Art Communitas’ podcast can be accessed here
In Regent Park, immigrant women turn crafting—often dismissed as domestic labour—into powerful acts of resilience, resistance, and renewal.
Ars Communitas (1)
Leticia Ramirez-Arana considers herself to be many things: an activist, a survivor of violence, a singer, a beader, a pico de gallo (2) virtuoso, among others. However, when she first arrived in Regent Park twenty years ago, her identity was completely eclipsed by the demands of being a grieving single mother striving to make ends meet in systems not designed for her. In a neoliberal city like Toronto that values speed and productivity, Leticia felt that taking time for herself was something she simply could not afford. That is, until she joined the Digital Storytelling Program at the Central Neighbourhood House (3), a program designed to bring women together and give them the space and the tools to tell their own stories through media arts.
“It was beautiful to have that solidarity. We were [about] 10-12 people, mostly from the Regent Park area... It was the beginning of the redevelopment, and a lot of women had to move from their first homes and settle down in Canada... [and then the redevelopment] uprooted people again. So, I remember that this digital storytelling was a safe place for us to come together and grieve collectively for women living in Regent Park [sic.]”.
She told me this over a crumbly peach Danish under the cold sun of a false spring. While I readjusted my optimistically light jacket, she hastily split the pastry with the back of a spoon and handed me the bigger half, a maternal gesture I recognized from my own childhood. A simple, familial gesture, and suddenly I found myself warm.
We learned so much from Leticia’s talking about her past experiences as a newcomer. In this specific quote, she explained that she was “depressed, didn’t feel like a complete person until given the space to create among women of all different backgrounds and was able to unlock a creative side of herself that reminded her that she did have talents and abilities.” This theme of creative expression and community resilience breathed life into our story and research. What followed was an unfolding of stories where art, memory, and survival intertwined—women’s voices, which were once muffled by the weight of their circumstances, began to reclaim not only their personal narratives but the larger cultural history of Regent Park itself.
Regent Park has long carried a reputation that continues to define much of the neighbourhood’s history and complicates its present. Located on the traditional territories of the Anishinabek and the Huron-Wendat, it is now home to more than 10,000 residents, over 45% of whom identify as immigrants. More than half speak English as a second language (4). For decades, mainstream media has portrayed Regent Park as a local and national symbol of poverty—overcrowded with immigrants and marked by violence, displacement and other social issues (5). This negative reputation discouraged outsiders from entering, pushing residents to turn inward. In response, they built tightly knit communities, often within the walls of their own homes. It is within these very walls—both literally and figuratively—that crafting blossomed as a means of empowerment, transcending simple material production to become a communal language of resilience and resistance.
Ramirez’s story is a familiar one in Regent Park. For decades, working-class immigrant women—facing systemic barriers to economic stability—have carved out space to gather, create, and organize. Regent Park was built on the backs of families and women deliberating in church basements and community centre rooms. During a time when few publicly funded spaces existed, crafting circles became more than just a social extracurricular. Through shared creative practice, women formed informal support networks—safe spaces to grieve, connect, and push back against a world that routinely invisibilized their struggles. Grievances caught in the loops of crocheted blankets and quiet gatherings evolved into full policy booklets, eventually landing on the desks of the City of Toronto and Daniels Corporation. These blankets and their stitches and loops are political: a way to hold onto memory, to speak across language barriers, to transform silence into patterns, and to care for others.
Years after participating in the Digital Storytelling Program, Leticia came across an old audio recording from 2005—her voice captured at a time when she was still piecing herself back together following relocation and displacement. Listening to it was like being momentarily suspended between two selves: the grieving single mother who was still adjusting to a new country and the woman she had since become—an artist, a community leader, and a storyteller. As we learned more about the experiences of Leticia and other women from Regent Park, it became clear that their experiences with art and creativity were inseparable from their everyday lives and their homes. It wasn’t long before we noticed the patterns: crafting wasn’t simply about art—it was about redefining labour itself, questioning whose work matters, whose time is valued, and whose voices get heard.
