Client
The Bentway

Year Completed
2024

Type of Work
Facilitation, Design and Production of National Symposium

Facilitation, Design and Production of National Symposium

In 2023-2024, we planned, designed, produced and facilitated a two-day national symposium dedicated to mobilizing and creating a country-wide network of public art organizations dedicated to incorporating sustainable practices. Bespoke was engaged by The Bentway and seven other Canadian partner organizations (The City of Toronto/Nuit Blanche, Evergreen Brick Works, EXMURO, The Forks Foundation, Nocturne Festival, the Vancouver Biennale and the Toronto Biennial of Art) from coast to coast to convene a national conversation around new sustainable processes, systems, and support in public art practice.

In our approach, we conducted significant precedent research, consulting experts at the intersections of sustainability and arts practice. Programming included: conversation panels and case study presentations, tactile artist-led workshops, dynamic and interactive facilitation activities, and group activations. The symposium was intentionally designed to move from ideas, to actions and then finally community connections across each day. The topics explored included defining sustainability in art practices, public art as environmental activism, case studies of new emerging environmental arts and curatorial practices, solar power in the arts, and many others. The symposium design itself thoughtfully embedded sustainable practices, as much as possible, from hybrid speakers, to choice of catering, using windows as whiteboards and sharing information with QR codes. Bespoke is just completing a learnings document with initial takeaways to be shared publicly.