A cultural platform for exploring critical ideas of our time through art and dialogue.

Organized by Koffler Arts, the DECADE project celebrates 10 years since Youngplace at 180 Shaw St. opened as a vibrant hub for arts and culture in the west end of Toronto.

In 2023 Artscape went into receivership, leaving the fate of many cultural spaces at Youngplace unknown. From February through May 2024, Koffler Arts highlighted eight artists with studio space in the building, shining a spotlight on the importance of affordable spaces for artists to create work in Toronto. The second part of the exhibition Another DECADE (Nov 7 - Dec 15), curated by David Liss, focuses on the arts organizations who have called Youngplace home over the past decade. Participating organizations and artists include:

SKETCH Working Arts is a community arts organization that engages young Queer, Trans, and Black, Indigenous and other racialized young people navigating poverty, living houseless, or on the margins to experience the transformative power of the arts; build leadership and economic self-sufficiency in the arts; and cultivate environmental and social change through the arts. The SKETCH portion of the exhibition will be curated by artist and creative Renaissance in partnership with exhibition curator David Liss, and include Renaissance’s own work as well as artworks by LALA, and Nile X.

dis assembly is a lab for neurodiverse artistic experimentation involving processes that explore the conditions and techniques for human and more-than-human relation and support. Another DECADE will include work by non-speaking autistic poet and filmmaker, Adam Wolfond, the co-founder and co-director of dis assembly.

Flavio Belli has been an active contributor and participant in Toronto’s cultural scene since the late 1960s, working as an artist, gallerist, curator, programmer, consultant, collector, facilitator, and advocate in both the public and private sectors. Another DECADE will include work by Belli and two artists who he has represented as a commercial dealer: the late Canadian-born, legendary New York street artist Richard Hambleton (aka Shadowman) shown by Belli in his first gallery in the 1970s, and Zach Atticus, a Toronto painter represented by Belli’s current gallery.

Intergalactic Arts Collective (IGAC) is a dynamic group of movement-based artists who come together with the shared purpose of uplifting each other and the community through sharing resources and creating space for people to engage with Dance. Another DECADE will include a video art piece by IGAC’s six artists: Maxine Heppner, Jessie Garon, Suzanne Liska, Tracey Norman, Sara Porter, and Jessica Runge.

The DECADE project comes at a time of economic challenges in Toronto that demand consideration of how artists and arts organizations can inhabit the city, contribute to its vitality, and achieve greater security for the future of Youngplace and other cultural spaces across Toronto.

For media inquiries please contact Laura Chapnick-Klein, Director of External Relations, lchapnick@kofflerarts.org

Another DECADE

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