This past fall my colleague Christine Mockett and I hosted a collaborative mapping project for clients of "the Place to Be" program at the Somerset West Community Health Centre. Our final project involved the collaborative creation of a map of the Wellington Village area, hence the project name "It Takes a Village to Make a Village."
(Above: Steve and Wendy Pose with their work)
This mixed media project involved the use of acrylic paint and textured mediums, the collage of fabric elements, as well as the incorporation of objects in niches built directly into the wood panels. Participants were asked to bring objects which they felt represented the neighbourhood or were meaningful to them on a personal level. While a few of our participants took ownership of certain sections of the map, many sections were the results of the efforts of more than one hand. The final product was a large triptych permanently installed in on the second floor of the Health Centre this January 2018. Over the course of the project we had many interesting discussions about the neighbourhood.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Ontario Arts Council for financing this project. We hope to be back at Somerset West again for a new project really soon!
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