The Public is on your side.

The Public is excited to keep growing and bringing radical art and design perspectives to the communities around us. As we settle into our new home, and map out a vision for future work, we want to use our brand new gallery space to highlight your thoughts on the values that inform us, the visions that guide us, and the beauty that inspires us.

We invite you to contribute to our upcoming installation, Common Threads, by filling out the form below—feel free to submit multiple times. We will be transferring your words onto tiny folded shapes and displaying them in our new window gallery at 58 Lansdowne through the winter season.

Please feel free to share this with your friends, partners, loved-ones, and anyone you think might be interested. Please submit by noon (EST) on Wednesday December 14th.

Check out our latest newsletter! Subscribe at http://thepublicstudio.ca/

[The Public News] November 2016

We’re “Lansdowne” the Best Public Studio!

The Public is thrilled to announce that we’re beginning our next chapter, and moving to a new and improved space! Our new wheelchair accessible store-front studio and gallery will allow us to host events, workshops, shared work stations, a resource library, and to feature artists and designers working towards a more just world.

Starting December 1, 2016, you can find us at 58 Lansdowne Avenue, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm. Be sure to add our new location to your address books, but note that our phone number and email addresses remain the same.

Sex Ed Saves the Day! In the Fall 2016 issue of Sex, etc., teens advocate for sex ed with features on birth control/safer sex superheroes, and bringing sex ed into their schools and communities.

Sex, Etc. is a US-wide magazine for and by teens with direction from Answer at Rutgers University, an organization committed to providing comprehensive sexuality education for teens. We have been working with Answer since 2008, providing creative direction, design and production for this ground-breaking publication.

Have you signed up for our newsletter yet? 

The Public will be announcing some BIG changes very soon and we want to share this special news with you!

Be the first to find out about The Public’s upcoming events, workshops, and DIY design tools by subscribing today! Every other month, you’ll get to hear about who and what projects we’re working with, internship & collaboration opportunities, and local events at the intersections of design and activism. 

Working from principles of social justice, self-determination and anti-oppression, the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network defends and advances the human rights of people living with and affected by HIV/AIDS.

For the past twenty-four years, the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network has moved forward on a vision in which the human rights and dignity of those affected and living with HIV/AIDS are fully realized and supported through policy and legal reform. After a decade of federal Conservative leadership, the CHLN is reasserting its vision and calling on Canada to re-commit to uphold and defend human rights and move forward the global project of ending theHIV pandemic.

The Public worked with the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network to design an annual report that reinvigorates the federal response to HIV, centering on principles of harm reduction, human rights, sex-worker rights and equitable access to medicine. Marking a moment of reflection, visioning, and movement building, the report highlights many facets of the Legal Network’s work, including articles on the criminalization of HIV/AIDS, drug policy engagement, LGBTI rights, and infographics of their activities, campaigns, and financial overview.

The Disclosure Kit was designed by a team of eight bisexual women over the course of two weekends in a creative design workshop led by The Public.

Designed for bisexual women who want to tell their friends, family, or other people in our lives about their bisexuality, the hope is that this kit will help to get the social support needed from the people who matter most to those coming out.

The first half of the kit is designed to help prepare the person coming out as bisexual or a related identity. It offers processing tools to help them decide what they want to say, assess the risks of coming out to others, and plan how they’d like to share this information.

The second half is for the person coming out to fill out and give to the folks they want to tell about their bisexuality, which includes processing tools and resources for understanding and supporting the person coming out.

Planned Parenthood Toronto is a pro-choice community health centre offering a wide range of services to youth in primary, sexual, reproductive, and mental health. Committed to providing supportive spaces, resources, and advocacy for youth health, PPT seeks to help youth make empowered and informed decisions about their health and relationships. Having emerged from the women's rights movement, PPT has since evolved further to integrate an understanding of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia.

The Spring 2016 issue of Sex, etc. is here and teens are talking about relationships with friends, families, and partners! This issue features stories about learning from past romantic relationships, how families influence personal ideas about sex, and the impact friendships can have on teens’ sexual beliefs and behaviours.  

Sex, Etc. is a US-wide magazine for and by teens with direction from Answer at Rutgers University, an organization committed to providing comprehensive sexuality education for teens.

We have been working with Answer since 2008, providing creative direction, design and production for this ground-breaking publication.

Our latest newsletter is out! Happy Spring! It’s a time of rebirth, awakening, and fresh beginnings. As the fight for a life of justice and beauty thrives across our communities, The Public is springing into action and welcoming new energy with exciting work and collaborations. Subscribe via our website at www.thepublicstudio.ca!

The Public News: In the Studio

Welcoming our Spring Interns!