Leticia posing with the DVD that was collaboratively created with the Digital Storytelling Program. (If you look closely, you can see a younger Leticia on the disc.) (Photo by Leticia Ramirez-Arana)
Traditionally, the domestic tasks of caregiving, homemaking, and nurturing are roles quietly placed upon women’s shoulders. A quick Google search of “feminine hobbies” brings up gardening, sewing, knitting—activities that society often dismisses as leisurely, decorative, even trivial. But beneath their gentle surfaces, these practices have always held power. They are ways of recording histories, processing emotions, building community, and, at times, staging quiet acts of resistance. For the women of Regent Park, whose stories are rarely told in mainstream narratives, crafting has taken on a significance far beyond pastime. It’s survival. It’s agency. Crafting is how these women reclaim dignity and carve out space in a city that too often overlooks their worth.
These threads of resistance and care led us deeper, prompting us to wonder:
What barriers do women in Regent Park face when expressing their creativity?
How do they push through those barriers to reclaim power and autonomy for themselves?
And in what ways do crafting and creative community practices contribute to economic justice and support independence in Regent Park?
In answering these questions, we learned that crafting was more than a hobby. These women were not just stitching fabrics together; they were mending the frayed edges of their communities, creating informal networks of support, and finding solidarity in shared experiences. Crafting became a means of breaking the silence—each stitch transforming personal grief into collective strength, challenging a society that undervalues their labour.
Through artful resistance, Regent Park’s women are rewriting the narrative, transforming what society deems invisible into vibrant stories of resilience, community, and hope.
Art in the Language of Redevelopment
Since the turn of the 21st century, an indelible link has formed between urban development strategies and creative practice. It seems as though you are not a real North American city if your streets are not inundated with hybrid cafe-pilates studio-thrift stores and farm-to-table, Asian fusion tapas bars. We can attribute this change to Richard Florida, a pop urban economist whose 2002 book The Rise of the Creative Class fundamentally revolutionized how cities master plan neighbourhoods (6). Richard Florida argues that the modern economy is driven and innovated by an emerging ‘creative class’ composed of artists, entrepreneurs, and tech savants. He points out that this defining class is attracted to urban attractions like trendy restaurants, murals, nightlife, and other urban experiences. Therefore, it follows that cities that are looking to have thriving urban economies and facilitate creative practice should build neighbourhoods that cater to the aforementioned interests of the creative class.
Upon publication, Florida had planners eating out of the palm of his hand. Creativity became the hot new urbanist buzzword. Toronto, Florida’s homebase, was one city that wholly embraced this hot, new planning logic. In 2003, the City launched the “Toronto Culture Plan for the Creative City” (7), which strived to “attract the educated, mobile newcomers we want, keep our best and brightest at home, and make our economy among the strongest anywhere”. Read that again: the educated, mobile newcomers we want.
But as this vision swept through planning departments, one critical question remained unanswered: who exactly are we planning for? Of course, this vision of the “creative city” wasn’t for everyone. Building neighbourhoods around niche boutiques and public art walls might attract the creative class—but what happens to the families, the services, the cultures that don’t fit that aesthetic?
The redevelopment of New Regent Park is developing into a picture-perfect example of a creative city in practice. Murals bursting with colour distract from the price of new-build condos. Stylized community slogans about “home” and “togetherness” line construction site fencing. Public art projects are used to celebrate diversity, soften gentrification, and symbolically link the old neighbourhood to its new image. In the eyes of planners who subscribe to these notions, creativity transforms from a beautiful vessel for resilience and self-actualization to a means to displace those that do not fit into your artistic vision of a neighbourhood.
Portraits installations (“The Faces of Regent Park”) created by artist Dan Bergeron showcasing in front of Daniels Spectrum, a newly built cultural centre of the neighbourhood. (Photo by Nathalie Prézeau)
Regent Park’s redevelopment is jointly managed by the Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC) and Daniels Corporation—the latter a private developer that brands itself on its “people-first” model of community building. When we met with Heela Omarkhail, Daniels’ Vice President of Social Impact, art and community programming seem to have been central to their approach since the earliest phases of redevelopment.
“Regent Park has an amazing history of community engagement and advocacy,” Omarkhail stated as she sipped on her seasonal beverage at Zuzu Cafe—a corner bistro that has become a staple of the redeveloped neighbourhood.
