City Building

Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody..only when they are created by everybody. (Jane Jacobs)

Our imaginary city took shape at Artscape Youngplace's Recess 2 event. City building was an activity devised by the Givins ShawYouth Advisory Group and facilitated by Invention Squad. Our special guests Sipo Maphangoh and Daniel Fusca from the Toronto City Planning office shared insights about city development with the kids and parents.

Before

After

Daniel (right)

Sipo (left)

The first task was to fill the brainstorming centre with ideas for the evolving city:

And then the kids and parents built something awesome:

Community centre next to a park

The all edible restaurant

The gondola connecting different parts of the city together

Sidewalks, walkways and bike paths.

Cats were given pride of place in the city, with two cat play centres and even a cat bus.

Community housing

A concert hall by the lake.

An elevator to a viewing tower

Solar panel roofs on small houses.

Thanks to everyone -young and old- who participated in our city building event. It was fantastic seeing our city grow over time. Invention Squad encourages young people to design cities that work for people of all ages and abilities (and cats of course). 

2nd Community Open House at Artscape Youngplace

Join us for Art * Live Music * Creation * Conversation * Performance * Food & Drinks

Starting @ 4:30 pm

–CITY BUILDING! Drop-in, hands-on kids and family-friendly programming by Invention Squad and the Givins Shaw Youth Arts Advisory Group. What might a city designed by kids look like? 

– Local artist Huda Eldardiry creates a collaborative community mural.

– MAKE YOUR MARK! Help create a massive collaborative wall artwork using colourful self-adhesive vinyls and tapes on the expansive walls and quirky recesses of the Third Floor Hallway Gallery! Inspired by TYPOLOGY‘s current exhibition Flights & Landings

– Artists open studios

Starting @ 6:00 pm
– Community dinner (pay-what-you-can, until 7:30 pm)
– Exhibition Reception: Erratics at the Koffler Gallery, featuring installations by Martha Baillie, and Malka Greene with Alan Resnick (until 9 pm)
– Listening Sessions: A drop-in participatory performance by Victoria Stanton where the audience becomes the DJ, collectively building a eclectic playlist.

Starting @ 8:00 pm
– Live painting with local artist Nick Sweetman
– Designer, curator and educator Zach Pearl gives a talk on the rise of virtual tourism through the lens of popular culture and contemporary art.

Starting @ 9:00 pm
– Live musical performances in the Urban Living Lounge, featuring Charmie Deller, Renee Henry, Odane Taylor, Ramya Am U Than and Niko Young.

AND MORE!

Kids plan Toronto

City-Building is an event designed by kids from the Youth Arts Advisory group at Givins Shaw Public School for everyone in our neighbourhood. It will be run by Artscape resident teachers: Invention Squad.

In this all-ages free family event we will map out and build our giant dream city together from found and recycled materials.

What about:

• An indoor winter-playground with ziplines and waterslides.
• A working farm in a park.
• A street food market-place in an alleyway.
• A transit stop indoor cafe.
• A bike trail connecting all the parks?

Come build with us! Advisors from the city of Toronto Planning Department will be on hand to hear your ideas.

This event  will take place at Artscape Youngplace between 3.30-6.30pm on April 16th as part of the RECESS 2 Open House.  

Invent something awesome: Spring Session

A 9 week session is starting up on Mondays at Artscape Youngplace. There will be a pick up at Givins Shaw school. Students from other schools are welcome to join us at Artscape. 

Here's our new schedule:

Week 1 (April 13th): "Tick-tock"
Time to re-invent the watch.

Week 2 (April 20th): "Cityscaping"
Design a sidewalk feature: furniture, info booth, exercise device or perhaps all of these combined! 

Week 3 (April 27th): "Helping Hand" 
Build a mechanical device to grab an object from far away. 

Week 4 (May 4th): "Dream vacation bedroom!" 
Plan the perfect getaway for kids. 

Week 5 (May 11th): "Chain Reaction" 
Team up to make a giant moving (Rube Goldberg) machine

Week 6 (May 25th): "Pop-up!"
Use paper engineering to make your pages come to life. 

