This Weekend! Jane's Walk: Walkable Cities Planned for and by People

Looking for something to do this weekend? Join a local conversation during Jane’s Walk 2019, taking place May 3-5th in Toronto on the traditional territory of the Huron-Wendat and Petun First Nations, the Seneca, and most recently, the Mississaugas of the Credit River.

Jane Jacobs called Toronto home, and so do we. We keep her legacy alive by walking together and making space for every person to observe, reflect, share, question and collectively re-imagine our city.

9 PRINCIPLES GUIDING THE WALKS

• Anyone can lead a Jane’s Walk at any time.

• Jane’s Walk is a non-partisan initiative that strives to include a wide array of voices and ideas in discussions about cities, neighbourhoods and community engagement.

• Jane’s Walk celebrates the legacy and ideas of urban activist and writer Jane Jacobs by getting people out exploring neighbourhoods and meeting their neighbours. Jane’s Walk promotes walkable neighbourhoods and cities planned for and by people.

Principles continued here.

ABOUT JANE JACOBS

Jane Jacobs (1916-2006) was an urbanist and activist whose writings championed a community-based approach to city building. She had no formal training as a planner, and yet her 1961 treatise, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, introduced ground-breaking ideas about how cities function, evolve, and fail that have become commonsense cannon for today’s architects, planners, policymakers, activists, and other city builders.

Jacobs saw cities as dynamic, complex ecosystems with their own logic and order. With a keen eye for detail, she wrote eloquently about sidewalks, parks, design, and self-organization. She advocated for higher density in cities, short blocks, local economies, and mixed use zoning. Jacobs helped derail the car-centered approach to urban planning in both New York and Toronto and invigorated neighbourhood activism by helping to stop the expansion of expressways and roads. She lived in Greenwich Village until 1968, when she moved to Toronto and continued her work and writing on urbanism, economics, and social issues until her death in April 2006.

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Jane’s Walk was founded in Toronto in 2006 by a group of Jane Jacobs’ friends and colleagues as a way to honour and activate her ideas. That first year, there were a handful of walks in Toronto. Over the next decade, the movement saw rapid global uptake by urban activists around the world. In 2017, 1,700 Jane’s Walks took place in 225 cities around the world, spanning 37 countries and 6 continents. The movement continues to grow every year!

City of Toronto’s (Hand-painted Traffic Signal Boxes) Project (Call for Submissions)

CALL FOR PROPOSALS: City of Toronto "Outside the Box"

The City of Toronto invites local area artists to submit proposals to create works of art on City traffic signal boxes throughout Toronto. There are over 2,200 traffic signal boxes located across Toronto at signalized intersections. These boxes are often covered with posters and are a prime target for graffiti vandalism.

The Outside the Box public art initiative helps to bring diverse and interesting public art to neighbourhoods, reduces the impact of graffiti vandalism and postering, contributes to the vitality and attractiveness of the streetscape, helps to beautify City infrastructure and streets, and supports local and emerging artists.

Artwork on traffic signal boxes functions as a form of communication to an audience in transit, with the goal of creating a vibrant, inclusive and interesting urban environment. Successful proposals will be innovative in design, foster community pride, counteract graffiti vandalism and contribute to a sense of identity for residents and businesses.

This project is implemented by StreetARToronto (StART), part of the City of Toronto's Transportation Services Division. Since the project launched in 2013, over 185 boxes have been hand-painted by local artists and transformed into works of art.

The artist fee paid will be a $650 honorarium (including HST) for each completed traffic signal box.

APPLICATION & DESIGN CRITERIA:

• Artist applicants must reside in the City of Toronto.

• Artist applicants cannot be City of Toronto employees.

• Use the template provided on the website to propose your design concept(s). Designs must include all visible sides of the traffic signal box, unless where specified by the project team or on the list of box locations.

• When designing the artwork, artists are encouraged to think of the context of the area and the city as a whole.

• Designs must not contain:

  • any representations of traffic lights, signs or signals

  • advertisement or promotion for any business, product or viewpoint

  • vulgar, profane, offensive, or insensitive images or writing

  • any breach of intellectual property, trademarks, brands, images of illegal activity or involve the attachment of any object(s) to the box

• Consideration should be given to the fact that the finished artwork(s) will be in the public domain and therefore may be vandalized. Although the City will protect the artwork with a vandal resistant clear coat, it cannot guarantee that vandalized traffic signal boxes will be repaired and the artwork restored to its original state. Further, artists should understand that the finished works will be on functioning equipment that will need repair or replacing at some point in time. As such, The City cannot guarantee how long each traffic signal box will be in use. Artists must accept the risk that their artwork may be damaged, altered or removed at any time after completion.

