YOUTH GENERATED AUTONOMOUS SPACES

A Conversation with Catch da Flava, Trans_Fusion Crew and Sue Ruddick

Part of A Potential Toronto
Initiated by Toronto School of Creativity & Inquiry (TSCI)
More info: www.tsci.ca | tscinquiry@gmail.com

Thurs., 18 Oct. 2007
7:30 pm – 9:30 pm

Toronto Free Gallery
660 Queen Street East (w. of Broadview)

Regent Park Focus Youth Media Arts Centre’s Catch da Flava Youth Magazine, Radio show and Regent Park TV, Trans_Fusion Crew (Supporting Our Youth)’s Transmission Zine and Handy Trans are inspiring examples of the creative projects, programs and services created by and for youth in this city. These youth-driven centres are autonomous spaces for racialized and marginalized youth to explore their identities, voice their experiences and create their own narratives of self. Coordinators and participants of these programs will join Sue Ruddick (University of Toronto) to talk about the possibilities and challenges youth encounter in acts of self-representation.

Catch da Flava will launch the September/October Election’s Issue of their Youth Magazine, a bi-monthly publication established in 1995 to give culturally diverse youth living in the Regent Park area a voice on issues that impact their lives. The Elections issue features a variety of articles on the theme of voting. Participants include Emmanuel Kedini, Steve Blair, Adonis Huggins, Tyrone MacLean-Wilson, Iftekhar Chowdhury.

About Catch da Flava (Regent Park Focus Media Arts Centre)
Regent Park Focus Youth Media Arts Centre is a youth driven organization that is motivated by the belief that community based media practices can play a vital role in building and sustaining healthy communities. The organization is founded on an integrated model of leadership development whereby youth are trained to act as mentors to other youth as they work in leadership and decision making positions. Youth are not only the program participants they are also the staff facilitators in the media-making process.

About Trans_Fusion Crew (Supporting Our Youth)
The Trans_Fusion Crew is a project of Supporting Our Youth (SOY), an exciting, dynamic community development project designed to improve the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and transgendered youth in Toronto through the active involvement of youth and adult communities. SOY works to create healthy arts, culture and recreational spaces for young people; to provide supportive housing and employment opportunities; and to increase youth access to adult mentoring and support. The Trans-Fusion Crew is currently working on Handy Trans- a series of skill building workshops on things like carpentry, clothing repair, cooking, and more.

About Sue Ruddick
Sue Ruddick is something of an interdisciplinary scholar. Her initial training was in architecture, followed by a Master’s in Geography and a PhD in Planning. She has practiced as a planner in Montreal (coop housing) and Los Angeles (homelessness) and now teaches in the Department of Geography and Planning at the University of Toronto. She is fascinated by questions of space, power and political subjectivity, and has written on these questions as they relate to young people, their marginalization and struggles, most recently in a series of articles in Public Culture and Gender, Place and Culture.

About A Potential Toronto
A Potential Toronto is an event series and exhibition spotlighting alternative economies, minor spaces, and organizing strategies. It is a preliminary step in a longer-term counter-cartography project which would render currents of radical energy visible, audible, and tactile.