Our Story

Over the past decade, marginalized immigrant-based areas of Toronto like Scarborough have seen a renaissance in their public perception and interest, bringing a new light to the diverse culture, food, and arts of these communities. In many ways, it has felt like a sudden wave of attention towards uplifting these artistic and cultural voices, bringing opportunities that were never available just two decades ago when we were growing up.

But the wave was just as alive then as it is now. It was brought over from the shores of the Caribbean, South and East Asia, Africa, and the other places of origin that comprise the immigrant, first, and second-generation Canadian populations that flooded into neighbourhoods like Malvern starting around the 1970s. These communities, built on self-made and self-sufficient families who left, fled, or escaped their home countries for a better life, have fed the voices and narratives of our generation of artists. That precedent of building from the ground up is the ethos that many of our own artistic careers were also built upon.

Growing up in an environment that was starved of artistic opportunities, our interactions as a group began in elementary school, where our collective yearning for an educational creative outlet led us to create comedic videos and raps for class assignments. In the two decades since those initial interactions, our post-secondary academic experiences and self-directed artistic careers have cultivated a collective ethos that art, education, and advocacy form the basis of community growth. Thus, Wave Art Collective was conceived to serve as a conduit to drive arts opportunity and infrastructure in Scarborough.

Our Work

Wave Art Collective’s work spans across music, video, installation, and curation. Their musical works focus on the dichotomic parables between Scarborough and Toronto, as well as the historical perception of Tropical cultures from a Western perspective. Similarly, their films explore identity conflict among first-generation Canadians who are pulled in opposing directions by ties to their homeland and the confusing cultural mish-mash of Scarborough. Together, their culturally diverse soundscapes and films arrive at the crux of how generations of migration have shaped a unique and complex structure of identity formation in Scarborough.

The Collective has planned “Where the Trees Speak” for Nuit Blanche 2021, an interactive audiovisual installation that utilizes the Rouge Park’s history and location as a metaphor for migration and the changing demographics in Scarborough. They will be the 2021 artists-in-residence at the University of Toronto’s Doris McCarthy Gallery. Their artistic work has been featured on CBC News, Exclaim!, and Flaunt Magazine, screened at the TIFFxInstagram Short Film Festival and Regent Park Film Festival, and received radio play on CBC Radio and BBC Radio 1xtra. These works have received grants from the Toronto Arts Council, Ontario Arts Council, Liaison of Independent Filmmakers in Toronto, and CUE.

We are always looking to expand!

Partners

Both our artistic work and community initiatives are graciously made possible by a range of partners, funders, and supporters. If you or are your organization is interested in supporting us, please get in touch.