• All designs will be subjected to City of Toronto review and approval.

• Artist signature and website cannot occupy more than ¼ of the base unit.

Width: 76.2 cm

Height: 121.92 cm

Depth: 43.18 cm

Please note in very few cases the traffic signal box may be slightly shorter than the above height. The artists chosen for these boxes will be notified of the height. For 2017, Outside the Box aims to have 60 traffic signal boxes hand-painted by local artists. Please visit the city of Toronto web page for the 2017 list of traffic signal box sites. There is no guarantee that artists will be given their preferred box location. Please also note that this list of locations, as well as the total number of boxes to be painted, is subject to change.

Artists must specify in their application which of the designated weeks they will be available to paint.

• Week 1: June 19 – 23

• Week 2: Aug 7 – 11

In some cases, depending on box location, some flexibility may be required and an artist may be requested to paint their box on another date if necessary. A single traffic signal box generally takes two days to complete but is dependent on the intricacy of the design and other variables.

Artists responding to this competition must provide a completed application form, available on the website, and all attachments requested on the application form, by Monday April 24, at 4:30 pm.

Artists may submit no more than 2 design proposals along with a statement for each design. No artist will be selected for more than one traffic signal box.

Do not send any materials not specifically requested if sent, they will not be reviewed by the jury. Submissions will not be returned.

PLEASE EMAIL SUBMISSIONS TO streetart@toronto.ca or

MAIL HARD-COPY SUBMISSIONS TO:

Program Manager, Outside the Box

StreetARToronto (StART)

City Hall, East Tower, 23rd Floor

100 Queen St. West

Toronto, M5H 2N2

Toronto Public Art Information Sessions

Are you an artist contemplating a move into public art? A visual arts professional wanting to understand more about how public art is commissioned in Toronto?

The City of Toronto’s Public Art Office is hosting information sessions to:

• Provide tips and tricks for applying to open calls for City-led public art projects;
• Explain what could be involved in taking your art practice into the public realm; and
• Connect you to additional public art resources.

Join us on the dates below to engage with the City of Toronto’s public art officers to explore how to take your practice into the public realm. The sessions will include information about how the City commissions public art, and how to effectively respond to open calls.

Talks will also include a case study of an upcoming public art commission so participants can brainstorm ideas and hear real world examples about how a public art project becomes reality.

Coffee and light refreshments provided!

Come Up To My Room 2015

Come Up To My Room 2015 featuring new work by Akin Collective members Oliver Pauk and Michael Vickers.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: CITY OF TORONTO

    

         

Request for Expression of Interest: The Douro Street Art Project

StreetARToronto and Metrolinx: Douro Street Art Project

REQUEST FOR EXPRESSION OF INTEREST 
DEADLINE: Monday, May 26 at 4:30pm

Call Summary
The City of Toronto's StreetARToronto (StART) program has partnered with Metrolinx to hold an open public art competition to create an outdoor art mural project to be installed along two stretches of retaining wall built to provide support for the lowered rail corridor along Douro Street.
StART invites Expressions of Interest from artists to submit proposals for wall art that will celebrate the unique and diverse character of the neighborhood and be maintained for a minimum of five years. Work is to begin in July, 2014 and must be completed by September 26, 2014.

The purpose of the Expression of Interest is to gather a list of artists or artist collaborations who will be short-listed based on relevant professional credentials and preliminary design concepts. Short-listed applicants will be invited to respond to a Request for Proposal. At the final stage of the selection process, proposals will be reviewed and artists will be recommended for the project.

Application Deadline Monday May 26, 2014 at 4:30pm
Total Project Budget: up to $40,000

Application Deadline: May 26, 2014 @ 4:30pm
Download the application package:

- Duoro Street Art Project (PDF)
For further information or general questions please contact Lilie Zendel, Project Manager at lzendel@toronto.ca (416) 392-0855; or Carolyn Taylor at (416) 570-1613 taylorcmt@mac.com