“If you actually look back at the history of the revitalization from the early days, it was residents gathering in community centres, and church basements, and each other’s kitchens to talk about a different vision for Regent Park than what they had known though the 70s, 80s, 90s... So the community worked with the City of Toronto, with TCHC, with community service agencies on a vision for the revitalization that included offices being rebuilt, yes... But also, there was a really intentional conversation around what social infrastructure is. How do you build social cohesion and social integration? What brings people together? What are the types of spaces where people can build relationships and celebrate? Beyond homes, what makes a neighbourhood?”
While these conversations may have been had, minimal action was taken in the early days of redevelopment to realize those plans. In fact, although the community-led Social Development Plan (SDP) was first approved in 2007 by the City of Toronto and the TCHC, it wasn’t until 2020 that the plan received dedicated funding and began to move toward full implementation (8).
That being said, an early win that emerged from this line of thinking—and the ensuing community consultations—was Daniels Spectrum: an arts and culture hub designed to celebrate the neighbourhood's creative spirit under one roof. While official numbers vary, the development of the facility was supported through a combination of private and public funding, including a $9.7 million donation from partners and government agencies announced in 2012 (9).
From the start, Daniels Corporation was told that creativity wouldn’t flourish in sterile, prescriptive spaces designed from the top down. It needed to be flexible—alive with the ideas of the people who would actually use it. Through extensive community consultation and partnerships with local organizations, residents were invited to help guide the vision for how the space would be programmed and activated (10). It was a conscious pivot away from the kind of creativity imagined in Richard Florida’s theory—one that privileges curated, polished experiences—and toward something more grounded: the daily, messy, meaningful creativity that emerges when people are trusted to lead.
“It’s the heart and soul of the community in terms of where programming events happen. Really critical conversations and community moments happen there, in addition to fantastic programs run by the anchor tenant organizations”, Omarkhail mused.
However, she also admitted that this was not the case from the start:
“I remember in the early years, it was like ‘Yay! Mission accomplished! We delivered this space that was the community vision in the social development plan! But, why aren’t they [residents] coming in?’ Well, because it’s this shiny new space that looks like it was probably built for someone else... [Cross-class resident participation] happened organically over time, but it needed that intentionality up front as well. The experience highlighted to us at Daniel’s very early on that there is a convening power of arts and culture, and how that is something that really is —when we are looking at a neighbourhood in transition like Regent Park—a remarkable tool for bringing people together for a lot of that resiliency work”.
Omarkhail’s testimony points to another fundamental flaw in creative city planning: the logic views creativity as limited to one subset of people, as opposed to a tool that everyone can wield to unlock the potential of themselves and their surrounding community. Regent Park did not need a master plan developed by suits in a boardroom to harness their creativity; art bursts from the seams of the neighbourhood across mediums. And while creativity in Regent Park takes many forms—from murals to music to dance—for this story, we’re focusing on what we found in the work of women’s hands: the arts and crafts that stitch together resilience, memory, and quiet resistance.
Crafting the Self: The Politics of Gendered Practice in Art
Western arts history has always been condescended to the mediums of “crafting”. These forms of expression are often domestic, utilitarian, and dominated by women. But crafting has always been more than crafts. In the hands of women—particularly immigrant and racialized women—it has always been a tool for survival, storytelling, and subtle defiance. Yet, in the eyes of the art world, it rarely earns the title of “art”. Sewing, quilting, beading, embroidery—these have long been dismissed as domestic pastimes, feminized and tucked away from history books, galleries, and art spaces. But in community rooms and kitchen tables across neighbourhoods, this kind of work is the backbone of the household.
American art historian Linda Nochlin’s renowned essay “Why have there been no great women artists?” (11) addresses these historical and social barriers that have prevented women from being recognized as “great artists” in the traditional Western canon. By articulating just how male-centric the world has always been, she explains that women have only ever been allowed and able to access a limited world. They faced (and continue to face) structural obstacles, oppressive policy, and they continue to face residuals of past oppressive and diminutive mindsets. Exhibitions such as Making Her Mark (12) at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) work to explore these male-centric histories, asking viewers to reconsider the dominant perspective and challenge the subconscious crafting of a hierarchy of artistic mediums. The forces of a patriarchal and male-centric world never allowed for the cultivation of female success or innovation, and thus, the history books were never privy to the words of the homesteaders and mothers.
