ArtHouseTO Cultural Hub Seeking Community Support!
Donation protected
Hello!
We hope you and your loved ones are safe and healthy:)
Thank you so much for taking the time to learn more about who we are, what we do, and what we plan on doing!
We are Andrea Battersby, Artist, Arts Educator, Producer & Performer and Geoff Doner, Composer, Producer, Performer & Graphic Designer.
(BPL Cofounders Geoff Doner & Andrea Battersby)
(Andrea & Geoff perform live at Mermaid Ball, Revival bar)
Background
We cofounded Bureau Of Power And Light (BPL) art collective in 2014 and firmly believe that ART IS MEDICINE.
(Cast & Crew, Light For Freedom- Live Painting and Immersive Theatre Production, Produced by BPL, Students For A Free Tibet, Tashi Estates, Tashi Norbu)
Our partnership in life and art is fuelled by a shared desire to make the world a better place through the Arts.
(Butterfly Effect Mural Designed and Produced by Andrea & Geoff, Featuring artists Paula Gonzalez-Ossa and Nyle Johnston, 2021)
We met working behind the scenes in showbiz, Andrea as a Scenic Artist and Geoff as a Set Construction Supervisor and have since employed principles and skill sets gained from these experiences into producing multidisciplinary projects over a 10 year span.
(Goose painted by Andrea & Geoff for Trailblazers, ArtHouseTO HQ, 2023)
(Geoff hanging "Journey Flags" made by Andrea, Geoff and fellow Tibetan Artists for our inaugural art exhibition Artists In Exile-Tibetans Of Toronto, Artscape Youngplace, 2014)
(Lungtok (Artist) & Andrea hanging "Journey Flags" made by Andrea, Geoff and fellow Tibetan Artists for our inaugural art exhibition Artists In Exile-Tibetans Of Toronto, Artscape Youngplace, 2014)
(Opening Ceremony for Artists In Exile: Tibetans Of Toronto, Artscape Youngplace, 2014)
(Tenzin Tsering, Andrea & Geoff, "Snowlion Club" Documentary, a BPL Coproduction with CBC, 2018)
ArtHouseTO
Our main art project is ArtHouseTO / A Place For The Displaced, a place to Ideate, Cultivate & Manifest Possible Futures. This multi-platform project currently exists in four iterations:
Our aim with each respective iteration is always to incorporate arts-based methodologies in amplifying leading edge knowledge and employ appropriate technologies to heal and invigorate communities that are marginalized from conventional wealth and belonging. Building innovative new ways to live, work and have collective autonomy is a creative response to increasing precarity of basic needs within our local communities and globally.
The ArtHouseTO: A Place For The Displaced art project began as an Aspirational Live/Work Creative Convergence Hub we designed in the early days of COVID shutdowns 2020. We nourished a vision of safe caring space for us, other artists, and our neighbours who were being displaced by gentrification as a way to process and heal from our own studio and live/work demovictions in downtown Toronto. The floorplan designs we created are in the shape of a wheel, a hub with spokes, each section having a different colour to correspond with and distinguish between a cross pollination of sectors, demographics and organizations, gathered under one roof.
We started the @arthouseto Instagram account on March 29, 2020, 2 weeks after the beginning of the Covid pandemic, as a way to reach out to, follow and connect with different communities in the GTHA, people doing the real work on the ground to make the city a better place. We especially wanted to celebrate and amplify local Artists & Creatives!
In the beginning, @arthouseto was a great way to cultivate a community around the idea of the ArtHouseTO Live/Work Creative Convergence Hubs. However, within a couple of months, we began receiving requests from social mission orgs and individuals for reposts and amplification. An organic, unforeseen transformation from posting to primarily reposting and amplifying others, became the trademark of @arthouseto. The idea for the Live/Work Creative Convergence Hubs moved into the ‘background’, soon re-emerge as @arthouseto.hubs.
In August 2020, during our involvement in a community crisis response team in Toronto’s West End, supporting Foodbenders, we created and continue to develop an online, interactive Community Crisis, Mutual Aid, Activist Resources For The GTA. However, we began receiving mutual aid requests for amplification and so the feed is almost entirely mutual aid requests from GTA and beyond.
In November 2020, we moved into a live/work storefront space that has afforded us an opportunity to animate and utilize space for arts-based programming, pop ups and multimedia production. The core tenets of the original, ideal vision of Affordable Live/Work Creative Convergence Hubs are explored, demonstrated and exemplified in our Eastend Cultural Hub.
For 5 years it has been our HQ, without which we would be unable to do the work we do! Our Cultural Hub serves as a multimedia art, music and video production studio and a modest event and exhibition space. The distinctive storefront window gallery allows direct streetlevel contact with the neighbourhood that engenders safety in community engagement.
Family Care Giving
It was during Covid when Andrea’s Mother's health required sudden acute need of 24/7 care. Family rallied and Andrea relocated to her Mom’s residence for 6 months to provide daily care and the advocacy required to attain placement in longterm care where she remained until passing in Dec 2023. Our financial challenges in paying bills while fulfilling family responsibilities at that time have had ripple effects into the present.
More recently, Geoff’s 90 year old Dad had a serious fall March 2024 that precipitated further health complications. In order to provide the appropriate level of support Mom and Dad needed, Geoff re-located part-time to their house out of town. This meant taking a leave of absence from his job here in the city.
Finding Stability
Since then we have been investing focused energy into finding stability and sustainability as a business, to be able to properly resource the long-distance care-giving required by aging parents we love and want to care for, with remaining housed ourselves and maintaining the Cultural Hub and programming we run.
Over the course of the past year and a half with Geoff located remotely and our attention fractured, we have remained at all times deeply engaged in community building and are today serving increasing numbers of artists and organizations, on-line and in-person at the Cultural Hub.
Our New Team!
Meet Sol, Shon, Jason & Yobie! With our new team we are now able to put forth a viable Business Model and magnetize the support needed to weather this moment and Retain, Sustain and Grow our work and our Impact!
Our Tenancy At Our Cultural Hub
Financially we have fallen behind on rent, and in order to secure our tenancy, Retain, Sustain & Grow our Work and Impact, we need to raise these funds before July 31, 2025 for the eviction to be nullified!
With your support, we are confident that we can weather our current circumstances, rise above, and, not only continue to serve our Community, but also collectively thrive and, together, Manifest Possible Futures!
Much Love!
Andrea Battersby & Geoff Doner
Cofounders of Bureau Of Power And Light (BPL)
Co-Creators of ArtHouseTO & ArtHouseTO Affiliated Projects
PS.
If you are interested in investing in our work, please have a look at our Pitch Deck below! We would love to hop on a call with you and see how we can mutually benefit each other!
Organizer
Andrea Battersby
Organizer
Toronto, ON