Week 7 (June 1st): "Club starter" Invent a new club. Design the logo for a button, a poster and club activities. 

Week 8 (June 8th): "Help!' Survive a tornado in your backpack emergency shelter. 

Week 9 (June 15th): "Watercraft" Construct a boat or hovercraft that will carry an elephant across the water.

Oh Canada!

Ready to get sporty? In this session, our students designed new uniforms for the Canadian Pan-Am athletes. We got some advice from local fashion designer Meg Kinney who suggested that we think about who you are designing for and what they need/want. She recommended jumpsuits for our athletes.

Image from http://spinsandneedles.com/stuff/2010/06/30

We also looked at national symbols. Is the Maple Leaf really forever? Is Canada represented by any other colours than red and white? 

   Ready, get set, glue!! A gymnastics outfit evolves.

This is a pattern drafting exercise. The idea is to put together a rough working idea for a uniform -not a finished garment. Our students have to fashion something fabulous using textiles, bits of old garments, ribbons, sticky back plastic, foam sheets, mylar, tape, glue and pins. 

Little red soccer shorts. 

Stylish hat!

Love these groovy red boots!

...and the bold graphic design on this athlete's cape.

Some of the students took on our special challenge to move beyond the Maple Leaf by adding some nature elements into their design. 

At the end of the class, it was time for the students to strut their stuff on the fashion runway. They struck a pose with their teammates, tried on a new persona, or invented a special anthem. Every kid was a winner.

Goodbye to our awesome students this session.  

Community Open House at Artscape Youngplace

Join Invention Squad and others for RECESS @ Artscape Youngplace
A Community Open House featuring:
Art * Live Music * Creation * Conversation * Performance * Arts Market * Food & Drinks

Starting at 4:30 pm
– Drop-in, hands-on kids and family-friendly programming by Invention Squad (until 6:30 pm)
– Informal tours of ULTRA-PARALLEL at the Koffler Gallery (until 10 pm)
– Arts market (until 9:30 pm)

Starting at 6:00 pm
– Community dinner (pay-what-you-can, until 7:30 pm)
– Exhibition Reception: TYPOLOGY’S Flights & Landings a two-part exhibition of work by three multidisciplinary artists from three different cities: Brooklyn-based Tamara Gayer, Berlin-based Christine Gedeon, and Toronto-based Janine Miedzik (until 8 pm) 
– SKETCH Working Arts for our Open Studio Showcase and Exhibition with live performances and artwork by youth involved in all of SKETCH’s programs (until 9 pm)
– Artists open studios
– Live melodic techno music with Juno-award nominee Arthur Oskan (until 10 pm)

Starting at 8:00 pm
– The Koffler Centre presents an artist talk with playwright Hannah Moscovitch and artist/architect, Philip Beesley
– Intergalactic Arts Collective presents a Double Bill of Dance:  “Sara does a Solo” by Sara Porter and “Experiment b” by Gerry Trent ham

AND MORE!

~illustration by Alicia Neuter

-text with thanks to AYP website

Game testing

Roll up! Rollup! It's carnival time at Invention Squad. What better way to beat off the winter blues than to design a great fair game and play it with your friends? This was definitely the funnest, wackiest session yet. We challenged the kids to make a transportable/foldable set-up and to test it by playing it with their friends and parents. This is cardboard prototyping and design by play- a natural for kid experimenters.

My favourite (given it's that season) was the Whack-a-louse game. You have 30 tries to bop those pesky critters amongst the curls of hair (don't try this at home) and lucky winners get (drum roll) a Louse Exterminator (LE) certificate and some free shampoo! Love the topical humour in this design.

There were other games on a throwing or shooting theme. 

Including this nicely built fixed cross-bow platform.

This is a skittle target game. 

Testing a tossing game.

In this well thought out design you have to flick the corks up the ramps and through the holes (avoiding the turning fans at the back). This design could be automated in later prototypes with a turning mechanism to operate the fans. 

This was a roller obstacle course.

In this super kinetic recycling scavenger race you sort food from trash with your whacking stick. Careful to balance on your frisbee board along the course. Then wash your fruit for the prize. 

Loads of action, lots of laughs.