Installation view of the “Making Her Mark” Exhibition at the AGO. (Photo by NewCa.com)
Craft work has never been deemed to have the same worth or legitimacy as artistic equivalents to the grand mediums of painting and sculpture. This perspective has led to their marginalization within mainstream arts institutions. Textiles, characterized by their delicate fibers, intricate patterns, softness, and reliance on repetitive, labour-intensive techniques like stitching, quilting, lace-making, and fine needlework, have often been undervalued as art precisely because these tactile qualities evoke intimacy, gentleness, and meticulous care—traits culturally coded as feminine and domestic (13). The expectations have always been for them to remain in the background, be soft, be quiet, and be ornamental.
In Regent Park, the most remarkable piece of craft and one of the most enduring symbols of Regent Park’s grassroots creativity is “A Love Poem”—a collaborative textile artwork that began with two local women and eventually grew into a patchwork of memories, languages, and shared resilience. Supported by a small grant, these women designed and crafted the quilt from fabric scraps using embroidery techniques that merged Mennonite quilting with traditional Bengali nakshi katha (14).
Quilt Titled “A Love Poem” by a group of Bengali women in Regent Park (9). (Photo by unknown, source: Pinterest)
Omarkhail reminisced fondly on the collaboration of the quilts:
“"Our President and CEO at Daniels, Mitchell Cohen, met a group of women who had a quilting and sewing club… We had a conversation with the organizer of the group—an amazing woman by the name of Sakina—who said, ‘You know, we are a group of women, mothers, and it is really important for us to know what happens to this neighbourhood and how we can be involved’”.
This conversation led to the creation and sale of 10 quilts to Daniels Corporation including A Love Poem, all of which include scenes from Old Regent Park.
Quilts as a medium are repositories of past and present lives (15); meticulously stitched, they hold the interwoven legacies of home and family. The iconic quilt in question depicts local landmarks and scenes—including the transition from old red brick buildings to new condominiums, a playground, a flower garden, and the Peace Garden memorializing children lost to violence. For its creators, it represents both cherished memories and profound loss, capturing the tension between appreciating new conveniences and mourning displaced community spaces. Developers like the Daniels Corporation publicly framed the quilt as a symbol of multicultural harmony and urban renewal. In Regent Park, this piece was both a literal and figurative act of weaving together a fractured community during a time of major upheaval.
In Omarkhail’s recounting of this experience, however, she seemed less focused on the quilt’s embedded meaning and more about the transactional exchange between corporation and community.
“They were creating this quilt piece that was generating income for women in their group and use this piece to welcome new residents to the neighbourhood”. Omarkhail harkened back to the quilts’ unveilings, “There wasn’t a dry eye in the room… And now, when we look for artwork, we actually work with groups to create those opportunities where there’s a financial benefit to the groups”.
Putting money back into the hands of communities instead of corporate art spaces is an inherently good thing; however, as our research went on, we became more critical of why this experience was championed so highly by developers in Regent Park.
At the unveiling ceremony in June 2012, Martin Blake, the Vice President of Daniels Corporation, stated that from the beginning, they worked to create one community and recognized the art and craftsmanship from within the Regent Park community to tell the story of the neighbourhood (16). This same anecdote was presented in a keynote presentation by Mitchell Cohen, President of the corporation, in 2019 (17). The story of the Bengali women who worked on the quilt was covered extensively in media, including the Toronto Star (18). But while the quilt has often been held up as a heartwarming example of community spirit, it also invites deeper questions: who is being celebrated in these narratives and who is benefitting?
Many of the women who contributed their time, skills, and emotional energy to these works have remained unnamed in public acknowledgements. Their labour—of which we know is often performed in church basements or during unpaid evening sessions—was rarely framed as art in its own right but as decoration, community engagement, or softening material for the harder edges of redevelopment. Now the quilt, which serves as a memorialized and frequently referenced cultural relic of the neighbourhood seems to be a cornerstone of the TCHC and Daniels Corporation’s story of unity, cultural diversity, and community-organized art, becomes a piece of evidence that they can use to justify the pursuit and inclusion of marginalized voices and community in their redevelopment plans and future policy.
