the good bike

GOOD LOVE

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 22:50:06 -0500

On a trip to Toronto in the summertime, I was pleasantly surprised to find the colourful bikes on the street. How foolish of me to think it was a subsidized art initiative from The City! What kind of world would we live in if people’s creativity was welcomed and encouraged by our administrations?

In all seriousness: the bikes are fun, different, and even beautiful. Instead of crashing down on the idea, the city should plan to make an annual event to have the abandoned bikes decorated and displayed over the summer. This raises awareness of art, cycling, creativity, sense of community, waste management, sustainable practices, etc. It’s just simply a wonderful concept.

Hope this letter helps your cause. Sincerely,

Marie-Pier Demers (Ottawa)

THE GOOD PARTY

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 22:41:00 -0500

Two weeks ago, we were partying with friends and friendly strangers at our favourite bar, The Avro in Queen Street East. The cupcake-laden, beer-doused evening was organized to launch THE GOOD BIKE PROJECTpublication and film, and to bring together everyone who helped us realize that city-wide neon vision. The publication is a self published wrap-up designed by the talented Andy Callahan. Its pages include photos, press excerpts, write-ups for each of THE GOOD BIKE PROJECT’s sixty painted bikes and an essay on our experience as artists on a politically charged project. The film, which was produced by The Public Assembly, is just plain awesome. We’re so thankful to have footage from that crazy, wonderful summer that connected us with so many amazing, community-minded people in Toronto. Things certainly felt cosy at The Avro, and we’d like to thank the bar’s dynamic duo, Bruce and Rachel, for hosting us that night and for taking such good care of us always. Cheers again to everyone who came out to our party, and to all of those who lent their hands and hearts to THE GOOD BIKE PROJECT! *** FYI, the publication is available for sale at the OCAD U Student Gallery (and will soon also be available at Art Metropole).

The Good Bike Project is going out with a bang! Come celebrate...

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:29:41 -0500

The Good Bike Project is going out with a bang! Come celebrate the launch of our related publication and film at The Avro on February 9! The Good Bike Project publication includes write-ups on all of our bikes and an essay on our experiences liasing between The City and the city. The publication was lovingly designed by Andy Callahan. The film will serve as a book-end to our experience last summer and was produced by The Public Assembly. See you there!

AN ESSAY

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:28:00 -0500

Heavy, wet flakes of snow were falling outside, and Dundas Street looked all shades of brown and grey. Adding to the scene was an abandoned, rusted Raleigh bicycle, which we were pondering from the dry and relatively warm front room at the OCAD U Student Gallery where we are the Program Coordinators. Together we started considering ways to use it as a pseudo sign-board for the Gallery in the springtime. It had a beautiful frame, complete with curved handlebars and a wire basket. A coat of bright paint and some greenery would be nice, we thought. Little did we know that this brainstorming session was determining our summer plans.

On a bright May afternoon the bike was sanded, primed and painted, much to the interest of passersby. Some were perplexed, asking us why we were wasting time painting a piece of garbage. Others told us the bike was a valuable antique and probably worth some money. A pair of policemen wandered over from the station at the corner and asked us we were up to. On hearing about our rusted bike they left, only to return later with a list of flower varieties that would suit the bike’s basket. Kids were the most enthused about the painted Raleigh, and many stopped to talk about its transformation. One girl asked us to paint her bike orange, and a number of others stopped to say “cool” or “sweet bike”. A passing elderly man waved his cane and exclaimed, “that’s one funky-ass bike you’ve got there”. One woman stopped us to shake our paint-covered hands and to thank us for making our street more beautiful. When the bike was completed, we watched from inside the Gallery as people gathered around the glowing bicycle to chat and take photos.

Our small, simple act of beautification morphed into something bigger thanks to the perfect storm that surrounded it. The climate in Toronto has been tense ever since conservative Mayor Rob Ford took office in December as he’s picked fight after fight with the “left wing pinkos” living in the city’s core. Liberal city dwellers take particular issue with his decidedly anti-bike and anti-art policies. Ford once referred to cyclists as a collective “pain in the ass” during a Council meeting, and he has publicly condemned their so-called “War on the Car” on several occasions. In June, his motion to remove the newly installed Jarvis bicycle lane became a reality. His cause is the bottom dollar and he denounces cycling safety as a waste of money, which seems contradictory when you consider that it will cost the City $200 000 to remove a bike lane that cost $59 000 to be installed. Unsurprisingly, Ford is not a patron of the arts either: In the spring, he announced a “War on Graffiti” that resulted in the removal of a barely completed, publicly funded mural in the Junction neighbourhood; and during the election, Ford was booed from the Art Gallery of Ontario where he spoke against the merits of public arts funding.

