InspirationlExhalation: Breath Taking Time and the Space Within Us ~  Embodied Public Practice

Susan Beniston and April Penny •  2022-24.

By way of introduction, we are keen facilitators of Art Hives in the greater Toronto area and have launched numerous initiatives, large and small, pop-up and permanent. Stemming from Concordia University’s thriving International Network, the Art Hive Movement aims to build solidarity across geographic distances to transform communities and strengthen art-making contexts - guided by liberation arts, accessibility, and disability justice principles.

We are committed to socially-engaged art practice, and have co-taught a course in Ecological Art Therapy: The Nature of Well-Being at the Toronto Art Therapy Institute. Consequently, generating a sense of belonging matters, building communities matter, materials matter - using upcycled, sustainable and earth-friendly materials matter, and all relationships matter deeply to us, in all contexts of the human and the-more-than-human world.  We work within the relational model, honouring the capacity to generate connections through meaningful-making for ourselves, with collaborators and with pARTicipants.

Our first-hand knowledge welcomes experiential learning and sensory-based-attunement to promote all the arts in relational health, resilience and well-being. Our work combines Art Hive goals with personal research using art in mindfully-based stress reduction (MBSR) to address heARTfelt interests in our breathing rhythms as a universally accessible health regulator.

“Inspiration|Exhalation: Breath-Taking-Time and the Space Within Us,” tangibly engaged 250 people in playful co-creation during Nuit Blanche festivities at 401 Richmond and in so doing aimed to diminish and honour The Space Between Us (Nuit Blanche’s Theme for 2020-2022).

Susan Beniston, MFA, ATR-BC, RCAT, OATR and April Penny, BFA, BEd, DTATI, RCAT, OATR RP