Feature: Crossing Communities in Herizons

Living in the Big Smoke, my sense of what's going on art-wise, and especially art-as-activism-wise, in Canada tends to get obscured by Toronto-centric buzz. How happy I was, then, to encounter the work of Crossing Communities, an impressive Winnipeg arts org, this fall.

Crossing Communities has provided art studio space and training for women and youth at risk of imprisonment for roughly a decade. This January saw a public-awareness leap forward with a showing of their project "Pictures of Self-Harm" at the Winnipeg Art Gallery. In this extraordinary project, women with experience of addiction, homelessness and sex-trade work tell their own stories through film and video.

I was lucky enough to get to speak with project founder Edith Regier in late 2007; the resulting interview informs a feature article in the current Spring 2008 issue of Herizons. Read on here to order a copy of the mag, and read on here to find out more about the org.