Community Cultural Development
	Community Cultural Development
	100 Journals Project
	This is My City
	Shaw Millennium Urban Art Project

This is My City

The "This Is My City" program provides Calgary's homeless community with increased opportunities for creative expression and to engage Calgarians in a dialogue about the issues around homelessness and the place of art and culture in society.

What does the "This Is My City" program do?

• Uses the arts to educate and engage the public about the experience of homelessness;
• Engages homeless art makers and provides them with an opportunity for creative expression – increasing self-confidence and esteem;
• Provides opportunities for artist mentorship;
• Encourages collaboration with social service agencies (based in community cultural development);
• Supports Calgary's 10-year Plan to End Homelessness; and
• Establishes program sustainability with partners after the project is completed.

Over the course of twelve months (January 2009 – January 2010) TMC has provided artistic tools and mentorship to enable homeless art makers to find their creative voices and has encouraged homeless citizens to use their art-making as a conduit for public advocacy and dialogue.  It also offers professional development opportunities for artists within the community to participate as artist-mentors.

Overview of This Is My City Society  (76 KB)

Multidisciplinary Program

TMC is a multidisciplinary program that includes poetry, fiction, performance, personal narrative, street reportage, drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpture, photography, and video.  It is inclusive, as children and families are encouraged to participate, though the focus has been largely adult based.  Small groups of homeless art makers, paired with an artist-mentor,  work collaboratively to determine their project outcome. 

Viewing the Resulting Artwork

Artworks created during the project span are exhibited, performed, published or showcased online for public viewing.  This assists with community awareness as TMC hopes to change the perception of the homeless by educating the public that homelessness is a symptom of systemic ignorance of, and indifference to, a community's most powerless citizens. 

Enabling Homeless Citizens

TMC does not pretend to be a solution to the homeless crisis.  Rather, the project intends to enable homeless citizens to speak on their own behalf through the power of creative self-expression.  A series of open public forums provided a place for safe, open dialogue; facilitated sessions where interested individuals come together to discuss the issues raised by TMC and the program structure.

To date, This is My City has initiated over 40 different programs of different arts disciplines to meet the needs of the diverse populations within Calgary's homeless community.  TMC has worked with over 700 homeless individuals and by the time we complete the project in January 2010, we will have touched the lives of many more homeless art-makers by allowing these individuals to create, express, learn and share their experiences through the arts.

Artist Trading Cards

The Artist Trading Card movement has taken off world wide.  These trading-card sized works of original art are traded amongst the Artist Trading Card community as a way to democratize the arts in a community building capacity.  

Email Community Culture Development for more information.

Overview of This Is My City Society (76 KB)