Open Heart

Today is a day to publicly acknowledge the impacts of colonialism in Canada
And-
It is also an opportunity for non-Indigenous people to use their voice to encourage others to do better and to be better today.
We are all Treaty People.
What will you do today to honour your relationship with the original caretakers of this land?

The Nation Centre for Truth and Reconciliation is a great place to start. NCTR

Stories From Home: Central Park Fall Fair is set to be a beautiful day full of neighbourhood fun and community connection ✨ Check out the Open Heart performance schedule, and swipe through to meet the rest of the wonderful artists who will be there! Join us: 

🗓️Sunday September 27th, 2026
🕗1:00pm - 4:00pm
📍Central Park, 168 Bay St N (Hamilton, ON)

Free to Attend, No Registration Required

Elie Assaf is a multimedia, Syrian-Canadian artist, studying Social Work at Toronto Metropolitan University. He believes in art’s great potential for collective healing and cross-cultural connection. From visual arts, textile arts, and creative writing to music and acting, Elie continues to express, invite, and share with others. With a focus on cultural heritage and preservation, he aspires to work with people towards social justice, transformation, and collective healing.

Wend Yasen is a river that crosses the borders of modern day Iraq. To Wend one’s way is to travel, to meander. Wend Yasen is an interdisciplinary artist, writer and performer based in Hamilton. They are currently receiving a BA in Critical Studies in Equity & Solidarity, Visual Arts, and Near & Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Toronto. Approaching ritual as a methodology, Wend’s work draws from Iraqi ancestral knowledge to re-enact, recreate, or unsettle rituals. This practice is grounded in an intimate relationship with the land and more than human beings. Wend is currently working on Another Way exploring storytelling practices beyond fluency. To be presented at Hamilton Artists Inc in collaboration with Whippersnapper Gallery in Toronto.

Donna-Michelle St. Bernard aka Belladonna the Blest is an emcee, playwright and agitator. She creates performing arts centred in justice and liberation. Works for the stage include Diggers, The First Stone, Sound of the Beast and Reaching For Starlight.  DM is playwright in residence at Theatre Aquarius, associate artist at lemonTree creations and artistic director of New Harlem Productions.

Jenna Bakri is a textile artist and designer based in Hamilton. A costume history fanatic, she relates to the world by learning how it clothed itself. Through refin

July 4, 10am-1pm
at Goldenrod 486 Barton St E.

Spend a Hamilton Arts Week morning with Open Heart exploring and sharing Community Engaged Arts practise. Open to all artists and community members who want to vision a more hopeful future with us.

What would our city look like in 10 years if we built it with love?

Rose Hopkins and Kelly Wolf will share their experiences from the International Community Arts Festival in Rotterdam this past spring and will invite all participants to actively engage in a future imagining project.

Let us know if you are interested - sign up at [email protected]
Snacks will be provided!

Come together as a community to support the family and friends of Nabil Askafe.
Thursday Apr 30, Hamilton City Hall forecourt - 530
Youth gun violence impacts our whole city - every community. Show your support and work for change.

Last week was jammed packed with ideas and inspiration, so here are a few highlights from ICAF days 2 and 3:

We both spent mornings at Moments of Connection, facilitated by Masters students at the University of Victoria with joyful prompts to help us meet other ICAF participants in joyful and artful ways, as well as attending Voices of the Earth (.projects), a music-based workshop and community project by Maia Steinberg (), bringing our many voices together in low-stakes (but high-reward!) prompts.

Rose sat in on a workshop with the team behind OsoToriOso , a project that centres around a traditional wooden folk house in Suriname, allowing us to reflect on the importance of home and preserving our heritages.

And Kelly went to The Hardcore Club, a panel with leaders from Citizens Theatre Glasgow, Junction Arts, Wijktheatre, Stuttheatre, and Drama Box-all companies who have been doing community-based works for several decades. An encouragement of how meaningful the longevity of this work is.

And also saw Discovering the Echo From the Shadows () a projection-based project by people with and without resident status challenge the viewer to actively engage and disrupt- questioning the status quo.

The big event of the week was The Herds , with life-sized animals moving throughout the city of Rotterdam, mobilized by a chorus of community members who had been working all week to bring the animals to life. The piece shows animals displaced by climate change, and set in this super urban (and very busy) environment, it really hits home.

We took in a couple of beautiful performances, especially Love Me By The Hour by Speels Collectif , a mixed-abilities theatre company and a show that tells the personal stories of s*x workers and their clients. Movement, music, storytelling = theatrical perfection! And Kreig Ist Kein Spiel Für Frauen (War is Not A Game for women) by Maanheim National Theatre City Collective .mannheim.ntm with a large ensemble of women playing games to determine which personal stories of war to share.