Mimico Arts Jam – June 20th

Join Lakeshore Arts at the first annual Mimico Arts Jam festival!

We’ll be at Mimico Square on June 20th, with FREE all-ages art activities, led by artists! See stage performances, and stay for our Arts Jam Pageant!

Details:
Date: Saturday, June 20, 2026
Time: 2-6pm
Location: Amos Waites Park, 2441 Lake Shore Blvd. W.
FREE, all-ages activities!

The Mimico Arts Jam Pageant will be at 4pm, joined by community members, along with participants of workshops by Pushmakers, with music led by Marching Disorder.

There will be FREE art activities for all ages throughout the afternoon! Contribute to collaborative art, such as a community mural, collective banner, blackout poetry, and more! Plus, join participatory activities, such as movement by the Dance Together Project and singing by LSA’s Song Circle leaders! With performances from Sequoia Erickson, Free Flow Visual Artistry, and clowns Andrew & Ruy!

Access Measures:

A “quiet hour” from 2-3PM, with no stage performances
ASL interpretation for stage performances
An Access Guide, including map, available
Foam earplugs available at the Info Booth
Art Activities will have written instructions to follow along with

Original illustrations by Parmeet Arora Bori

Meet the Facilitators

Coming soon!

Meet the Performers

Movement by the Dance Together Project

The Dance Together Festival offers free dance workshops and events that celebrate positive and accessible dance experiences in Amos Waites Park. Every summer, Mimico Square is transformed with a colourful dance floor mural and becomes a vibrant community dance space. The neighbourhood is invited to help paint a new dance floor June 8-14 and join the dance workshops July 9-12, 2026.

This year will feature diverse styles including Afrofusion, Samba, Bollywood, Salsa, Soca, Ukrainian Village Dance, Swing and Soul Line Dance, as well two live bands, social dancing and performances on the dance floor mural! Open to all levels, ages and abilities. The festival is presented by the Dance Together Project, in collaboration with a creative team of local dance and visual artists. Supported by Toronto Arts Foundation, Arts in the Parks, Lakeshore Arts and Mimico by the Lake BIA.

Photo by Mirna Chacin

Hooping by Free Flow Visual Artistry

Free of Free Flow Visual Artistry (all respectful pronouns) is a traveling insured specialty entertainer with circus roots from Colorado to Ontario. Specializing in fire, LED, silks, stilts, bubbles and other unique prop performance, Free creates immersive entertainment experiences featuring highly detailed costumes and custom characters for children’s parties and adult soirees. Free also teaches yoga in small group and private settings in-person and remotely. Find Free Flow Visual Artistry on Instagram, Facebook and on her website to book bespoke entertainment experiences and to follow her global artistic endeavors!

Stilting by Sequoia Erickson

Sequoia Erickson (she/her) likes making things: from giant butterflies, to shadow puppets, to tutus and samurai armour. A strong belief in the power of the extraordinary compels her to be constantly searching for unusual and visually creative ways to tell stories. She is currently a freelance Costume Designer and Stilt Walker; the Creative Director of Little Chaos Co. and a graduate of the Performance Production program at Toronto Metropolitan University.

Clowning by Andrew Gaboury

Andrew Gaboury is a performer, writer and educator based in Port Credit, Mississauga. The desire to bring a sense of wonder and joy to the everyday is central to his practice. As a performer, he employs techniques from theatrical clown, collective creation, dance, puppetry and community arts. As a writer, Andrew has explored a variety of mediums, including playscript, poetry, and recently a video game. Andrew is a company member with Mississauga-based, site-specific dance-theatre company Frog In Hand. He is Acting Executive Director and a therapeutic clown practitioner with Red Nose Remedy – a company founded by award-winning clown Helen Donnelly.

Our Sponsors

A big thank you to our sponsors:

With coffee/tea courtesy of Birds & Beans Cafe!

Our Funders

We are grateful for the support of the Community Celebration Support Fund for this event.

Carmen Ocampo Velázquez (She/They) is a Toronto-based multidisciplinary artist, curator, and psychologist originally from Colombia. Her experience centers on healing, identity, and social change through collaborative engaged art. Drawing on a clinical psychology background spanning over 30 years, she catalyzes creative processes that foster individual and communitarian resilience and empowerment. Carmen holds a Master’s in Environmental Studies and is the founder of Matiz Project, a transdisciplinary collective harnessing the transformative power of art to deconstruct social narratives and reclaim collective voices. Currently, she serves as an Art & Wellbeing Facilitator and Board Member at Lakeshore Arts (LSA).

