Art Starts
Art Starts is an arts-based community development organization operating in five sites throughout Toronto. This non-profit organization seeks to build healthier communities using the arts, offering responsive and relevant creative opportunities to those living in underserved and stressed neighbourhoods.
Art Starts pioneered community arts practices in Ontario and continues to provide leadership in neighbourhood-building arts projects, combining the best practices of hands-on community consultation with a collaborative art-making approach. The organization brings together professional artists from all artistic disciplines to work with Toronto residents. Each project reflects the culture of the neighbourhood and involves participants from various ethnic backgrounds.
Since 1992, Art Starts has facilitated hundreds of responsive, meaningful projects in diverse communities. In 2010 with the advocacy of Councillor Moscow, Art Starts opened a new community centre in the Yorkdale Mall.
(Image above) Tamera Haberman, Art Starts staff, presents Councillor Moscow with the gift of a magic wand in gratitude.