The Artists (from left to right): Sandesh, Connor, Kabir, Gayathri
Preparing our Interviews
After our eye-opening conversation with the artist Benny Bing, our group had the ability to make significant progress on planning our project during the meeting on Thursday. We took time to create a list of potential interviewees, including artists, developers, and community members (some of whom are more likely to respond to our emails than others…why not email the Chancellor of U of T!). After coming up with a list of people and contacting them to set up interviews next week, we began to create questions for each individual. Sandesh took charge with this component of the meeting and came up with many of the questions we plan on asking during the interviews. Our goal with the interviews is to dig deeper into our research question and find a compelling story to tell in our final written piece.
First, we hope to speak with the four artists that have studios on the Regent Park Living Lane. We know that Benny Bing is one of those artists, alongside Komi Olaf, whom we haven’t had the chance to speak with yet, as well as two more artists. The artist interviews are the most important part of our project because we seek to learn how their lives and the community have been impacted by the Living Lane project. We then seek to interview a representative from Daniels and a representative from Black North Initiative. Benny mentioned he would be able to get us in contact with these people, and we are hoping to have these interviews conducted this week. Interviewing people who worked on creating the idea for the Living Lane will be tremendously important to us because we will be able to ask them about the reasoning for the project and then relate it to economic justice. Finally, we are going to use Sandesh and Kabir’s connections in the community to find and interview at least one long-term resident who has an interest in art. The interviews with residents will give us background on the importance that art has to Regent Park, and potentially explain how the Living Lane has positively impacted the community.
Pictured above: Rhythms of Change - Mitchell Cohen
In preparation for our interviews, Connor is currently reading Rhythms of Change by Mitchell Cohen, which describes the Regent Park redevelopment in-depth from the perspective of Daniels Co. He hopes that there may be a passage that focuses on the role of art in the community, which will help the team dive deeper into conversations with interviewees. All interviews are expected to be conducted within the next two weeks, guaranteeing that there is enough time for the group to analyze the data and write our story.
Project Format and Implementation Plan
Our group has done our due diligence to stay organized in our project. We made the following Gantt Chart (see below) to track our progress. After project teams were first formed on February 13, 2025, we had our first official team meeting over Reading Week on February 20, 2025. We started discussing topics we could pursue in relation to economic justice per the course theme and also made sure to set up weekly group meetings, every Monday from 3:00pm to 4:00pm, in order to have an avenue to meet and discuss project updates and challenges together. During our first weekly meeting on March 3, 2025, we started our project research, going on a walk around the neighbourhood and getting to speak with Benny. This conversation inspired our finalized topic, looking at the role of artists in Regent Park’s economy and how programs offered to artists facilitate economic justice in the community. Going forward, our ongoing project research will include conducting interviews, studying the neighbourhood through our own walking tours (public life study), as well as through media scans and academic literature. We will be regularly updating this Gantt Chart in case there are some changes in team roles and deadlines. Our chart can be accessed via this link.
Gantt Chart - Long-Form Journalism and Podcast Project Deliverables
The Artists team members are Connor, Gayathri, Sandesh, and Kabir