civic engineering & ongoing affiliations

- emerging leaders network (toronto city summit alliance) member, 2008

- 'illuminations series, the painted city: public space as canvas' panelist with pier giorgio di cicco, ian carr harris and derek revington, 2008

- canadian youth arts network (cyan), co-founder, 2007

- art gallery of ontario, pa youth advisory council, member, 2007

- mural routes, youth advisory group, 2007

- manifesto youth arts festival, mentor & co-visual arts director, 2007

- toronto community foundation, "toronto dialogues - integrating private interests into public spaces," roundtable participant, 2005

- toronto public space commitee, "city space: power, art and public space," panelist august, 2005 (link)

- bridges for youth, "artivism 2004: art as a harm reduction tool to engage youth-at-risk." panelist & speaker, metro hall, nov. 2004 (see below for transcript)

- city of toronto, "culture plan for the creative city," focus group participant / presenter 2003 (pfd link)


volunteer work

- queen elizabeth hospital woolwich, arts programming assitance, 2006

- the foundation for the advancement of young urban artists, co-founder, 99-05

- ryerson acs program, preview day speaker, may 2005

- ryerson acs program, history chair search committee, 2005

- ryerson acs program, awards night photographer, arts & letters club 2004

- style in progress, consultant, event & retail staff, 2004

- remote area medical, support staff, nepal-manang trip, 2004 (link to article)

- canterbury h.s. "star returns exhibition," 2004

- war child canada, work donation & co-curator, 2003

- art gallery of ontario, art and coordinator, 2000-2003

- central tech s.c., artist coordination/art lesson, 2002

- toronto rehabilitation foundation gala, artist coordination, 2002

- beaux arts ball society, founding core member, 2000-2001

- ocad student union, event production consultant, 1999-2001

- the adding machine, co. head of set design, 1998

- water can, security, 1997

- arts court, art donation for funding drive, 1996

- breast cancer action: odd jobs, fundraisers etc, 1995-2000

- canada nepal friendship association: odd jobs at events, 1990-1995


work sample - public speaking

transcript: bridges for youth speech
topic: "art as a harm reduction tool to engage youth-at-risk."
location: metro hall 3:00pm. sat nov. 6th 2004

[intro removed]

for the past six years i have been the curator and an executive officer of them.ca. my training is in visual arts, non-profit management and human resource management. i have been working within the graffiti and street art community since 1994.

in a couple ways i am the odd man out in among my colleges on this panel to discuss "art as a harm reduction tool to engage youth-at-risk." in fact, i think that some of the artists i work with would rather say they are a risk to society rather than the other way around.

what i can talk about with a degree of expertise are the effects that cultural activity can have at the community level, not just for youth but at a holistic level. hopefully i can also pass on some of the techniques i have created or learned for engaging vulnerable populations.

we have entered an era in which art can be perceived as a useful tool in the aesthetic satisfaction of our senses….engagement of our intellects… a healer of our souls…. a tool to unite communities…. a source of economic wealth and as utilization towards common goods. creating a balance between these goals is never easy, and indeed sometimes we should not even try to juggle them all at the same time.

the positive effect which the arts can have upon communities has been proven, time and again, through first hand experience and academic research. an example of such research was conducted through the university of pennsylvania. it demonstrated a clear correlation between youth deviance and cultural activity. for example low income neighbourhoods, with high levels of cultural activity, were proven to have much lower truancy and delinquency rates than other low income communities.

closer to home, in a more pragmatic sense and application - one of my favourite projects, the graffiti transformation project was a local creation by larry king - a policy planner with the city of toronto. the graffiti transformation project finds areas that have been vandalized and forms a partnership with the property owner. the city pays for 50% of the cost of a new mural painted by young artists. you can see the results of this successful project all over the city.

one of my organization's projects that i am particularly proud of was a mural that our organization created at the kingston maximum security penitentiary. the project used a lengthy democratic design process to maximize client buy-in and ownership. first we circulated the portfolios among the patients and they voted on which artists and past works they liked - also allowing for interjection of any ideas they had. next we took this information, and created 6 concept designs that we re-circulated for voting and critiques. the chosen design was then refined and checked by psychology staff and redone about 8 more times. the mural was then painted in the gymnasium used by the patients.

then, since there were some areas of the mural that the prison staff and inmates, artists and i were uncomfortable with, we went back for an additional day to re-do sections. as some of you who have attempted to control an artist's freedom of expression or spontaneity can imagine, by this point i was probably the most well-hated arts coordinator in canada...

i do not find the final product to my personal taste, however for the people who have to live with the work - it is exactly what they wanted - this was proven by the extraordinarily high satisfaction levels with the piece.

how the work affected the closed environment within the prison during the few months of evaluation was interesting. one member of the medical staff went as far as to say that the democratic design process and actual piece were just as effective as cognitive therapy. a once sterile, drab and sometimes violent environment was seemingly transformed into a pro-social / bohemian hang out for the inmates. patients were also were inspired to create a number of murals of their own. in addition attendance levels to the gym went up significantly - an important impact because of the positive effect of exercise on schizophrenia.

one constantly reoccurring theme - uncovered during research, was how a hole in the patients' psyches was filled. their desire for contact with nature as part of a healing process was satiated by the work.

an unexpected result came from the fact that now that they had a backdrop they could be proud of for photos, the inmates started to communicate more with their families. others created personal narratives with the work to gain an understanding of their own situation. the democratic design process also gave some offenders a sense of control over their environment.

along with all this, we also managed to isolate a very strong empirical relationship between artistic activity and improved quality of life. previously to this study, the best i could manage when someone in another non-profit sub-sector (health care, housing subs-sectors, etc.) questioned arts funding in favor of more immediate needs, was, "you save them, we just try to make their lives worth living." i think in many ways that statement still stands… maybe taller now!

thank you for your time, i hope you found my work interesting. i also hope this short speech, the words of my colleagues and the following discussion gives you an idea of the power of art - a medium that is often thought of as superfluous rather than critical to our society's health.

[q&a removed]

d.ostrom - 2004