Our brightly painted bicycle was an act of graffiti that doubled as a neon beacon for cyclists; and so, naturally, the arts and cycling communities considered the yellow ticket that was stapled to the Raleigh’s frame some days later as a call to arms. The slip charged the OCAD U Student Gallery for illegally parking a bike on public property, and threatened to fine us and to destroy our bike if it wasn’t moved within seven days. Feeling saddened and helpless, we posted a placard in our window and a write-up on our blog, The Good, asking for help. At first we received a handful of touching, supportive emails from neighbours, friends and followers; but soon, our inbox was flooded with hundreds of such messages from as far away as Brazil and Australia, thanks to a feature on BoingBoing. As a symbol of Toronto’s politically divided populous, the ticketed bike was a hot topic. Local and national news outlets fed the flame and soon the City had no choice but to pay attention to our protest. Enter the politicians.

Adam Vaughan and Gary Crawford are the two City Councillors who took interest in our story early on. The fact that Vaughan and Crawford lob political hardball from opposite sides of the net inside City Hall speaks to the bike’s political charge. Councillor Vaughan was the first to call the Gallery to assure us that we needn’t worry about the ticket. He was quoted in our first Toronto Star article as saying, “It’s [Ford’s] war on creativity that’s underway. These spontaneous pieces of art that spring up in the city, this is what makes Toronto a great place, what makes it a vibrant culture, an interesting urban environment. There needs to be some discretion.” While we’re grateful for the initial support that Vaughan lent and for his continuing crusade against the Ford brothers’ policies, it’s worth noting here that the Councillor dropped our cause completely as soon as we began liaising with Gary Crawford on the related city-wide art initiative now known as The Good Bike Project. We never heard from Vaughan again; unless you count the request we received from his office some months later to remove a painted bike we’d placed on Albany Avenue in memory of Jane Jacobs.

Our dealings with Councillor Crawford were no less confusing. We first met Crawford at the end of May when he walked into the Gallery to congratulated us on our bike’s sudden celebrity and to invite us to take our neon vision city-wide using bikes from the City dump. As cyclists and arts workers, we were excited about such an opportunity; but were also perplexed. Our neon bike was one part graffiti and one part cycling, and at that moment City Council had both in its crosshairs. As a practicing artists and Ford supporter, Crawford seemed an equally contradictory character. And so we started talks with Crawford full of both caution and optimism: perhaps this partnership would spark real dialogue and inspire change, we thought.

It was at this stage that we conceived of the colour code and imagined how painted bikes, reclaimed from the garbage, could be used as colourful, coded markers of grassroots initiatives around Toronto. When The Good Bike Project was announced by Councillor Crawford at a City Council meeting in June, our understanding was that while we would receive no public funding, Crawford would connect us with the waste depot where impounded bikes are stored and provide us with the logistical support that we needed in order to realize our vision. That morning, when we stood to receive applause from the Council, we felt proud and excited. Our neon bike, which we’d been able to unlock after the long-lost owner gave us the key and her good blessing, stood out like a beacon against the grey suits and drab décor.

Our hearts sank soon thereafter when, against our express wishes, Mayor Ford initiated an impromptu photo-op with our bike, which we’d left on the floor of Council in order to field questions from reporters in the media gallery. Within minutes the image of Ford sitting astride our bright orange two-wheeler was all over Twitter and Facebook, making it easy for outsiders to confuse the initiative as the Mayor’s own. Ford’s agenda was confirmed the next day when we realized that his assistant, Tom Beyer, had started a Facebook page and Twitter account for our project, which he then insisted on managing for us.