There is power in these quilts, no doubt. They are stitched from stories and silence, from exile and arrival, from the hands of women who rarely appear in city plans but are always impacted by them. Yet their symbolic power shouldn’t eclipse the realities of the labour that made them. Art, in these contexts, risks being used more as a visual language of inclusion than a practice of justice. When community work is showcased as emblematic of togetherness, but the contributors remain uncompensated or invisible, we have to ask: Is the art being honoured—or only the optics? It was, thus, important for our group to seek out organizations that did not fall into this performative artwashing that could be co-opted for capitalist gain.
Despite all of the belittling and refusal from oppressive systems to acknowledge crafting practices, for many women, especially those pushed to the margins of public life, crafting continues to be one of the few spaces where expression was possible when other avenues were closed to them. The rise of “craftivism”—a blend of craft and activism—makes this power even clearer, using thread and fabric not only as forms of personal expression but as instruments of resistance (19). Through craftivism, women challenge societal norms, provoke conversation around uncomfortable issues, and affirm their place in a world that often silences them.
Craft Programming in Regent Park
Later in our research, Layla Zia—Manager of Operations and Strategic Initiatives at the Centre of Learning and Development (CL&D) (20)—offered us a different kind of clarity. If Leticia’s story showed how craft could be a tool for healing and identity reclamation, Layla’s perspective expanded the frame: sewing and creative practice could also be vehicles for economic empowerment and community leadership.
Her words echoed many of the questions we found ourselves returning to: How can craft help women feel seen, connected, and self-sufficient in a system not built for them? What does justice look like when expressed not through laws or policy but through shared time and mutual care?
Layla introduced us to several CL&D programs rooted in these very questions—initiatives like the Immigrant Women Integration Program (IWIP) (21), a full-time leadership and employment skills training program, and Digital Storytelling, which gives women the tools to narrate their own lives. These programs show that when women are given access to resources, mentorship, and creative freedom, they don’t just find their voices—they amplify each other’s. Layla reminded us that art, in these contexts, isn’t decorative. It’s transformative. It remakes the systems that too often render these women invisible.
For many years, the CL&D has worked primarily with immigrant and newcomer women—many of whom, like Leticia, face not only language and financial barriers but also deep social isolation, unfamiliarity with local customs, and the everyday disorientation of trying to navigate life in a new space. Since 2015, one of the programs offered at CL&D is the Regent Park Sewing School (RPSS) (22). It all began with two Regent Park women walking into the Centre and asking to start a sewing circle that continues to remain open to everyone. Today, that circle has grown into a community hub, offering multi-level sewing classes to over 100 students each year.
Photo of a seniors’ class of jewelry crafting. (Courtesy of the RPSS official Instagram) (23)
Evidently, what keeps these women coming back is not just skill-building. It is the sense of connection. Layla explains that, time and time again, participants say the same thing: that while they came to learn sewing, they stayed for the friendships, the laughter, and the sense of belonging. Sewing became a tool and resource for women not only to sew and craft but also as a means of connection, collective learning, and friendship. The school hosts an annual fashion show—complete with fellow neighbours as models—where students proudly present their creations for sale. In this way, popular, institutionalized “Big C” Culture (or what we think of as formal culture such as high fashion and popular culture) is carried into communities through crafting and women-organized community building. This kind of collectivity ultimately transforms and connects not only the women that initially began the sewing circle but also the youth, community newcomers, families, and the rest of the city. It serves as not only a social gathering and celebration of arts and labour but also a way to combat economic injustice and reward participants for participating.
Additionally, RPSS also runs a mending studio where anyone in the community can drop off clothing for repair, with 100% of the payment going directly to the woman who did the work. In a city where women’s labour is too often underpaid or invisible, RPSS quite literally puts value right back into their hands.
What makes the program especially powerful is how intentionally it meets the needs of the women it serves. From offering childcare to celebrating language and religious diversity, RPSS creates a space where women don’t have to shed parts of themselves to participate. One early project invited participants to share embroidery techniques from their home countries—a gesture that turned cultural differences into creative strength. Through partnerships with organizations like George Brown College (24), RPSS has even helped some women transition into work as seamstresses or entrepreneurs, providing a rare economic bridge from community-based learning to financial independence.
