Current Projects
Story Garden
Story Garden is a multi-year theatre and arts project, highlighting stories that shape East Scarborough, drawing on imagery and metaphors of plants and gardens. Jesse Wabegijig is the lead artist, working with an artistic team of varied disciplines and backgrounds. So far, we have collected words and images from diverse Scarborough participants on colourful paper seeds, leaves and petals, and commissioned two artists, Diana Tso and Geethangali Lena, to respond to this material through creative writing. This will lead to more community workshops, presentations, and creation and production phases for a new theatre work, with, for and about the people of East Scarborough.
What Was My Backyard?
What Was My Backyard? is a touring interactive musical show. It has been developed and presented at a series of Toronto communities and public schools. The Community Arts Guild is the project's current main producer, in partnerhsip with Jumblies Theatre and Theatre Direct.
What Was My Backyard? is inspired by a 1908 newspaper clipping about the discovery of 11,000 year old footprints preserved in blue clay under Lake Ontario, uncovered and promptly destroyed during a construction project. The show combines music, movement and puppetry whimsically to bring to light the Indigenous lives and lands underneath where our homes, playgrounds, parks, streets and backyards now stand: the footprints below and above our city streets, and how we can imagine paths forward.
A Journey’s Landing
A Journey's Landing is the third year of our collaboration with Scarborough settlement agencies and newcomers to share and imagine stories and express them through multi-arts forms, including puppetry and theatre. We link these workshops to Community Arts Guild current projects—such as Story Garden—as well as following directions and interests of the participants. A Journey's Landing is led by Jesse Wabegijig, with collaborating artist-facilitators Chico Togni, Kristine White and others. We'll celebrate and share material and short performances at our Cedar Ridge Evolving Gallery, in May 2026.