Mapping Parc-Ex: A short films screening and discussion on community, solidarity, and the neighborhood

This SSHRC funded project organized in collaboration with the nonprofit social housing organization Brique par Brique (Brick by Brick) aimed to explore how social housing can be imagined as mutual aid via participatory media-making practices and involved participants from Parc Ex documenting their neighborhood through video diaries. The project was initiated through conducting a three-day workshop led by Teagan Lance which provided the participants with training in videography, sound recording and editing. The project culminated in a screening of shorts films made by two participants Judy Wong and Meryem Ouadban on 3 June 2023 at the Brique par Brique Community Centre.

Committed to thinking through questions of community and solidarity, the project that has emerged out of this partnership aims to create a dynamic document of Parc Ex by members of the neighborhood through the form of video diaries as oral histories. Judy Wong and Meryem Ouadban’s short films are an important and joyful glimpse into the ways in which Parc Ex community members show up for one another, through activism and sport respectively, in the face of increasing gentrification and institutional neglect. The short film screenings were followed by a conversation with Judy and Meryem facilitated by Faiz Abhuani.