Video, stories, photography, art!

At the studio, workshop participants work on assembling materials and editing their personal videos. l

Back Lane Studios is a not-for-profit multi-use space located in the heart of Roncesvalles Village. We have a high-ceilinged studio in a former dairy building at 9 Neepawa Ave., one block south of Howard Park Ave., just east off Roncesvalles.

Since 2015, we have offered photography and video-making programs for kids, a venue for art shows, lectures and a variety of workshops. We will also be working with a number of schools in 2022 on a video-making program on waste reduction and recycling, supported by a grant from the City of Toronto.

Our main focus since 2017, however, has been the stories and experiences of older generations. We want to help preserve memories and oral histories of long-term residents and newcomers to this country, and have been doing this by:

• Holding workshops for people 55-plus to create videos about some aspect of their lives. We have assisted them in making more than 40 videos in our “Silver Shorts” program.
• Collecting seniors’ memories about their favourite childhood foods and the associated stories for publication in a collection to be published in 2022.
• Embarking on an ambitious program to collect memories and stories and link them to a digital map. Called Mapping our Memories, this project will be launched in March 2022 with a new website.
• We also have been working with Bishop Marrocco/Thomas Merton Catholic High School from 2015-2019 on a program for students to make short videos about their fast-changing neighbourhood and record stories of older family members.

Our programs have been supported by grants from the Government of Canada’s New Horizons for Seniors Program, an Ontario Seniors Community Grant and a Toronto Community Waste Reduction Grant. We also have raised funds through out other activities, including a series of screenings about Extraordinary Women at the nearby Revue Cinema.

Contact us at info@backlanestudios.ca, or call us at 647-313-1654. We look forward to hearing from you.