Interns play a vital role here at The Public, taking the lead and designing two key in-house initiatives, our DIY Creative Resistance design zines and People’s History posters. This April and May, we are excited to welcome our newest interns Josephine and Brittany. We can’t wait to see what brilliance they’ll bring to the studio!

In Solidarity with Black Lives Matter

The Public stands in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter Toronto, who recently held their Tent City outside of Toronto Police Headquarters. Over two weeks, Black Torontonians and allies challenged anti-Black racism in our city and demanded: justice for Andrew Loku, Jermaine Carby and Alex Wetlaufer; an overhaul of Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit in consultation with families of victims of police violence, the Black community, and the community at large; a commitment to the full elimination of carding; and a condemnation of Toronto Police’s excessive use of force and ongoing intimidation tactics against Black Lives Matter Toronto protesters. We celebrate the important wins BLMTO has achieved through collective action, and support the continued fight for dignity and justice for all Black lives. For more information on how to support and to stay updated, click here!

Read on with the full newsletter here for community event highlights, what we’ve been up to outside of the studio, and the latest projects and collaborations we’ve been working on. 

At The Public, we aim to democratize design through collaborative processes and sharing resources with the community at large. Our People’s History poster series is available online for purchase and download for individuals and organizations alike to use in their movement building work.

The Status of Women Committee at the Federation of Post-Secondary Educators of BC used our International Women’s Day poster for their celebrations this year, including these magnets and posters!

Sheila led a workshop at Newcomer Women’s Services Toronto on pattern (textile) making and fashion through storytelling, zine-making, and collaborative design, including a DIY guide on pattern making for participants to take home.

Check out our latest newsletter! With 2016 here and the lunar new year in full effect, we’ve already gotten a head start on what is sure to be an amazing year of community-building, design, activism and fun. Subscribe via our website at www.thepublicstudio.ca! 

The Public News: In the Studio

Sowing seeds for Spring internships

We had an overwhelming response to our call for summer interns! The applications are in and we are starting on what will surely be a difficult selection process. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be sorting through all the submissions and preparing to interview a short-list. Good luck to everyone who applied this year!

To stay updated on the latest intern callouts, follow us on Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook!

The future starts with a vision

Our team got together during the holidays for visioning session to imagine and carve out ways we want to move forward and build on our history, relationships, and strengths. Stay tuned for exciting updates on upcoming co-creation, community outreach and self-initiated projects!

Art + Social Justice Exchange

Sheila recently spoke at the closing plenary Community Building with Art and Design alongside Melissa Moore from Y-LLEAD, Jason Samilski from CUE, and Naty Tremblay from Sketch at the Art + Design Social Justice Exchange, a conference organized by the OCAD Student Union to bring together innovative people using art and design to create meaningful and radical change.

Not Lost was a free 10-​​week creative writing​ ​workshop in Toronto for youth living with grief through the loss of a loved one. Not Lost was facilitated by mel g campbell, a "queer, Black, chronically ill, sometimes-femme poet" who regularly works with themes of resilience and intersectionality, and is passionate about interdependence and believes in combining art and activism to create change in a world tormented by histories and systems of violence.

The Public worked with mel to design a poster that welcomed youth​ ​aged 18-29 who exist within​ ​the margins ​to share a place where​ ​participants gather to​ ​share, grieve, build,​ ​and make.

The Public is an activist design studio specializing in changing the world. We are looking for talented design interns to join our team for a unique hands-on opportunity, focusing on the intersection between art/design and social justice.

The right candidates will have demonstrated skills in graphic design and a strong interest in social justice and/or activism. Working closing with the creative directors, the successful candidates will take leadership on two in-house projects: conducting research, imagining concepts, writing copy, designing layouts and preparing files for print.

Required skills:

demonstrated commitment to social justice, anti-oppression or activism

strategic and creative thinking

attention to detail

The following skills are not required but are considered assets

strong layout, typography and print production skills

proficiency in Adobe Creative Suite and Microsoft Word on a Mac Platform

Details

This position requires working out of our Toronto studio three days a week, for four weeks (12 days total). Work days are from 10am-5pm. Start date flexible.

This is a paid position.

To apply

Please forward a cover letter, CV and portfolio to [email protected] by February 3, 2016

The Public is committed to anti-oppressive values, and preference will be given to applicants who self-identify as coming from marginalized groups.

* Please contact us about the possibility of meeting your access needs, however please note that our studio is up three flights of stairs and is not wheelchair accessible at this time.

The Winter 2016 issue of Sex, etc. is here! Redefining “normal,” this issue features stories on fatphobia, body/genital diversity, and being transgender. 

Sex, Etc. is a US-wide magazine for and by teens with direction from Answer at Rutgers University, an organization committed to providing comprehensive sexuality education for teens.

We have been working with Answer since 2008, providing creative direction, design and production for this ground-breaking publication.