It is finally the last day of school!  Our last few classes of community arts were incredibly powerful and I feel so blessed to connect with such an extraordinary group. I started the Community Arts Practice Certificate in 2005 when I was attending York University as a visiting student.  I had never gone to traditional university before, as I was an Independent Studies Student at the University of Waterloo.  I was a strong advocate of unschooling and DIY at the time, but I was focused on expanding my horizons and introducing a bit more structure into my life.  Little did I know that Community Arts classes would be unlike any class that I had ever taken before!

Focused on participatory multi-media education I felt my neurons stimulated at every level.  I learned about embodied learning, how to paint an essay and expanded my knowledge of popular education. At the same time I was forced to focus on reading and writing at an academic level, and was introduced to cool new concepts like participatory action research. Five years later my experience as a community arts student is coming to a close, but I know that the learning will not stop there.

Since starting the project I have worked as a community artist in a number of capacities, from producing documentaries to facilitating youth publications, curating art shows, events and workshops.  I’ve also learned about the power of new media in youth organizing, motivating me to focus my masters research on the effect of emerging technologies like mobile phones on youth activism. As I write my last words as an academic I stare into the horizon pondering what is next.  Will I retire as a researcher, or will the skills I’ve learned as a master student continue to weave into future projects?

Come July I will be finished with my Master of Environmental Studies, my Community Arts Practice Certificate and my Universities Without Walls Fellowship.  But what do these titles even mean?  What will I do with these pieces of paper once I’ve obtained them?  Once I have the educational part of my resume sealed, what are the next steps in achieving my goals as a community artist? I feel that all three of these titles represent different potential directions that may or may not collide.  It’s like they’re parallel universes that float side by side, different dimensions in time that can only be decided by fate.