New Site!

We (Common Weal Community Arts) finally have a new site!!!!

Links, galleries and events...check er out.

Combine

Over the past year at work, Common Weal has been working on the Dewdney Avenue Project. The project brought in 3 Canadian multi-disciplinary artists, who worked with the area of North Central Regina, in relation to the history, area, and circumstances of Dewdney Avenue. There is whole lot more background on this that you can check out here.

One of the final pieces that we created was a brochure which listed events, projects, artist info, images, and a city wide map that illustrated it all for the view. We had Combine design the brochure for us, and we love it. Danielle who worked with us was fantastic, and gave us everything we had hoped for.

If you check out their site, they have so much great work to take a look at. It is well worth the look.
And thank you Combine...for heading back to the prairies.

enjoy. xo.

Common Circles: Addressing Violence Through Art

Last October I started working at Common Weal Community Arts as the Southern Artistic Coordinator. And around the same time I started working on the upcoming programming for the next few years. During that period, there was a lot going on in my life and my friends life, dealing with the topics of violence. I think we felt angry/confused/tired/helpless. We felt we needed to actually DO something about it. Because of this, a good friend of mine Danette, who is an artist and teacher, started brainstorming on possible projects that Common Weal could do with this topic.

Fast forward to August, and we have now finished a
workshop series called Common Circles: Addressing Violence Through Art with some fantastic artists (Jori Cachene, Traci Foster and Sherry Farrell Racette). Common Circles was a workshop-based project approaching the issues of violence against women and
families using visual art, creation and voice. Working within themes of independence, generosity, belonging and freedom, the workshops provided an avenue for participants to explore, learn, share and visually represent these ideas in relation to the topics of violence. We also presented the work created and workshop series at the "Missing Women: Decolonization, Third Wave Feminisms, and Indigenous People of Canada and Mexico" at the University of Regina. To finish up the project, we will be working with Combine, to create a book about the project and to pass on the ideas behind the workshops, so schools and organizations can carry on what we have created and facilitated. The book should be done sometime in October...a year later, a full circle.

To find out more about the project, visit Common Weal Community Arts. Sign up for our e-list and we will keep you in the know.

Thank you to all the participants, artists and elders...it was the perfect way to spend the summer. xo.

Artist in Residence

NEW POSITION - ARTIST IN RESIDENCE

Common Weal Community Arts Inc., in partnership with the North Central Community Association, is seeking a multidisciplinary community-minded Artist in Residence for one year, starting in September of 2008. The Artist in Residence will spend 50% of the allotted time responding to the community's needs for development in the arts and for the remainder of the time, will pursue his/ her own independent art practice. The artist will be paid a salary of $30,000, plus benefits.

The purpose of this Artist in Residence program is to create new opportunities for the community of North Central Regina that will help facilitate, encourage and increase artistic and cultural involvement, development, diversity and identity. The Artist in Residence will use community art as a tool for social development and to share the collective voice and stories of community members.

The community that the Residency project will focus on will be the North Central area of Regina. North Central is an area with a high level of individuals and families (47%) who are considered to be low income. Half of all of the properties are rental properties and there is a lot of movement in the neighbourhood. A large percentage of the community members are Aboriginal. In the past few years, this area has been discriminated, targeted and was recently deemed "Canada's Worst Neighbourhood" by MacLean's Magazine. What aren't properly represented are the community's involvement, diversity, and cultural history of this community. The North Central Community Organization being one such facility. By working together with the community of North Central Regina to enhance the quality of life by representing, promoting, developing partnerships and unifying the community and its image through effective communication, programs and services, this agency has become the representation of the strength of the community.

The successful applicant:

- Can demonstrate a mature level of achievement in their discipline, will have an established career in the arts, and an understanding of community arts.
- Experience working with both traditional and contemporary art practices. Knowledge of Aboriginal art practices an asset.
- Can work both independently and collectively, and with a variety of age groups and artistic skills.
- Will have excellent communication skills.
- Will be sensitive to community dynamics: social, cultural, and economic.
- Will be able to facilitate and respond to the needs of community by working collectively with other artists and community members.
- Experience working with a variety of artistic practices and techniques.
- Valid drivers license and access to vehicle.

We encourage artists from aboriginal and diverse cultural and creative backgrounds to apply. Deadline for applications is August 25, 2008. Applications should include a current CV/ resume, examples of past creative work, three references, and an example of a community-based arts project created by the applicant.

Common Weal Community Arts links artists and communities to animate long term and positive social change. Common Weal facilitates the production of participatory arts projects, based on creating partnerships between communities and artists, through a philosophy of inclusion and cooperation, and in order to create opportunities and choices for individuals and communities.

For more information please contact Carey at 306-780-9442 or ac@commonweal-arts.com.

Please send applications to:
Common Weal Community Arts Inc.
2431-8th Avenue, Regina
Sask., S4R 5J7.

Common Weal gratefully acknowledges the support it receives from its volunteers, partner organizations, and co-sponsors and funders - the City of Regina, SaskCulture, SaskLotteries, the Saskatchewan Arts Board, the Community Initiatives Fund, and the North Central Community Association.

The Extras

Curtain Razors presents The Extras

Curtain Razors in collaboration with the Saskatchewan Filmpool Cooperative and Common Weal Community Arts, is pleased to present international inter-disciplinary performance artists from the UK, Szuper Gallery: Susanne Clausen and Pavlo Keresty, for the performance/installation of "The Extras", August 23, 2008 at 8:30pm, in the Queen Elizabeth II Court, at the front of Regina City Hall.

"The Extras" is a performance/installation referencing the form of a film shoot with local actor Michele Sereda, 20 local background performers and camera, lighting and sound crews. "The Extras" will explore the experiences, stories, and incidences that have happened to real extras on specific Regina film shoots and on films shot in Hollywood and around the world. Contextualizing local film history with world cinema, "The Extras" gives the audience a performer's eye-view of the amazing, and sometimes confusing, contradictory or even absurd world of the people and actors who have worked as background performers.

"The Extras" - “ a performance/installation created by Szuper Gallery and featuring
Michele Sereda, with 20 local "extras".

1 performance only:
Saturday, August 23, 8:30 pm
Location: South side of Regina City Hall, in the Queen Elizabeth II Court.
Tickets: Pay what you will on site during the performance.
Information: 522-2494

-Curtain Razors is a Regina based organization that has been creating, producing, and presenting new Canadian theatre for the past nineteen years, collaborating with organizations and individual artists to create new ways of telling stories.
-The Saskatchewan Filmpool Cooperative is a non profit artist run centre which supports, encourages, and assists independent filmmaking in Saskatchewan.
-Based out of London, UK, Szuper Gallery is Susanne Clausen & Pavlo Kerestey; an artistic collaboration that functions as a gallery without a building, working with other institutions to cast new light on the mechanism of art, artistic life, and society.
-Common Weal Community Arts engages communities and professional artists to come together and create art; empowering people - and their communities - to tell their stories in their own voices.