This sequence of events marked the first in a series of shortcomings and broken promises that left us largely alone to realize a project started at the City’s prompting. As it turned out, the City never connected us with sponsors, was unable to coordinate all of the bicycle deliveries we requested, and did little to help us transport bicycles to our project sites. To add insult to injury, Mayor Ford never replied to the letter we hand-delivered to his office, in which we advocated for the protection of the Jarvis bike lane and politely asked him to explain how he could support our project whilst also giving cyclists something to protest. Furthermore, no one from City Hall donated as little as one dollar to the campaign we started on the crowd-funding site, RocketHub. We worked on this project for part of every single day between June and October; and the City’s failure to sustain the fervor of interest and support of those early days shows a lack of respect and appreciation for the long-haul work of artists and art administrators.

Countering the City’s luke-warm commitment to The Good Bike Project is the spectrum of extreme reactions we’ve absorbed from fellow Torontonians. The grievances that we hear most often relate to occupied bicycle parking spots and to the waste that we’ve created by painting bikes that could be repaired or salvaged for parts. Some critics have gone further, accusing us of “insulting and embarrassing children who can’t afford bicycles”, “bringing out the worst in the city’s cycling community”, and “blurring the meaning of ghost bikes, which commemorate fallen cyclists”. We’ve replied to all such notes, emails and phone calls in the hopes of either correcting misunderstandings or starting meaningful dialogues.

From our perspective, we’ve painted rusted, broken, sad bikes from the City’s waste dump that were otherwise destined for our landfills. In doing so, we’ve given something that was considered garbage a second life, which we consider to be a good thing. Admittedly, it would have been great to work more closely with mechanics at the beginning of the project; but to be honest, the potential of this partnership didn’t occur to us until we began fielding responses from the cycling community. We’re happy that our painted bikes have helped identify a disconnect between our city’s dump and our city’s bike mechanics, and we’re currently working to close this gap by setting up a formal partnership between the two. It’s important to note that we’re cyclists ourselves and wish to see as many people on bikes as possible, which is why we worked with Bicycles Without Borders on a summertime fundraiser for their cause, and participated in this year’s St James Town Bike Redux event, where we gave away a usable bike in a pay-what-you-can raffle.

To that end, it was always our hope that our project would bring attention to various issues facing our cycling community, including parking spots. We’ve not placed one good bike on a cycling ring, except for the original. Any painted bikes that were attached to a ring were abandoned there, and we painted them specifically to bring attention to the fact that abandoned bikes take up a huge number of valuable parking spots throught the GTA. Furthermore, U-Locks attach easily to immobile bikes, and many people did thank us for providing makeshift parking spot where there were few before. At the end of the day, the volume of negative feedback, which sometimes verged on rabid, can be seen in a positive light, as it is evidence of just how much people expect from artists. It’s impossible to address every public issue with one project, let alone to execute something perfectly; but that’s what it’s felt like has been demanded of us from the beginning.

Though The Good Bike Project has come with a great deal of frustration and hate mail, the wonderful people we’ve met and the shows of support we’ve received all made for an enriching, uplifting summer. Our first feel-good day happened in Regent Park, where we hosted a painting day in early June. It was a scorching summer afternoon, and we didn’t know what to expect when we set up ten primed bikes in a parking lot at Dundas Street East and Parliament Street. Our first participants were Ellen Simpson and Mike Chang, who both worked diligently as a on the blue bike, which was later installed outside the Regent Park Community Learning Center. Our other hardworking participants were Deshawn Hurley-Phillip and Daniel Wright, a committed duo who completed one pink bike and one orange bike. This team had amazing energy; Daniel even spray-painted his sneakers and took away a couple of half empty spray-cans so that he could paint his skateboard. An hour or two into the event, a crowd of kids descended and there was much joking, a great deal of mess and a lot of questions. The pint-sized painting helpers were curious and eager to learn about how we started the project and about our colour code. Their enthusiasm and sense of engagement was affirming, and the entire afternoon was defined by a sense of cooperation, collaboration and sharing.

That afternoon, a gentleman riding by on his bicycle stopped to ask after our lot of painted bikes. As fate would have it, Bruce Dawson and his partner Rachel Conduit are the proprietors of The Avro, a friendly neighborhood bar in Riverside that has its very own mobile-garden-tricycle. The Avro team heads up a rich community program that includes bike rides, tobogganing afternoons, and gardening events. Meeting Bruce and Rachel was a turning point for us as the duo has been supportive and encouraging every step of the way. They’ve rolled up their sleeves and helped us paint, they’ve tended to a bike basket garden, and they’ve even thrown in a couple of beers on the house. Connecting with Bruce and Rachel is just one example of how this project has made our world seem smaller, cozier and friendlier.

