Join us in person to connect with community members through conversations, games, and instrument building.
What
A free, two-part workshop series to connect with Two Rivers community members and beyond to collaboratively imagine, design and build instruments to be hosted at the Huron Community Garden. No musical, artistic, or building experience is necessary. We ask for your willingness to connect, share, listen and grow together, and a commitment to attend as many sessions as possible.
Part 1 – We’ll host community circles to share stories, visions of the neighbourhood, previous community experiences, hopes and dreams for our community, and thoughts around music, instruments, and building. We’ll also play some activities together.
Part 2 – Based on the conversations we’ve had as a community, we’ll create designs together and find ways to build the instruments from those designs. This project has some budget to bring in supportive community artists who can support our building process, as well as budget for building materials.
Culminating Event – At this event, participants will be invited to share about the process, designs, & instruments themselves. This will mark the completion of the series.
When
Every Saturday between February 12th and March 26th, 1pm–2pm. The culminating event will be hosted on Saturday, April 2nd. 8 Saturdays total.
*A commitment to attend as many as possible is encouraged because connecting with community over time gives us a chance to develop deeper relationships. Of course, if there’s a reason you can’t attend one weekend, you are still invited to join us at the future sessions.
Where
Huron Community Garden. 120 Huron Street, located on the lot at the corner of Huron Street and Manitoba Street. This is where we’ll meet every Saturday, and where the final event will be hosted. The instruments we create will also be hosted here after our series. Please wear warm clothing.
*If the temperature reaches -20 degrees, we will meet on Zoom. An email with the link will go out at least one hour prior to our gathering if there is inclement weather expected, or if we need to meet online for any other reason.
Why
To connect with our community members. We’re doing it to play and improvise with each other and our circumstances, and to enjoy our time together outdoors!
Who
annais linares, a current PhD student at the University of Guelph, is supported by the Musagetes Foundation in Guelph and the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation. She has been developing this series in collaboration and partnership with the Two Rivers Neighbourhood Group. In order to reflect on our time together and learn about how arts-based workshops can benefit our community, the workshop sessions will be documented. Participants will be provided a consent form at the first session where we will discuss this aspect in more detail. More notes on this can be found below.
General Notes
Warm tea will be provided at each meeting. All ages are encouraged to participate, however those 12 and under must be accompanied by a parent/guardian 18 and older.
On Documentation
This project’s process & final pieces will be documented by annais, then edited with a local artist and shared back to the community for feedback before final distribution. This work will be published on different online and print platforms, presented through our partners at Musagetes and IICSI. We will discuss this together and provide consent forms for all involved, at which point participants can opt out of being documented. Moreover, our designs and physical instruments will be showcased during our culminating community event in April, where we will invite community members and local performers to celebrate our time together.
A note on COVID
We ask that you stay masked throughout the workshops, staying a safe distance from others. As we will provide hot tea, you may remove your mask for drinking. If you are experiencing any signs of sickness, please let us know at musicalplaygroundguelph@gmail.com, and as a precaution, please do not attend that week’s session.
A note on creative and intellectual property
Everything we come up with will be owned by us all collectively and artistic credit will be given to all participants since the workshop is collaborative.
Contact information:
If you have any questions or ideas, please email annais at musicalplaygroundguelph@gmail.com, or message her on Instagram: @artsworkshopguelph
