As part of Toronto Arts Foundation’s ongoing research into the importance of the arts in city and community building, Arts Chats brings together a diverse array of speakers from a variety of disciplines throughout the month of March to discuss timely and understudied issues that affect them, their practice and the impacts of their work. These discussions will help guide the Foundation’s research strategy towards better supporting advocacy, programming and community building efforts across Toronto and throughout the arts sector as a whole. We want to go beyond the conditions of creating and working in the arts during the pandemic to instead use our current context as a lens through which to understand long standing problems in the sector.

Arts Chats #4: ESTABLISHED ON SHIFTING SANDS | March 25 @ 1pm

Establishing and maintaining a career as an artist is no easy feat. In this final session of Arts Chats, we turn to established artists to discuss their roles in our community, how they have navigated change in our sector and their visions for the future.

Moderator: Zainab Amadahy Zainab Amadahy’s mixed race heritage, which includes African American, Cherokee, Seminole and European, informs her work as an author of futurist fiction and nonfiction. Zainab currently sits on the Advisory Council of Muskrat Magazine and, in her role at Children’s Peace Theatre, works with BIPOC youth to explore the role of arts in social change, relationship building and personal transformation. Based in peri-apocalyptic Toronto, Zainab is the mother of two grown sons and a cat who allows her to sit on one section of the couch.

Panelist: Augusto Bitter is a Dora Award-winning performer, writer, producer and facilitator based in Toronto, originally from Venezuela. They’ve been a resident artist at Canadian Stage, Aluna Theatre, Theatre Passe Muraille and hub14. Augusto has been an artist educator with Soulpepper and the Paprika Festival, and facilitates creative-writing workshops with Story Planet. Food is Augusto’s love language. More at www.augustobitter.com.

Panelist: Claudia Moore has been a force on the Canadian dance scene since the late 70’s. She has performed with the National Ballet of Canada and as a featured performer with both Toronto Dance Theatre and Desrosiers Dance Theatre. In 1996, she founded MOonhORsE Dance Theatre where she continues to perform commissioned works and teach movement to seniors. In 2000, Moore established the internationally acclaimed series, Older & Reckless, to connect seasoned dance artists to the public in workshops, community projects and live performances. Moore has received the Jacqueline Lemieux award for excellence in dance and was a finalist for the 2017 Premier's Award for Excellence in the Arts. www.moonhorsedance.com

Panelist: Greg Staats is Skarù:reˀ [Tuscarora] / Kanien’kehá:ka [Mohawk], Hodinöhsö:ni’. b. 1963, Ohsweken, Six Nations of the Grand River Territory. A Toronto based artist whose Hodinöhsö:ni restorative aesthetic employs mnemonics of condolence, articulated in diverse visual forms including: photography, sculpture, installation and video. Staats’ practice conceptualizes Land as monument embodied within relational placemaking, his on-reserve lived experience and the explorations of ceremonial orality. Upcoming solo exhibitions: AGO (Toronto), Contact Photography Festival at Todmorden Mills (Toronto) and AGH (Hamilton, ON). Greg has been nominated for the ScotiaBank Photography Award and has been shortlisted for the Robert Gardner Fellowship in Photography of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography at Harvard University.

Space is limited, registration is required. Toronto Arts Foundation is committed to ensuring as accessible an environment as possible for all our programming/events. Please note that ASL interpretation will be provided for this session. Should you have other accessibility needs, please contact alexandra@torontoarts.org by March 17, 2021.

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This is Arts Chats #4, part of a four-part series. To learn more and register for our other sessions, click below:

Shifting to Digital, Obscuring Equity | March 4 @ 1pm. Learn more and register here.

What is Success? Metrics, Impact and Creative Practice | March 11 @ 1pm. Learn more and register here.

Technology Before, During and After | March 18 @ 1pm. Learn more and register here.