Our website is being renovated and is still a work in progress!
PA Day and After-school Photo Programs
Diana Nazareth returns this fall with a Sept. 8 PA Day program and a four-session after-school program Mondays starting Sept. 13. For details, click here!
Our New Project: Collecting seniors’ stories
We’re embarking on an ambitious new project at Back Lane called Mapping our Memories, and we would love you to join us. Our plan: Collect seniors’ memories and link them to digital maps.
This Mapping our Memories project was inspired by our friend Lois Broad, 94, and her stories about Growing up in the Junction. More details here.
This program is supported in part by the Government of Canada’s New Horizons for Seniors Program.
Here’s Looking at You: Free Zoom Portrait Sessions
Diana Nazareth will offer free portrait photography Zoom sessions for adults in September.
As part of our Mapping our Memories project, we will be holding FREE portrait photography Zoom sessions with our photography instructor Diana Nazareth.
We have scheduled them for Thursday afternoon, Sept. 9 at 1:30 p.m. for an introduction to the basics, and will follow up with another session, Thursday, Sept. 23, also at 1:30 p.m., offering lots of opportunity to practice. You will have an opportunity to discuss your progress on Sept. 16 if you have questions. For more information, or to enrol, click here.
The aim: When we collect seniors’ memories for our Mapping our Memories project, we would love to include both stories from and photos of the subjects, if they are comfortable with that. This idea was inspired by the phenomenally successful and engaging Humans of New York series, combining personal stories and photographs.
If you decide to take part in the Zoom sessions, we hope you’ll be able to collect some seniors’ memories along with photos.
Online Research Session on YouTube
This photo from the Ruddy sign company archive shows Caufield’s Dairy on Howard Park Ave. just east of Roncesvalles. Back Lane Studios is located in what was formerly a branch of Caulfield’s. (Fonds 1488, Series 1230, Item 3197).
Jessica Algie from Toronto Archives presented Zoom workshops on using digital databases to research our Toronto neighbourhood histories earlier this year. The sessions were a great success. We’ve posted a list of links to information, which she shared in her presentation here, and a video of her Zoom presentation is now available on YouTube.
More Projects and Events
Childhood Foods — Cooking has been front and centre in this pandemic. At BLS, we decided to collect stories and recipes for foods you loved as kids. A book with over 50 memories, with photos and recipes, will be published soon. Read some of your food stories here.
Our Stories: Our History — For some years, we have collected our stories. Much of this initiative has been supported by the federal government’s New Horizons for Seniors Program, for which we are most thankful. Now, inspired by the Humans of New York series, we are posting short pieces. Check them out.
Our Summer Employees: Thanks to the Canada Summer Jobs Program, Back Lane Studios now has two part-time employees. We welcome Julia Morin, who will be building our Mapping our Memories website, and Ashley Balbaa as our enthusiastic video editor. We were overwhelmed with applications and would like to thank the many talented people who expressed interest in the jobs! We also would like to welcome intern Frédrik Larivière, who is completing a media program at Humber College. Fred has been working on the website.