Have a passion for the arts? Interested in building your leadership skills and creative portfolio?

Malvern HERstory is a poetry and mural art skill-building program for self-identifying female youth (ages 14-19) who live Scarborough. Over five weekly 1.5-hour online sessions, youth will work with the Scarbrite Collective to co-create a series of poems and images that reflect their own personal and collective experiences in the community. These works will be integrated into a mural design, which youth will have an opportunity to paint over another five 3-hour socially-distanced workshop sessions.

In total, the program spans 10 sessions long. Youth who attend a minimum of six workshops will be awarded a $50 honorarium and a certificate upon completion. Snacks and transportation coverage are available for in-person painting sessions; these workshops can also count towards volunteer hours.

This program is facilitated by the Scarbrite Collective in partnership with Scarborough Arts, ArtReach, and the Toronto Arts Council.

ABOUT SCARBRITE

Scarbrite is a Scarborough-based art collective consisting of visual artists Frannie Potts and Sylvie Stojanovski. Our goal is to brighten the streets of Scarborough through co-creating visual works of art alongside community members to bring light to the stories of this suburb.

ABOUT THE FACILITATORS

Born and raised in Malvern, Frannie Potts is a mural artist and workshop facilitator. Much of her public art meets at the intersection of whimsical and surreal, captivating viewers’ attention with brightly coloured figures and abstract backgrounds. In the past eight years, Frannie has created over 30 murals of varying sizes that can be seen across the Greater Toronto Area. Through her experience, she has found that art and community have a symbiotic relationship that brings out the best in each other, and this is something that she loves to foster through her work.

Sylvie Stojanovski is a multidisciplinary artist, creative facilitator and project manager with a love of community art-making. She believes that art has the power to heal, connect people across differences and create social change. Since 2013, Sylvie has led over 100 arts-based workshops in Toronto and abroad in a wide variety of disciplines including visual art, poetry and embodied movement. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Arts Management and Studio from the University of Toronto Scarborough and a certificate in Graphic Design and Web Development from UforChange.