Sampling Culture http://samplingculture.posterous.com Most recent posts at Sampling Culture posterous.com Thu, 05 Aug 2010 06:07:00 -0700 Kensington Market comes alive http://samplingculture.posterous.com/2010/08/05/kensington-market-comes-alive http://samplingculture.posterous.com/2010/08/05/kensington-market-comes-alive

Citizens filled the streets to the sounds of electronic belly-dancing music. A crowd huddled in a circle around a group of performers who wore belly-dancing costumes and jingled their bells in time to the music. People took photos and clapped after each dancer went into the middle of the circle. Walking down Augusta Avenue, the smell of hot corn tomales and empanadas, samosas and thai spring rolls emanated from each food stand and wafted into the nostrils of passers by. Local artists and vendors sold their jewelry and paintings to visitors and residents who make their homes in Kensington Market.

Pedestrian Sundays in Kensington Market are a time when cars are banished from the streets and people take over the streets to build community. The event in July was called Water! Streams of Consciousness. Over in the wading pool in the Bellevue Square park, children and their parents mingled on a picturesque summer day. The market is always full of sites and sounds – only Pedestrian Sundays are better because the market is enhanced by the presence of more people and a greater feeling of celebration that permeates the space. Imagine what our city streets could be like if they were allowed to flourish the way the Pedestrian Sundays festival has enabled Kensington Market to, each summer since 2004. Over the years, the idea of Pedestrian Sundays has spread to different neighbourhoods, in both Mirvish Village and Baldwin Village. Perhaps the idea is ripe enough to spread across the entire city. Pedestrian Sundays don't propose to permanently change the streets, instead, the website tells us: “they forever change the way you perceive them.” The idea behind Pedestrian Sundays is stated simply on pskensington.ca: “Remove the automobile and the streets become a cultural playground – an expression of our community’s diverse ethnicity, age and interests.” The festival is very DIY and encompasses the human touch that is missing in so many large over-produced festivals that draw people to the city in the summer. It's all about local community and building a sustainable future by going back to the roots of how cultures thrive through local ecologies. As the website explains this link to the global ecological movement: “A community takes back their common space and celebrates a day of cleaner air.” On this particular Sunday in July, many groups came out to build ties with the community, reach out to the public and sell their wares. The Toronto Vegetarian Association, Oxfam Canada, and Spacing magazine were all there. Even Blocks Recording Club, an indie label collective run by artists, set up a little table to sell music by acclaimed local artists such as Owen Pallett, Kids on TV and Katie Stelmanis. Meanwhile, many bands performed - at least one per corner along the route from College to Dundas on both Augusta Ave and Kensington Avenue. The band Escalate had set up outside of the Embassy bar on Augusta and drew quite a crowd. With their jazz-lounge sounds and confident style, the four piece band did an excellent job captivating a self-selected audience of younger hipsters and families alike. Theatrical performers were found along the route too. A puppeteer had set up a little theatre and drew a small crowd toward his interactive performances. Meanwhile, Clay & Paper Theatre had set up a large caravan loaded up with books for sale. Books were only a dollar each and the proceeds went toward funding their cycling oriented puppet squad and other theatre projects. It was like a scene from a bohemian movie, or a blast from the hippie era of the past. People looked at books and made their selection, while a cheerful lady with a hula-hoop twirled around and sang a song. On Nassau Street a group of dancers from the group who run Standupdance.com did modern improvisation on the street. They moved fluidly like water around one another and communicated freely with their bodies as people watched. They paid no attention, and as the postcard they gave me explained, they were there to 'dance like no one is watching.' Further along Nassau Street, a group of musicians played music as a group of ten people played musical chairs. When the music stopped everyone scrambled to find a seat. The music got faster and faster until there were only two women players left. Finally only one declared victory, and another round started. It's not too late to attend the next Pedestrian Sunday. There are several more slated to happen before the end of the season. On August 14th the market will remember the blackout in Toronto, when people enjoyed acoustic music, community meals and low consumption activities. August 28th will mark the market's celebration of Air! The Kensington Community Air Show. “In contrast to the Toronto International Air Show, we fly messages of peace, blow horns and hot air, eat chili, blow bubbles and dance in the street,” says the Pedestrian Sundays website (pskensington.ca). On September 25th, Pedestrian Sundays will celebrate earth and global harvest traditions, and on October 30th, Halloween celebrations will honour ancestors.

