Let’s start with our team name. We called ourselves the Space Jammers, as a cheeky reference to the classic Michael Jordan movie Space Jam, but it’s more than that. It’s also about interrupting, challenging, and “jamming” the dominant narrative about public spaces in Regent Park. It’s about finding and magnifying the holes in the tales that we are told about these spaces. We hope that our project will make these holes more apparent and, in turn, help us find ways to mend these problems.
Our topic is public space, but what particularly interested Sumeya (the Diva Girl of our group) was the Pam McConnell Aquatic Centre. She told us about her mum lining up at 2 am at a site outside of Regent Park to register for a swimming program. She told us that there were even some people who camped out at the site to ensure that they could enroll in the program. But still, many of the program participants end up being kids from outside of Regent Park. This issue of access sparked lots of questions and highlighted the irreplaceable insight of lived experiences. From this, inklings of a project idea were born.
We are the Space Jammers!
Our preliminary media project is an honest commercial, perhaps of the Aquatic Centre specifically or the revitalization project in general. By honest commercial, we mean a video in the form and style of a commercial, but with content that is true to the lived experiences of Regent Park youths, as opposed to the constructed narrative that those in power attempt to promote. We seemed to agree on the idea rather quickly (Nikki was unfortunately absent, so our idea remains unconfirmed) and thankfully Sumeya was open to different ideas. She even started coming up with a line that she wanted to put in the video. I believe it was something along the lines of, “Here at the Aquatic Centre, we only care about your money.” And yes, she told us that some programs cost up to $200.
Right now, the biggest challenge going forward is probably our technical skills in producing the media project. Some of us have editing experience, but the filming component will be a new venture for most of us. Figuring out how to use the equipment, what to film, how to make a good honest commercial that is both entertaining and critical … These are among the first hurdles that come to mind, but then again we have only just found this idea today. As our meetings progress and more ideas accumulate, we will likely have a more concrete vision of what our project looks like and what technical skills need to be learned.
Nikki, Ron, Prashansa, and Sumeya are The Space Jammers.