In this way, RPSS offers more than just skills; it also offers a glimpse into what art can do when it is rooted in real community needs. Nonetheless, it offers quite a reimagination of what economic justice could look like. The existence of such a program serves as a grassroots push to radicalize dominant ideas of what making money can look like; we can still further themes of social aid and distributive justice, even in an overwhelming capitalist, profit-oriented environment.
Similarly, ArtHeart (25) has always seen the potential of art as a source of healing for those undergoing socioeconomic grief. Founded in 1991 under the name “A Home for Creative Opportunity”, the non-profit was formed under an alliance of families, unhoused folks, and residents of the social housing complexes that wanted to bring free visual arts programming to Regent Park residents. They originally operated out of Fred Victor at 40 Oak Street but found a home at Daniels Spectrum in 2012. Today, staff and volunteers teach the community how to work with watercolour, acrylic, mixed media, screenprinting, collage, photography, fibre arts, and digital arts to build community, harness creative expression, and tell stories where words fail to tell.
When we visited the organization at their post on the second floor, the floor was buried in rolls of fabric, construction paper shrapnel, and narrow watercolour streams sprouting from the haphazard cleaning of brushes in the corner. In the studio space, a youth after-school painting event was taking place. Mothers rubbed their children’s shoulders, as they listened attentively to the captivating speaker at the front of the class. The space was at full capacity.
The other ArtHeart workers looked on at the sight, exasperated but smiling, explaining to us that their programming was at full capacity now that spring hit and they barely had time to breathe. Much like RPSS, ArtHeart understands that their community is diverse and requires tailored programming to fit their needs. That’s why ArtHeart provides different visual arts programs for youth, adults, women, and seniors. However, their programming extends beyond creative instruction: ArtHeart also runs an extensive youth employment program, as well as their No Starving Artists program out of Daniels Spectrum, which provides food for community participants. Art is not only therapy for many participants, but medicine. One participant testimonial states,
“It’s an important helping hand, especially for us seniors who have difficulty with food prices at this period. A lot of us have problems with arthritis; painting and crafting is helping in the form of exercising our muscles. But, the lunch and dinner programs ease the stress of preparing meals also to make ends meet and even benefits part of our health care so, there’s a big reliance on the food program at ArtHeart.”
While ArtHeart may have moved from Old Regent Park to New Regent Park under the circumstances of redevelopment, it has certainly not lost the critical, community-focused values that it was founded under. While the space is bursting at the seams, ArtHeart’s move to Daniels Spectrum has given the spatial stability to expand their types of programming and collaborate with other community partners to create more equitable creative spaces within the neighbourhood. A 2018 audit found that the organization created 2.8 million dollars worth of annual socioeconomic value for the neighbourhood. From providing free food to teaching transferable skills to building community bonds, they are yet another example of how art can be used to bridge the socioeconomic gaps found within Regent Park.
To answer the questions that we posed: How can craft help women feel seen, connected, and self-sufficient in a system stacked against them? It seems that the answer lies in interconnected systems of connection, care, and collective advocacy. The women who gather there are not just sewing or painting for leisure; they are turning overlooked forms of care and creativity into a teaching tool and a livelihood. The sewing circle creates an opportunity not just for the community to connect but also a means to pass on and share crucial ways for these women to self-actualize and grow beyond the boundaries of the domestic home. In a neighbourhood shaped by redevelopment and erasure, the needle and thread become tools of presence and persistence. Craft becomes currency, and then art becomes a means of survival. For many women in Regent Park, it becomes a way to move through the world with dignity intact and something to call their own. They are reclaiming time, space, and value in a city that often disregards them.
Conclusion: Creative Justice in the Aftermath of Redevelopment
The women of Regent Park demonstrate that crafting is far more than simply a domestic pastime—it is a tool for resistance, resilience and empowerment. Through these creative practices, they reclaim narratives that were often silenced by displacement and marginalization. For women like Leticia Ramirez, creative expression offered a way to reclaim a sense of self and forge community in a city that rarely paused to notice them. The Digital Storytelling Program was not just about learning to use a camera or edit audio—it was about building something lasting in the aftermath of displacement. The program brought together women from diverse backgrounds, all shaped by migration, grief, and economic uncertainty, and each of them searching for something that felt like home.