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Thu, 18 Mar 2010 04:31:18 -0700 Eco-frugal in Toronto http://samplingculture.posterous.com/2010/03/17/eco-frugal-in-toronto http://samplingculture.posterous.com/2010/03/17/eco-frugal-in-toronto TORONTO - April 2009 Networked Streets
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Reusing, refashioning and building community As both social entrepreneurs and activists try to save their money, conserve natural resources and build community, eco-frugality appears to be thriving. Amanda Sissons unpacks boxes of fabric, buttons and unused colored paper for the craft swap happening at her store. She says she has a good feeling about how many people will show up that cold winter day at Freedom Clothing Collective. Established in 2006, Freedom Clothing is a cooperatively owned and operated store by Sissons and three of her friends. About an hour after she has been unpacking supplies, 15 people fill the small store on Bloor Street West in Toronto. By 8pm that evening, at least another 40 people have passed through to exchange their unwanted materials.
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Sissons explains, “Now that people can't afford expensive items they are looking for new ways to re-do their old clothing.” According to Sissons, the craft swap encourages people to get together to swap items they are not using. It’s also a good place for people to share crafting tips. She says, “It's recycling.” Freedom Clothing represents one sub-section of a larger group of people involved in the unofficial ‘eco-frugal’ movement in Toronto. In an eco-frugal approach, reducing waste, remodeling and reusing old things becomes en vogue during financially uncertain times. Since the economic turmoil swept North America, eco-frugality that combines both ecological and fiscal responsibility has retained followers. Eco-fashion stores like Freedom Clothing, non-governmental organizations such as GlobalAware, dumpster-diving groups like Food Not Bombs (who collect unwanted food and then cook for the hungry) and freecyclers like the Really Really Free Market (who swap unwanted items), continue to persist in their efforts. When times are tough, these groups are building community by sharing and reusing what they have. Their commitment to living an environmentally-friendly, socially sustainable and frugal lifestyle appears stronger than ever. North American Green consumerism is strong Trendwatching.com's March 2009 brief professed that during the recession consumers still want to move away from non-sustainable products to those that aren't contributing to a large ecological footprint. According to the GfK Roper Green Gauge study, "Americans are taking notice of the dual benefits of making simple eco-friendly changes that help both the planet and their wallets.” They found “More Americans are discussing recycling (86%), conserving energy (79%) and conserving water (76%); - - all simple ways to save money.” In Canada, the City of Toronto launched its Live Green Community Investment Program last year. They award grants of $25,000 to community groups who undertake action on sustainable energy use. In Toronto, the persistent popularity of and curiosity about community gardening and all-things-environmental is evident in the March ‘Ecoholic’ issue of NOW Magazine. Across income levels and diverse lifestyles the buzz about being Green and sustainable has not lessened. In fact, more people may be making cost-effective decisions and lessening their ecological footprint at the same time. Grassroots Green Contrary to the Green-washing of mainstream products by major retailers, in grassroots circles, a skeptical attitude toward corporate mechanisms persists. This is true, especially now, in reaction to the recent North American financial collapse. Bryn Roshong, an activist and labour union organizer said, “I hope that people see job losses and companies failing, and relate it to their own consumption and connect that there needs to be a holistic change in the way we relate to the planet.”
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Roshong, Wes Hannah, Ben Hackman and others in Toronto are participating in Food Not Bombs. Almost every weekend they collect unwanted food from vendors at St. Lawrence Market and grocery stores before closing time. Then they cook the food for homeless and hungry people on Sunday afternoons. Instead of the unwanted food going into the garbage, the edible food gets rescued and served to around 50 people in Allen Gardens. Roshong explained, “A lot of food comes from California or Chile and is grown with pesticides, and shipped here. So much energy goes into producing our food, and then sometimes perfectly good vegetables get thrown away because no one buys them. There’s so much food wasted and so many people go hungry in this city. I see it as completely backwards.” Community efforts Roshong and the ‘Really Really Free Market’ collective put on the ‘free store’ events. People attending donate and take away items without the exchange of money. People bring clothes, toys, books, electronics, and kitchen utensils to the store. Their last ‘free store’ event in March was held at the Toronto Free Gallery, and they estimated that up to 800 people visited. The event drew people from a broad cross-section. They put advertisements in Now magazine, on Craigslist, and put up posters around the city. There were kids and people of all ages searching for something they might like to take home. Passersby also came in, unaware what the event was about, but learning once inside. Roshong and Hannah said it was a great way to build community. For them, the recycling aspect is important. Roshong said, “There’s no reason why we can’t reclaim things…We are going to become a larger community space for people to have an alternate means of sharing and getting what they need.” While unique to Toronto, free store events are happening regularly all over the world – in the Netherlands and in cities like Vancouver. According to Roshong's pamphlet, free stores are “responsible to the environment, community, and the planet.” Hannah said their event is an example of eco-frugality, which is “not just dependent on a depressed market.” He said, “It’s brought out in times like these, but people see it is sustainable, even if they have a high paying job and job security.”
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In Kensington Market at GlobalAware, executive director Clive Shirley had similar things to say about how his organization is eco-frugal. He said they print their postcards on tree-free paper, they recycle old books by making them into new notebooks and they stock fair trade clothes. “I think people can save money by investing in products that are made well that will last for life. Rather than going to Walmart and buying a cheaply made knife that will last one year, and then going back again each year for twenty years, people should buy one knife that will last,” said Shirley. Dr. Leslie Jermyn, an anthropology and environmental studies instructor at the University of Toronto, said that as people are budgeting, environmental solutions fit into their thinking. Jermyn explained being eco-frugal means, “making choices to reduce energy usage, excess and waste.” Community initiatives like these show us that through reclaiming old things and turning them into new treasures, eco-frugality is alive and well. As times get tough, it makes sense that eco-frugality and community-building are on an up-surge and they are only getting stronger. It will be interesting to see whether private and public funding will be channeled into official government, industry, and smaller community projects too.
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