research Field Guide with Socially Engaged Artists

Join Mass Culture, postdoc researcher Charlotte Lombardo, and our project partners as we take a closer look at how socially engaged arts are being used in research to challenge and address systemic racism and colonial practices. We’ll explore how artists are incorporating these themes into their work.

You’ll also get an introduction to the Trajectories Field Guide, which offers practical guidance on research and practice in socially engaged arts.

Session outline

Intro

In this session, we’ll take a closer look at how socially engaged arts are being used in research to challenge and address systemic racism and colonial practices. We’ll explore how artists are incorporating these themes into their work. You’ll also get an introduction to the Trajectories Field Guide, which offers practical guidance on research and practice in socially engaged arts.

Discover how artists are using their work to challenge injustice and explore the tools guiding this transformative research!

Community engagement and research recreation skills
More equitable research and action strategies
Community arts as action research

What You'll Learn

2 hours

April 9, 1-3pm Eastern

Arts organizations, socially-engaged artists and researchers, and research-curious arts workers

Session outline

Session introduction

Field Guide walk through

Breakout conversations

Artist Interview and Open Discussion

How to prepare

Watch Trajectories of Now short film (15 minutes) and review RRR field guide

All Artists Researcher

Maggie Chang is a poet, writer and artist, whose pieces often focus on themes of environmentalism, international feminism, and identity – particularly the joys and sorrows of being Chinese-Canadian.

Ezra Li (‘E’, Citizen Li)

Ezra Li (‘E’, Citizen Li) is an artist and filmmaker traversing queer, trans, and racialized identity politics. His work gestures towards a horizon defined by the radical embodiment of queer racialized lives. Studied in filmmaking, he works in video, animation, as well as in graphic design. As a genderqueer Chinese artist and Canadian immigrant, he strives to expand creative growth opportunities for queer, Asian, and otherwise marginalized communities.

Claire Tran is a student studying in Seneca’s Animation program. She’s interested in exploring the movement of cultures and their representations. Claire’s an enthusiast of all things art, and enjoys dipping her hands in multiple different mediums and art forms. As long as she can tell a story with it!

Bernice Mwaura is a visual artist from Nairobi, Kenya, currently based in Toronto, Canada. Drawing from interdisciplinary interests she utilizes photography, film and further visual mediums to tell her stories.

Ayonti Mahreen Huq

Ayonti Mahreen Huq is a Bangledeshi-Bengali artist who uses both traditional and digital media to create vibrant, surrealist images and animation. Her work is heavily guided by the female gaze and the desire to be playful and experimental.

Charlotte Lombardo

Charlotte (she/her) is a community-engaged scholar, drawing from the traditions of participatory research, critical pedagogy, and community development. Charlotte has collaborated on a diverse range of initiatives addressing issues of social and environmental justice, empowerment, wellness, and health equity. She holds an MHSc in Health Promotion, and a PhD in Environmental and Urban Change.

This initiative is made possible through the support of the following

Land Acknowledgment

Mass Culture honours and acknowledges the territories upon which our offices reside, the traditional land of the Huron-Wendat, the nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, the Métis, and the Anishinabek, including the Mississaugas of the New Credit Nation. We recognize and respect all recorded and unrecorded Nations who cared for this land of Tkaronto, meaning “Where the Trees Meet the Water.” We honour the Dish With One Spoon treaty and our responsibility to peaceably share and care for the resources around the Great Lakes. Mass Culture is grateful for the opportunity to nurture the world of the arts and connect cultures and communities across this land, which is the home to many Indigenous peoples from across Turtle Island. We hope to breathe life into our obligations to those communities and treaties. If you’re not sure of the history of the land on which you live and work, you can check out whose.land/en/ and native-land.ca/.

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