Our guardian angels at The Bicycle Commons also shrunk our Megacity down to neighborhood size this summer. The Bicycle Commons is a quiet, dedicated organization that works to expand, empower and unify the city’s cycling community by organizing public workshops, bike repair classes and events. Their chief representative, Ray, showed up at our doorstep one day to offer us bicycle locks and a helping hand. It was nothing short of serendipitous to meet him when we did, as our progress had been stalled by a combination of our depleting funds and the City’s inability to connect us with the corporate sponsors we’d hoped would supply us with locks. Ray solved all of our problems, dropping off seventy locks and securing a venue in Kensington Market for the bike-painting event that we’d already been forced to cancel and re-plan after yet another spat with City Hall.

On that painting day in August, we met Ananya Bhattasali, a student at Sheridan College who was spending her summer holiday in the city. At the end of the afternoon, without promping, Ananya offered to continue helping us with the project. Having recently moved to Toronto from Bombay, she said that painting the bikes and seeing them on the streets helped her feel more connected to this new place. From thereon in Ananya was a constant companion, spending afternoons painting with us under the hot sun, and even in the pouring rain, in alleyways and parking lots. Without her enthusiastic energy and diligence, we’d probably still be painting bikes. Such was the nature of our summer, which was full of wonderful happenstances and new friends.

We’re unable to retell our every hardship, triumph and encounter; however, one needn’t look further than the bikes themselves to see the rich range of our experience: they’ve been tagged, re-painted, ripped apart and beaten-up; they’ve been stolen and recovered; some have been decorated with stickers, others with notes about loved ones; many bikes were marked with a distinctive white scrawl that read “not art”; and few were left untouched. Journalists seemed to take pleasure in painting this so-called vandalism as a sign of the project’s failure; however, we consider every marking, adornment and missing part as a sign of dialogue and engagement. The Good Bike Project was always supposed to be about mapping community, sparking conversations about Toronto The Good and seeking out the true meaning of neighborhood. Every email, comment, phone call, placard and flower was an exchange that showed us, if anything, that Torontonians don’t suffer from indifference.

GOOD LOVE

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 21:31:00 -0500

Long ago, in the days of sunshine and short sleeves, the lovely lady Iva wrote us this …

Hello! // My name’s Iva, I’m a student at Humber College Lakeshore Campus. I live in Toronto, but commuting everyday through cement-filled and highway-crossed Etobicoke is not the most visually appealing of experiences. I was wondering, is there any chance we could work together to bring a good bike to my Humber Campus and make it a little more colourful please? Take care! // Iva Jericevic

We painted her a bike and she installed it on the Humber campus. Last week we got another email from Iva with these photos! It read: The lovely thing is, I don’t know who did this. I’ll probably put a small ‘thank you’ sign somewhere. It’s part of the community here now! :)

FOR JENNA MORRISON

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 20:45:00 -0500

These photos are from the memorial bike ride held in memory of Jenna Morrison, a wonderful woman who was recently killed in a tragic cycling accident on Sterling Road and Dundas Street West. Hundreds of people came out at 7:30 AM on the morning of November 14th to ride together for Jenna. It was incredibly touching to see such an outpouring of love and support. Geoffrey Bercarich installed a ghost bike on the corner of Sterling and Dundas, while Jenna’s friends and family addressed the crowd that had gathered around the bike. The ghost bike remains, covered in notes and flowers for Jenna. My heart goes out to her family and friends. I can’t imagine the pain they must be feeling at this time.

In order to prevent this from happening again, please sign this petition for proper side guards on trucks. There will be a fundraiser to raise money for Jenna’s five year old son Lucas at The Garrison on Thursday December 15th. It looks like it will be a fabulous evening of music, dancing and remembering. Check out the facebook page here.

Caroline

OTHER GOOD / NEON / BIKE PROJECTS....

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 17:46:00 -0500

The Neon Dog Project, by Dave Bedrich.

