In partnership with OAG, the Herongate Tenant Coalition (HTC) and artist Daniel Effah are organising a community arts project entitled Create: Herongate.
Members of the Herongate Tenant Coalition and Daniel Effah will be conducting interviews with residents of the neighborhood over the summer months for this purpose.
Amid the historic urban mass eviction of upwards of 500 people in the Herongate neighbourhood, the Herongate Tenant Coalition was formed to organize to fight the evictions.
For more information, or to get involved, please email community@oaggao.ca or herongatetc@gmail.com
The dispossesion project
Different mediums of visual art were utilized to convey the magnitude of the situation on a multitude of different platforms. The HTC was connected with accomplished photographer Effah, who completed a series of portraits of tenants in the Herongate neighbourhood who faced eviction.
This series, entitled Dispossession, was initiated by the HTC as they were looking to raise awareness about the situation and build power, strength and solidarity amongst working class people living in the neighbourhood. This project aims to educate and arm engaged youth with varying art skills, to create a community-oriented vision of the Herongate neighbourhood.
Combining the interests and the advocacy of the HTC with the skill sets of Effah, the main goal for the project is to create a bottom-up, community-oriented vision of the Heron Gate neighbourhood as imagined by existing residents.
Our project fosters a community-oriented design methodology that will incorporate the wishes of existing residents, and maintain a vibrant, culturally diverse, connected community.
about daniel effah
Daniel Effah is a Ghanaian visual artist and photographer currently residing in Ottawa.
Inspired by the works of both past and contemporary masters, his work amalgamates both his Ghanaian culture with the contemporary, to render stylized images that evoke the duality of the past and present.
He experiments with various styles within artistic mediums with hopes to create conversations about African diaspora. Herongate Tenant Coalition is a tenant-led movement that emerged to fight the mass evictions and destruction of our neighbourhood in Ottawa. Formed to build power, strength and solidarity amongst working class people in Herongate, the HTC exists to defend our neighbourhood from the development, speculative and political forces that want us out of here.
