Youth Mentorship Exhibition (Opening): Hands That Hold

Developed through a series of workshops led by artist-in-residence Claudia Goulet-Blais, this exhibition emerged in collaboration with students at Carson Graham Secondary School during Griffin Art Projects YouthHUB program. Following a studio visit in which students were introduced to her work, Goulet-Blais invited them to explore how care and support can be expressed through gesture and body language. Alongside the unique opportunity to present work in a formal gallery setting, the project also offered students insight into a professional artists’ creative process, the stages involved in developing an exhibition, and the broader realities of an emerging artistic practice.

Through conversation, collaborative drawing and writing, collage, and the transfer of images onto ceramics, the students transformed their own family photographs into new material forms. The works presented reflect their personal interpretations of care and support within family archives, revealing how gestures of care are carried, remembered, and transferred across generations.