Through the quilts, leaves and chalkboards at the Community Voices exhibit, the Coalition for a Liveable Sudbury is looking for answers to one important question: what's important to you in your community?
To encourage community participation and create real change, Liveable Sudbury spent a year asking residents their vision of Sudbury's future. A cross section of people from across Greater Sudbury were captured in a variety of ways, including including felt leaves, surveys and ballots.
In addition to summarizing their findings in official reports to Greater Sudbury, the results now form the Community Voices art exhibit, which will be hosted by la Galerie du Nouvel-Ontario throughout this month.
"We were really moved by what we heard and we wanted to share those voices with the community," said Naomi Grant, Liveable Sudbury co-chair and co-founder.
"This exhibit is a forum for people to have a conversation about what kind of community they want to live in, what kind of positive change they want to see and what kind of vision they have for the community."
As an active project, residents are encouraged to add to the exhibit by adding their voices to the 'wishing tree' and 'community image' installations. Also new are the many artistic contributions by Sudbury writers, poets and songwriters, who were asked to "just do something creative that was a message to your community," said Grant.
Many of the artists will share their work at the exhibit's open mic night, April 26 at 7 p.m.
Grant said the Coalition took an artistic approach to this particular intiative, because it was hosted for the benefit of the community.
"Community art is a really fun and accessible, more emotional way of experiencing a community's voice and adding to it," she said.
Find out more about the Coalition for a Liveable Sudbury by visiting their website or Facebook page.
