September 6, 2018

For the final day of the carts, our youth artists worked with Kris Alvarez on the outreach phase of her research for the upcoming iteration What Kind of Brown Are You? The project explores themes of race, and multiculturalism through the medium of live theatre performance. On the carts, the youth worked with Kris to help start conversations with passersby and start to activate some of the themes of Kris’ project. Locals Only will be hosting Kris for a performance of What Kind of Brown Are You? in Saskatoon — stay tuned!

Afterward, the youth met with our amazing summer students, Glenda and Olivia, along with Locals Only artist, Michael Peterson, for a wrap-up activity. Drawing on all of the experiences the youth artists had over the summer, they put together a series of seed packets as a kind of project archive to reflect the things they learned. Included on the packets were hand-written notes on some of the most important things that had happened all summer. It was a really meaningful way to officially close the youth-led summer activities.

We were also lucky enough to be able to include some closing thoughts from our summer students.

“By breaking the boundaries and also having projects that were accessible to all ages we were able to create conversations with so many diverse people. In the end I think that we managed to impact people in numerous ways, whether they stopped to have a healthy snack, or learned something about food security or planting, or how to make a dreamcatcher at our carts, or whether they simply needed someone to listen and show them a little bit of kindness, their day was changed because they stopped at our carts.” – Glenda

“Being a part of the Locals Only project has profoundly affected my view of Saskatoon and the core neighborhood communities. I signed on to this project thinking I was assisting with a social practice project and ended up being engulfed into the deeply meaningful work around youth leadership, intergenerational exchange, and social practice art that addresses the issues of food security and sovereignty.” – Olivia

While our summer activities have wrapped up, there’s more ahead, including a national event in October and a publication and event series in the new year. We’re so grateful to have been able to work with these amazing youth throughout the summer and expand our reach through the community.

Participating youth: Meagan, Anya, Karden, Lisa