Welcome.
You’ve found us — and we’ve found you.
This project is an invitation. Like everything the Department of Imaginary Affairs does, Village as Practice begins with a pause. Before the stories, the reflections, and the art — we start by asking: what are you carrying right now?
About the Project
“The name ‘Canada’ likely comes from the Huron-Iroquois word kanata, meaning ‘village’ or ‘settlement.’” *
Village as Practice is a participatory public art project that asks one deceptively simple question: What does village mean to you?
Not the idea of village. Yours. The specific tangle of people, places, histories, and hopes that you carry with you — the roots planted long before you arrived somewhere, the communities you’ve built along the way, and the bonds that migrate with you across distance and time.
From mid-May through August 2026, two participatory installations are running simultaneously: one in the Jane and Finch neighbourhood and one at The Village @ Black Creek. Together, they form one living conversation, bridging two distinct but deeply connected communities, gathering a shared body of wisdom about what belonging looks, feels, and could look like.
Visitors to each site are invited to reflect, respond, and leave something behind: a dot on a map, a postcard, a voice message, a paper folded and placed into a box. There is no right way to participate. Every perspective — hopeful, uncertain, frustrated, dreaming — belongs here.
* https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/origin-name-canada.html
What We’re Exploring
At the heart of Village as Practice are three interconnected ideas about what village means to us:
The roots we carry. The people and places that came before us — planted into us long before we had words for them.
The communities we build. The chosen connections and mutual supports we create as we move through life.
The bonds that migrate with us. The collective care that travels across generations and distances, holding us together over time.
These aren’t abstractions. They’re the real texture of how people experience belonging — and how that belonging shapes what futures we believe are possible, and for whom.
The Installations
Both installations run simultaneously from mid-May through August 2026, each rooted in its own community while contributing to a shared body of reflection.
Visitors are invited to engage with three participatory elements, each one a different way of naming where you are.
Where do you find yourself?
The first invitation is to place a coloured dot on a map. Two axes ask two questions at once: how does the future feel to you right now — compelling, daunting, or somewhere in between — and how much do you believe your personal actions shape what comes next? There is no right answer. Every dot belongs.
What are you noticing and experiencing?
The second invitation is to sit with contradiction. A Venn diagram holds two questions at once: what makes imagining better worlds feel compelling, worthwhile, and energizing — and what makes it feel impossible, overwhelming, or daunting? After naming both sides, you’re invited to write a letter to the future. It can be addressed to anyone or anything — a person, a place, a community, a version of yourself. Or if writing isn’t the right form, pick up the phone and leave your letter as a voice message instead. Not all stories are meant to be written down.
What do you feel?
The third invitation is to name an emotion. Anger, surprise, sadness, happiness, fear, disgust — whichever feels most present when you think about the future right now. Once you’ve named it, you write about what’s bringing up that feeling. Then you place your response in one of two boxes: one for people who feel their personal actions affect our collective future, and one for people who feel they don’t. Over time, the boxes become a visible, collective picture of how we are holding the future — and what we believe about our place in it.
The reflections, letters, voices, and slips of paper gathered across both sites become something larger than individual responses. They become a living archive of where two communities are right now, and where they’re reaching toward.
Artists-in-Residence
The material gathered at both installations becomes the foundation for two Artists-in-Residence. Drawing on community reflections alongside their own direct engagement with the land, histories, and stories of The Village @ Black Creek, each artist develops an original work responding to the patterns and themes that emerge.
This isn’t a process of translating data into art. It’s a practice of deep listening, of sitting with contradictions, tracing long arcs of meaning, and letting what communities have shared shape something new.
Rod Osei-Nuako
he/him
Reezy Nuako is a visual artist from Toronto’s Jane and Finch community whose work focuses on storytelling through illustration, digital painting, murals, and public art. Inspired by the people, cultures, and everyday moments around him, his work explores themes of identity, community, memory, and belonging. During his residency Reezy hopes to learn more about the history and heritage of the site while exploring how those stories connect to the communities that surround it today. Growing up in the area, he has always been interested in the stories that shape a place and how art can be used to preserve, share, and reimagine them.
Throughout the residency, Reezy hopes to explore themes of heritage, community, and storytelling through research, observation, and conversations with community members. He is interested in creating work that reflects both the history of The Village at Black Creek and the diverse experiences of the people who live around it today. Through this process, he hopes to deepen his understanding of community-based storytelling and create artwork that feels honest, relatable, and rooted in the people and stories that make a community what it is.
Vanna Nguyen
she/her
Vanna Nguyen is an illustrator from Toronto’s Jane and Finch community. Her work primarily focuses on expressing narratives by learning from the lived experiences of others and observing the world. Vanna’s art includes book covers, personal commission pieces and installation artwork revolving around themes of mental health advocacy, social issues and personal relationships. She uses traditional sketching and digital painting in her art process to create inclusive and representative storytelling based on her surrounding community. She hopes to explore more artistic techniques and learning opportunities to build on sharing narratives of everyday life through art interpretation.
During this residency Vanna will explore interactive creative storytelling by examining the process of visualizing narratives based on emotions, energy, environment and sentimental experiences through the medium of digital painting. Vanna will explore questions of self reflection based on personal experiences mixed with historic perspectives from The Village at Black Creek site throughout the residency and will use this to create a learning opportunity to grow creatively.
September 27th: Opening Day
In September 2026, both artworks will be installed and on public display at The Village @ Black Creek.
On September 27th, the Village opens its doors for free community access in honour of National Truth and Reconciliation Day. Both artists will be present for an informal meet and greet, an opportunity to connect directly with the creators and the stories behind the work.
This is the culmination of a project that began with an invitation to pause, and ends or rather, continues with an invitation to gather.
What we Practiced
- Telling the Truth
- Weaving the Micro and the Macro
- Holding & Metabolizing Contradictions
- Practicing Curiosity
What we Imagined
We imagined a project that takes seriously the idea that community knowledge is a resource, one that belongs to the people who created it, and that can be transformed into something lasting and beautiful.
We imagined a bridge between two communities that are often treated as separate, but whose stories rhyme in ways that matter.
We imagined art made not despite complexity, but because of it.
Want to Participate?
Both installations are open to the public from mid-May through August 2026.
Visit us at The Village @ Black Creek or in the Jane and Finch neighbourhood.
If you would like to participate in virtually please follow the links below.