We found this locked up near the OCAD U Student Gallery. It’s maker remains unknown!

After reading about The Good Bike Project, some folks in Thessaloniki, Greece have started their own bike project called The Recycling Project. We are so thrilled.

MORE PARKING SPOTS!

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 13:32:00 -0500

All but one of the abandoned bikes we painted on College Street (between Huron and Spadina) have been removed! We spray painted them so the City would see that they were abandoned and take them off of their bike posts. It took longer than expected, but finally there are more parking spots for cyclists in front of the Lilian Smith Library! Hooray!

BIKE CLEAN UP!

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 13:20:00 -0500

The day before our big good bike clean-up, I was approached by a local artist who wants to rescue the Good Bikes from scrap metal by turning them into a big sculpture. Vanessa and I loved the idea and so we agreed to drop our best Good Bikes at her Parkdale studio the next day.

As the pile of good bikes grew in the back of our U-haul, they began to resemble the very sculpture we had envisioned her creating! It was a little sad to have to dismantle them; but we are excited to see this tangled mess of colourful bikes re-imagined by interested artists, mechanics, and maybe even some welders!? If you have ideas for related projects, email us!

Caroline

GOOD FRIENDS

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 09:45:00 -0400

With our Good Bikes spread throughout the city, cleaning them up responsibly with little support from the City seemed a daunting task. That is, until Brian Platten came along.

After reading Ben Spurr’s latest article on the Good Bikes in NOW Magazine, Brian called us at the Gallery to offer us his U-haul, his tools and his weekend. We drove all around Toronto retrieving our bikes: Some went to an artist in Parkdale, who wants to weld the bikes together to make a larger Good Bike sculpture; others were dropped off with people who’ve asked to adopt them; and Brian took the rest of the bikes to a recycling plant.

Our bike clean up was epic. Brian was not only patient but extremely helpful, loading all of the bikes into his U-hual himself. He even sawed a sad looking bike in half to release it after its lock had been stuffed with glue. Riding around the city in Brian’s truck was great fun. He told us stories about his dog, his family, his love for rock n’ roll and B-rated horror flicks. He even took us to visit Smash his favourite furniture store).

When we told Brian how grateful we were for his time and truck, he told us that he was happy to help and that it was the least he could do. As we drove by the village of tents for Occupy Toronto, he remarked that in these tough times artists are often hit the hardest. He believes that pursuing a career in the arts is both a noble and scary pursuit, and that he tries his best to help artists by moving their art or furniture for them in his spare time. “It’s my way of doing my bit to help,” Brian said. “If everyone did their bit, we’d live in a much better world.”

It was surprisingly sad to say goodbye to Brian at the end of our day together. Thank you so much Brian, for your overwhelming kindness.

P.S Brian moves everything from furniture to art to electronics. If you need a mover - email him at bnd.haulage@gmail.com. Honest, the man is a super hero.

C'EST NE PAS UNE "ART BIKE!"

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 09:35:00 -0400

Dear Vandal —- Don’t you realize that by writing “NOT ART” on our bikes, you’ve turned them into Duchampian objects? Love it! Thanks. —- Love, The Good Girls

COPY CATS!

Mon, 24 Oct 2011 23:21:00 -0400

This faux Good Bike was spotted on Queen Street East. While, this baby Copy-Cat Bike was found in Grange Park!

GOOD FRIENDS

Mon, 24 Oct 2011 23:21:00 -0400

After reading an incorrect, frustrating article about our GOOD BIKES and absorbing some nasty emails from critics, Vanessa and I found this recording in our email inbox. We gave it a listen and were so touched that we just about cried. The recording is by Sam (age 7), Maeve (age 5) and their mom Alison, who have recently joined The Public Art Project, a collaborative project by iEARN-Pangea, to learn more about public art and share their thoughts and findings on the subject with people from around the world.

Our project has received lots of media coverage over the last few months; however, most of them focus on the negative rather than the positive, and few journalists have taken the time to learn about the colour code before report on the project. Thank you so much to Sam, Maeve and Alison, for taking the time to learn about our project and sharing your thoughts and ideas with us! You have summed it up perfectly!

