Honouring LVAC artist Philip Cote
I'm delighted to share the news that longtime LVAC member Philip Cote has been awarded a King Charles III Coronation Medal by the Government of Canada. Presented at a ceremony held on January 15, the medal recognizes Cote’s significant contributions to Canada and West Toronto.
Cote is an Indigenous artist, activist, educator, historian, cultural advisor and Ancestral Knowledge Keeper from Moose Deer Point First Nation, of Shawnee, Lakota, Potawatomi, Ojibway, Algonquin and Mohawk ancestry. A graduate of OCAD University’s Master’s program in Interdisciplinary Art, Media and Design and a longstanding First Story collaborator, Cote’s practice has encompassed painting, sculpture, murals, graffiti art and digital media, and, through them, decolonial interventions in Indigenous history, archives and story-telling. Much of this work is documented on Cote's website, here.
Thank you, Phil, for sharing these photos with LVAC News and congratulations!
HATCH × LVAC
LVAC board members Pat Lewis, Peter Norman and Lilian Radovac were happy to join artist-organizers from YTB Gallery at Toronto's SHEEEP Studio this weekend, where we participated in two days of workshops that explored possible structures for sustainable, affordable and accountable co-living for people working in creative fields.
The workshops were part of the Housing Affordability Tactics for Creative Humans (HATCH) project, an ongoing research journey spearheaded by the YTB collective in collaboration with SHEEEPschool. The project's goal is to find answers to the question: how can artists co-create the conditions to meet our basic needs, without replicating the logics of settler colonialism and an exploitative creative sector? The intergenerational conversations that happened this weekend were inspiring, pragmatic, critical, vulnerable, visionary and alive with possibilities, and we're grateful to have been invited to contribute our collective experience as co-op members.
Stay tuned for future HATCH events and be sure to drop by SHEEEP Studio whenever you're next in the Junction Triangle.
LAMP Building Affordable Housing event
Speaking of housing, LAMP is hosting an event with CHFT's Executive Director Tom Clement this Wednesday, February 5 at 6:00 p.m. As part of LAMP's ongoing Building Affordable Housing series, Clement will discuss the future of co-operative housing in South Etobicoke and efforts to promote the development of an Ontario Housing Acquisition Fund. Click here for event details.
