This summer, ReDefine Arts has been hosting free community arts workshops around St. James Town as part of the Winchester Park "Four Seasons" Pebble Mosaic Project, a project initiated by the St. James Town Residents Council through Ward 13's Participatory Budgeting.
On July 21, 2025, we hosted the first workshop focused on community design development at the Wellesley Community Centre. Long time St. James Town resident and current chair of the St. James Town Residents Council, Randy Alexander, spoke at the workshop, sharing how this project came to be. Here’s an excerpt of words shared:
“Today is a good day, for many reasons.
Today is the beginning of our projects' neighbourhood engagement with the collaborative and interactive community design workshops. Today, we gather as neighbours to create and build something together – with each other, for each other.
We hope that projects like this are real life demonstrations of dreaming. We hope that you see in this project that it is possible for residents to come together to accomplish positive things that strengthen our communities. Our St. James Town Residents Council is committed to supporting other residents with their dreams, ideas and initiatives that improve our neighbourhoods to make them stronger, safer, healthier and more beautiful.
For me personally, today is very rewarding. A lot of my favourite things are in this room right now – my dogs, my friends, really smart people, very creative people, and people who want to collaborate to create something beautiful.
Two of those very smart, creative, collaborative people here today are Anna and Tristan, the Founding Artistic Co-Directors of ReDefine Arts. They have been creating art and opportunities for artists for decades, in our neighbourhood, around our city, and across the country. They founded Red Dress Productions 20 years ago, in 2005, right here in our community. In 2020, they reimagined and rebranded as ReDefine Arts.
You have likely seen their community public art works and installations all around downtown east. Ten years ago, I had the pleasure of meeting them for the first time while taking one of their free creative writing workshop series here in St. James Town. Since then, I have collaborated and created with them on poetry, plays, puppets, and public art, including pebble mosaics. Our local pebble mosaics specifically have become very important to me. For me, they represent nature, creation, collaboration, and community. I visit them nearly every day. They have become spiritual touchstones for me, and places for friends to gather, for solitude, for storytelling, for bird watching, for stargazing, for prayer, for grief, for healing, for imbibing, for laughter.
Anna and Tristan's creations, contributions, and achievements in and with our community have inspired our imaginations and the visions of our current and future projects.
We are very fortunate to have the ReDefine Arts team here today as guardians, trustees, and guides of our project.
Today, we're very fortunate to be beginning to build new mosaics, and to be building through them new stories, new visions, new connections, and new communities.
Thank you for joining us today.”
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Learn more about the Winchester Park “Four Seasons” Mosaic Project: https://linktr.ee/winchestermosaic
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The St. James Town Residents Council (SJTRC) is an advocacy group and association of residents who live in and care for St. James Town, the land of many Indigenous nations and one of Toronto’s most vibrant and diverse communities. The SJTRC prioritizes affordable housing and tenants’ rights, community health and safety, harm reduction, accessibility, equity, inclusion, and reconciliation.
ReDefine Arts creates and presents community grounded interdisciplinary performance, installations and public artworks. ReDefine Arts is based in Toronto, with programming hubs and projects in rural Ontario.
Ward 13 – Toronto Centre is a dynamic downtown district that includes the diverse neighbourhoods of St. James Town, Regent Park, Cabbagetown, and Church-Wellesley. Councillor Chris Moise represents this area with a strong focus on equity, inclusion, and vibrant public spaces.
The City of Toronto is home to more than three million people whose diversity and experiences make this great city Canada’s leading economic engine and one of the world’s most diverse and livable cities. As the fourth largest city in North America, Toronto is a global leader in technology, finance, film, music, culture and innovation and climate action, and consistently places at the top of international rankings due to investments championed by its government, residents and businesses.