POP-UP ARTIVATION by The STEPS Initiative will be at June 6 Riverside Eats & Beats Festival!

Inspiring Torontonians to re-imagine how their city would look if vibrant and welcoming artistic activities were part of their everyday

As part of the June 6th Riverside’s Eats & Beats StreetFEST, The STEPS Initiative will host a live painting event, during which five emerging artists will be portraying the Riverside streetscape in their own creative styles. Those interested to pick up a brush and paint with theRiverside-ArtsFest-PATCH-It-Up-July-13-2014-Nguyen-16-copy-e1427726769637-300x300se emerging artists will be warmly welcomed, contributing to a canvas co-created by the community!

This Pop-Up ARTivation is one of a series of public space activations that STEPS has been facilitating across the City of Toronto in the last year. This mobile ARTivation program series inspires people to challenge how public spaces are used in our city, while injecting some artistic and vibrant activities to revitalize our shared spaces.

The STEPS Initiative is a public arts organization that builds connection with the communities through what they call Public Space ARTivism. Some of the activities that they engage to engage the public is by leading large-scale community art and public space revitalizations, such as the World’s Tallest Mural on 200 Wellesley. They are also instrumental in building youth capacity in both community and school settings a great example is of this is their mentorship of the Toronto Emerging ARTivists – a youth arts collective.  A big part of what they do is creating opportunities for local artists to exhibit in the public realm – much like the live painting you will see at Eats & Beats on June 6th. STEPS advocates that art can not only aesthetically transform public spaces, but also serve as a common language with which citizens can create shared spaces that foster civic engagement.

One of the iSteps pic2nitiatives of STEPS is The PATCH Project where they put together art work in underused spaces like constructionsites and vacant storefronts, in order to strengthen community ties and to decorate the streetscape for other artists to display their work to the public.

We are thrilled to have them help animate our streetscape during Eats & Beats!

 

LET US KNOW YOU’RE COMING to the EATS & BEATS Festival 

Thank you to Toronto 2015 IGNITE and Metroland media for their support of Eats & Beats 2015