We are thrilled to announce that Sam, Maeve and Alison will be the owners of our very last GOOD BIKE. It’s a blue bike for community builders. How fitting!

GOOD BIKE / SPRAY PAINTING MIX

Sun, 23 Oct 2011 21:40:00 -0400

Mix by Dave. Cover by Caroline.

GOOD BIKE

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 18:14:00 -0400

279 Augusta Avenue ————-Model Citizen has been promoting and supporting local fashion designers and artists long before it was trendy. Not only does the clothing store sell the work of local designers, but the store’s collection of clothes and accessories are carefully chosen, uber stylish and always pushing the boundaries of current fashion trends. Although Model Citizen exudes hip, the store feels old fashioned as it is run by a local artist Julian Fickle and his lovely partner Georgia. They are often in the store together with their beautiful babies, welcoming visitors and giving out great fashion advice. Julian teaches silk-screening workshops in the basement of the store and his own designs can be found on the stores collection of T-shirts.

GOOD LOVE

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 22:43:03 -0400

Hi Caroline and Vanessa,

My kids (Sam, 7 and Maeve, 5) and I happily play and learn together at home and out and about in the city. One of the initiatives we’ve recently joined is the Public Art Project, a collaborative project by iEARN-Pangea (http://publicart.iearn.cat/p/info.html) When I asked the kids if they had any ideas about which piece of public art they’d like to learn more about and share with others, their immediate response was ‘the art bikes!’

As you’ve so deservedly been covered widely in the media, we were able to learn a great deal about The Good Bike project. We also plan to take photos of our favourite ones, make a sound recording of their locales and then an audio recording of all we’ve learned and post it to the site. The kids had a few remaining questions though and have asked that I email them to you. (They’re shy, but if you did want to meet up to answer their questions in person, I’m pretty sure they’d be thrilled - though they may not utter a world :) ) If you’ve time to send us your responses, that would be fantastic.

1) Do you remember your first bike?
2) Why do you paint them just with solid colours and not use stripes or polka dots or other designs?
3) Did you think about putting baskets on all of the bikes and instead of just flowers, also plant vegetables so they could be mini community gardens? We could help.
4) What is your favourite piece of public art - in Toronto or anywhere?
5) Why can’t more art be free (inside art too) so everyone can see it?
6) Do you ride your bike in Toronto? What colour is it? Do you think Rob Ford will learn how important biking and bike lanes are?

Thanks so much for this - and for bringing thoughtful colour to our streets.

Alison (and Sam and Maeve)

GOOD BIKE

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 21:10:32 -0400

C80 BPNICHOL LANE ——— Coach House Books was a hub of art activity in the late 60s and early 70s as conceptualism began to take hold and artists’ books and multiples became important pieces of the visual art puzzle. But it also served a completely practical purpose, as a generous provider of discounted flyers and posters for art shows for such budding Canadian art giants as Greg Curnoe and General Idea. Inevitably, it became a sort of clubhouse for a community of artists steeped in the pre-Mink mile Yorkville scene, gathering around a now-storied, battered wooden table to share coffee, ideas — and, as the tell-tale burns might suggest a few other things — in a feelgood moment of collective creativity. ——- Written by Murray Whyte

GOOD BIKE

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 21:06:00 -0400

401 RICHMOND ST W ——- In another life, 401 Richmond isn’t there, cratered, like so many other sturdy industrial buildings near the Queen and Spadina hub, to make way for newer, shinier, more commercially viable projects (and yes, I mean condos.) Such would have been its fate had the Zeidler family not stepped in in 1994 with a vision: Keep the building, and keep the arts in the central downtown core. As anyone can see by its immediate surroundings, the threat was real: The Gap, H&M, Club Monaco, HMV — you can hardly tell this was the centre of the city’s vibrant art scene in the 1980s. 401 RIchmond both preserves that legacy and allows it to grow anew, providing below-market rents for seminal artist-run centres like YYZ, A Space, Gallery 44 and Prefix Photo, as well as venerable commercial galleries like Wyntick Tuck. ——- Written by Murray Whyte

IDEAS WORTH SHARING

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 08:56:00 -0400

I have spent more time than I would like to admit YouTubing TED Talks, so naturally I was thrilled to be accepted as a delegate for this year’s TEDX Toronto event.