Aisha (she/her) is a youth advocate who uses storytelling and art to amplify young people’s voices in civic and community spaces. She is a member of the Canadian Center for Cultural Diplomacy and the King’s Trust Canada Youth Council, where she helps bring youth voices into community conversations and decision-making. She also represented young people in a range of community and leadership forums.

Aisha completed governance and leadership training with Fora Rise on Boards and is joining Lakeshore Arts to contribute to community-based arts initiatives. She is committed to using creative expression to help build more inclusive and connected communities

Akshat Jhaveri (he/him), working in the financial services industry for almost a decade. His ability to connect, communicate and understand the needs of clients is his true passion. Outside the finance world, you might catch him shooting hoops on the basketball court, taking a swim, or hitting the road with a smile while driving his car (blasting music). With a mix of financial smarts and a love for life outside the office, Akshat brings a well-rounded energy to everything he does.

Francis Tomkins (they/them) is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice includes animation, collage, zine making, and workshop facilitation. They have a BFA in Cross-Disciplinary Arts: Publications from OCAD University and have worked within the arts and accessibility sectors at Tangled Art + Disability, StopGap Foundation and Toronto Queer Film Festival. Their work has been featured by Toronto Animated Image Society (TAIS), RestFest Film Festival, and Arts Etobicoke. Francis is passionate about how art can be used to create and sustain connected communities.

Renu Indapurkar (she/her) is a Toronto-based portrait artist whose love for art began in childhood, inspired by her grandfather, a painter and art teacher. Growing up around his practice and teaching, art became an integral part of her everyday life and a natural way for her to express and connect with the world.

She works across mixed media, oil, watercolour, oil paint and coffee painting, and specializes in portrait art. For the past five years, Renu has been running her small business RK Artworks, creating commissioned pieces that celebrate people and personal stories. More recently, she launched Live Wedding Painting, where she paints live at weddings, capturing meaningful moments as they happen.

Twenty-five years ago, Charlotte founded Wuthering Bites, a café on the Lakeshore in Mimico that focused on the arts and community. With a diverse background in teaching, research and advocacy, and a passion for writing and visual art, Charlotte is thrilled to now be working with Lakeshore Arts as they launch exciting new initiatives for our South Etobicoke neighbourhood. She is especially thrilled to have a unique opportunity to focus on engagement and programming for seniors.

Annie Katsura Rollins (she/they) is a community arts worker, researcher, and puppetry artist. Finding a sense of much needed belonging in community theatre as a young person, she pursued understanding this feeling of connectedness through the arts with degrees in performance (BFA), theatre performance, direction, and puppetry (MFA) and finally a study in traditional lineages of folk puppetry in China (PhD). She concurrently tested this understanding through over 20 years of professional work in art education, facilitation, and community building.

Since moving to Toronto in 2017, Annie has worked in the community arts sector and co-founded and co-curates with Concrete Cabaret, Toronto’s only experimental puppet slam. Annie is a professor in the University of Connecticut graduate certificate program in puppetry arts. She believes that having the arts in our everyday lives is no longer a luxury but a necessity.

Sin Tung (Steffi) Ng (she/her) explores the complexities of Asian immigration experiences through curation, writing and photography. Interweaving these three artistic practices, Ng seeks to build site-specific exhibitions, public programs and installations that amplify marginalized voices and make space for joyful encounters across diverse cultures. Her works have been featured at the DesignTO 2025, Xpace Cultural Centre, Unit 270 and the Graduate Gallery.

Born and raised in Hong Kong, Sin Tung/Steffi is currently based in Tkaronto/Toronto. Her recent interests include AI image-making of demolished architectures, long-distance friendships and Japanese city boy fashion.

Revital Weiss is a queer Jewish arts worker who believes in the transformational power of the arts. Revital works with artists to develop socially-minded arts programming for marginalized communities. She also advocates for opportunities for emerging artists, particularly BIPOC, 2SLGBTQ+ folks, and incarcerated/formerly incarcerated people. Revital has co-curated and supported arts projects at Neilson Park Creative Centre, the Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre, FENTSTER Gallery, and King Heritage and Cultural Centre. Revital holds a Master of Museum Studies. In a past life, Revital was an urban planner.

Mimico Arts Jam – June 20th

Artists in Practice: Training in Community Arts Facilitation

Carmen Ocampo

Aisha Sidiqi

Akshat Jhaveri

Karen Kew

Francis Tomkins

Renu Indapurkar

Charlotte Sheasby-Coleman

Kadeem Parchment

Annie Katsura Rollins

Steffi Ng

Revital Weiss

Sherry Pom Foreman

Andi Canales