Youth@Large

Youth@Large is a socially engaged art project, initiated and facilitated by Jeanne Fries. The project brought together a group of teens weekly to explore their relationship to their community through art. 

This project began with the idea of having getting a group of young people together and using art to explore how they related to their community. By visiting and pitching the project in the local high-school, a group of eight teenagers was formed.

Between October 2015 to June 2016 the group took on multiple projects that were initiated by the youth and facilitated by Jeanne, such as a large community map comprised of images taken by the participants, a spray-painted mural, and stop motion animations. These project often dealt with issues and topics the youths were impacted by; like their frustration at the underfunded High School programs, identity, neighbourhood crime/safety, and absence of free youth friendly spaces.

The project culminated with a lantern making workshop and public viewing event, led by the members at the local Junior High School. For this project each member guided a group of five students through the process of paper lantern making over three days. On the second day the class took a vote on proposed decoration ideas, resulting in two sides being up to the creator and one depicting a building they wanted to see in their town in the future. The lanterns were then lit by their creators and displayed for the community at the towns winter carnival.

My most sincere thanks to the smart, creative and hard working members of Youth@Large as well as my ace supporters Katie Finn and Joe Sims. This project would not have been possible without the generous funding from Renaissance Sackville and the Marjorie Young Bell Board of Trustees.