Redefinition was the theme of the day. The event’s speakers ranged from tech wizards to doctors to activists and teachers. Nicholas Shiefer, a grade twelve student, discussed his frustration with current search engines. For his high school science fair he developed a new kind of search engine that uses networks to represent words. Ariel Garten talked about a mind-controlled computing system she has designed that could be used to help people with ADHD. Rob Spence (aka Eyeborg) spoke about the positive advancements technology has had on prosthetic limbs using his own personal story as an example. Spence lost an eye as a child and has since then replaced it with a camera which he considers essential to his career as a documentary film maker. Joshna Maharaj is trying to revolutionize hospital food; and Dr. Brian Goldman spoke honestly about the mistakes he has made as a doctor in order to expose the misconception that doctors are infallible. Goldman believes that doctors should not have to deny mistakes out of fear and shame, but should be encouraged to be open about them in order to prevent the same mistakes from being made by others. Adam Garone, founder of Movember, spoke candidly about how he has redefined the moustache for men; and Carlyle Jansen, the founder of Good For Her, spoke about redefining relationships through adventure and honesty.

The talks were broken up by conversation breaks which lasted forty minutes each. During the my first break I met Jane Dewar, a teacher from the Simcoe County School Board. Jane is teaching her class of grade nine boys about graffiti and street art. The Good Bike Project was discussed in her class. Her students even wrote a letter about our project to The Toronto Star which has been published. Jane has promised to send it to me. At the moment, she is teaching her boys how to crochet so that they can yarn bomb whatever they like. Her enthusiasm, humour and warmth was immense. I wish that I had had her as a teacher.

Later in the day, I was approached by a young woman wearing a T-shirt that read “FREE HUGS.” She quietly asked if I’d like a hug. I said sure, and we hugged. After our embrace she shifted position and my eye caught her tote bag, which happened to be a Good Bike tote! I shifted to show her mine! We laughed and she explained that she was the girl who’d installed a good bike at the Humber College campus. It was Iva! As Vanessa was writing a blog entry about her, I was meeting her. It was a strange and wonderful coincidence!

The last speaker of the day was former Toronto Mayor David Miller. I was curious to hear what he had to say about redefinition. Miller spoke about the importance of connecting environmental issues with economics. He urged Torontonians to commit whole heartedly to issues we feel are important to the city and to stay committed to them. We are not simply taxpayers, said Miller, we are citizens. We cannot buy our city, but have to work at building it together, every day.

As I stood within the glass walls of the new atrium of Koerner Hall and stared out at Philosopher’s Walk and the ROM I considered the TEDX theme and thought back to the City Council meeting I observed just days before. I found myself imagining what our City might look like if it were run by more people like the ones I had met and heard speak that day.

Caroline

DRAWING CLASS AT CITY HALL

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 17:57:00 -0400

Last week, I attended a figurative drawing class at City Hall. The class took place before the ten o’clock Council meeting in which Ford’s proposed cuts to the Arts were to be debated. All onlookers were invited to draw the Counselors as they debated the fate of the Arts. Those who submitted their drawings at the end of the meeting will be included in an art show called “Drawing Lines: Figurative Studies of Toronto City Council.” The date and location of the show is still to be announced.

As I approached City Hall, sleepy and hungry, I was pleased to find a number of picnic benches in the centre of the square. On them, dozens of people sat squished together, sketching in their notebooks. I sat beside David, a five year old boy, who had brought with him crayons, markers and a few pads of paper. He announced proudly as I sat down that he was “the best drawer in his family.”

At ten, we brought our pencils and pads into City Hall and continued to draw. The Council meeting began with a tribute to Jack Layton. In his speech, Michael Layton encouraged the rest of Council to work towards building bridges, not burning them, in order to move forward on important issues. Unfortunately his words were in vain. For the next two hours we witnessed a gross show of egotism. As we sat there listening to politicians sling insults back and forth and shout over one another, I couldn’t help but feel totally depressed and increasingly angry at what a waste of time this was for everyone. What was actually being accomplished? Is this how the leaders of our city are allowed to behave at work? I was glad to be drawing, as I couldn’t have sat there and waited patiently had I not been doodling. Most of us, including David, had to leave before the Arts were even mentioned.

Caroline