What does community-building look like in a “complete” neighbourhood? As Regent Park nears the completion of its redevelopment, new questions about the role of community building in a “complete” neighborhood emerge. While art initiatives have the potential to foster belonging, they also raise concerns about their function as instruments of branding rather than genuine community engagement. The redevelopment process, driven by institutions like Daniels Corporation and TCHC, raises the question of how these organizations balance public commitments to inclusivity and equity with the private realities of urban development, where profit often trumps community well-being.
Are institutions like Daniels Corporation and TCHC balancing their public commitments with the private realities of development? For now, the answers may lie in the work itself—in the quilts, in the stitching circles, in the stories told aloud and those passed between women behind closed doors. Art may not always change the systems. But it can make space within them. Sometimes, a starting point is all a community needs.
References
(1) Ars Communitas is a collective pen name for five contributors: Sunnie (Yang) Hu, Leticia Ramirez-Arana, Amie Therrien, Angelina Zahajko, and Youjia (Avila) Zhang.
(2) A fresh Mexican salsa that literally translates to “rooster’s beak” in English.
(3)
(4) A History of Regent Park: A Neighbourhood of Many Stories. (2019, November 21). Toronto Ward Museum. https://wardmuseum.ca/blockbyblock-2019/regentpark/#:~:text=A%20History%20of%20Immigration%20%26%20Settlement,were%20Irish%20Catholics%20and%20Protestants.
(5) Purdy, S. (2003). “Ripped off” by the System: Housing Policy, Poverty, and Territorial Stigmatization in Regent Park Housing Project, 1951-1991. LABOUR-LE TRAVAIL, 52(52), 45–108. https://doi.org/10.2307/25149384.
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(9) Artscape. (2012, September 21). Artscape announces $9.7 million in gifts towards $38 million Daniels Spectrum. https://www.artscape.ca/2012/09/21/artscape-announces-9-7-million-in-gifts-towards-38-million-daniels-spectrum/.
(10) Government of Canada. (2012, September 20). Regent Park celebrates opening of Daniels Spectrum. https://www.canada.ca/en/news/archive/2012/09/regent-park-celebrates-opening-daniels-spectrum.html.
(11) Nochlin, L. (1988). Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? In Women, Art, and Power and Other Essays (1st ed., pp. 145–178). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429502996-7.
(12) Making her mark: A history of women artists in Europe, 1400-1800. (n.d.). Art Gallery of Ontario. https://ago.ca/exhibitions/making-her-mark-history-women-artists-europe-1400-1800.
(13) Blow, K. (2020). Contemporary Handicraft, Textile Art, and Feminist Social Critique.
(14) Jamil, U. (2015). Making place: Muslims in the neighbourhood. Contemporary Islam, 9(3), 321–335. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11562-015-0346-y.
(15) Quilt. (n.d.). Royal Ontario Museum. https://www.rom.on.ca/whats-on/exhibitions/quilts-made-canada.
(16) Jamil, U. (2015). Making place: Muslims in the neighbourhood. Contemporary Islam, 9, 321-335
(17) Cohen, M. (n.d.). Building Inclusive, Sustainable Communities: Lessons Learned from the Regent Park Revitalization. Economic Development Journal of Canada. https://ecdev.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/default/article/view/2/9
(18) Porter, C. (2012, January 16). Porter: Regent Park quilt actually a love poem in fabric. Toronto Star. https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/porter-regent-park-quilt-actually-a-love-poem-in-fabric/article_115e7a13-bb67-5e35-8a85-2a67e0838b2e.html
(19) The power of ‘women’s work’: craftivism | NGV. (2024, April 20) https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/essay/the-power-of-womens-work-craftivism/.
(20) About Us - Toronto Centre of Learning & Development. Toronto Centre of Learning & Development - Stronger Communities Together. (2024a, April 25). https://www.tccld.org/about/.
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(22) Regent Park Sewing Studio - Toronto Centre of Learning & Development. (n.d.). Toronto Centre of Learning & Development - Stronger Communities Together. https://www.tccld.org/rpss/.
(23) Image retrieved from https://www.instagram.com/p/DFX949uRwMC/?img_index=1.
(24) Regent park community to benefit from fashion industry skills training. George Brown College. (2020, April 29). https://www.georgebrown.ca/media-release/2020/regent-park-community-to-benefit-from-fashion-industry-skills-training.
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