Art as We Are: Creative Community Care
Hosted by Art Not Shame and Guelph Museums, the “Art as We Are: Creative Community Care” exhibition was unveiled on August 24, 2024, and will run until April 30, 2025. This exhibit highlights three projects centred around the collaborations of over 200 community-based creators.
The first project featured in this exhibit was started in 2020 by artist Melanie Schambach. Melanie, along with a team of social workers and other artists, hoped to bring together those who identified as newcomers, 2SLGBTQI+, Black, Indigenous, people of colour, street engaged, adults with developmental exceptionalities, and youth struggling with mental health and addictions. The result was the collaborative piece The Mural Project: Art in Hard Times.
In 2023, Melanie Schambach collaborated again with Art Not Shame and the Guelph Neighbourhood Support Coalition. In a series of in-person and virtual art-making workshops, participants were paired with Art Buddies to explore the concept of “community care” in the pandemic. Participants' concepts and works came together in the large-scale mural Art in a Just Recovery: Reconnecting to Us. This mural is a part of the Community Care and Social Change project, initiated by the Reimagining Care Cluster at the Live Work Well Research Centre.
In 2024, Art Not Shame, the Guelph Neighbourhood Support Coalition, and Guelph Museums worked together on the Community Fabric project. In this ten-week community-arts series, participants worked together to create a community quilt. In the process, participants gained lasting social connections and skills to support their mental health and wellbeing.
These three projects continue to be displayed in the Art as We Are: Community Care exhibit at the Guelph Museum. The exhibit also shares the origin story of Art Not Shame, a community-engaged, multidisciplinary arts organization serving youth and adults in Guelph and across Ontario since 2017.
To learn more about this exhibit and others, check out the Guelph Museums website.