PEERS is a horizontal mentorship for emerging artists/collectives looking to build their skills in creating consent-based, ethical and rigorous community engaged and public art projects. PEERS spans seven intensive months of workshops led by a different artist-facilitator, collective or grassroots group, working with a mentor, and community testing from February to September 2024. Selected IBPOC artists and collectives Harmeet Rehal, Wend Yasen, Nala Haileselassie, Fatin Chowdhury and Anélia Victor, Emkay, and Moe Pramanick experiment with new approaches to facilitation, community-engaged art, and social practice. We will document the approaches resulting in a toolkit of resources which emerged from the program, as a foundation for ongoing community-centered arts practices shared publicly with the wider community.

We delve into topics: ethical considerations in community archives, sensory facilitation techniques, trauma-informed interviewing, community agreements, and access intimacy, among other topics. Projects span the realms of non-language based sound explorations, collage-based workshop series - including mailing kits out to participants, storytelling and gentrification in Flemingdon Park, and racialized urban farm workers’ labor rights. 

See below to learn more about the artists and their research projects. 

Anélia Victor & Fatin Chowdhury
Emkay
Wend Yasen 
Nala Haileselassie 
Harmeet Rehal 
Moe Pramanick