Community Development in Action - Meet Mohar!
CDLI is spotlighting Community Development in Action! Meet Mohar!
CDLI has partnered with the City of Calgary Community Hubs Initiative to capture Community Development in Action. We recently spoke with community builders about their experiences leading community projects through neighbourhood and community grants.
Mohar Gupta is a professional textile designer and emerging artist. She uses her talents and passion for art and design to bridge creativity and community. Recently she hosted a creative workshop - “Tie a Knot of Kindness, Dye with Happiness” - where members of the community learned how to create beautifully intricate and unique tie dyed t-shirts. Everyone dyed two shirts - one for themselves and one to donate to the Aboriginal Friendship Centre of Calgary. We recently chatted with Mohar about community building - here’s what she shared with us:
What do you love about Downtown that you want the rest of Calgary to know about?
I love downtown because, when I came to Canada, we moved downtown first, and it is so cozy. We are really feeling at home downtown and I love the plus 15. It’s amazing because I am from a tropical country and my country's very hot, and I came here around the middle of November, with minus 35 degree weather. It was a shock for me. So now I love downtown because it’s easy to access and I will tell everyone, newcomers should start from downtown because you will get a rented apartment, you will start everything very conveniently. Even if you don't have a car, it’s easy to access with the transit and everything. I recently moved to another community and I am still going downtown every day for my work and I love it.
Tell us a bit about yourself, your project, and what made you apply for the Hubs Activate grant?
So, as you know, I’m Mohar. I came to Calgary six years back. Back home, I started my journey as a textile designer. I graduated from the National Institute of Fashion Technology and I did my masters in textile design and development. I was working as a textile designer in India and art was my major subject while I was studying. When I moved here I didn't find any job related to my field, so I just kept searching. I was a homemaker at the time and my friends suggested to me “Can you do some kind of art activity for our kids”? So my journey started from there - in my community, teaching art for my friend’s kids. That got more popular and I was thinking about how I can start doing my art more professionally. So my first exhibition in Calgary was from Premier Rachel Notley’s office and it was called Art From Unknown and that gave me a breakthrough in my artistic career. After that I did a couple of exhibitions like emotion gallery art for artists and recently my new exhibition was with Arts Commons’ emerging artists program. I didn't know about this grant thing so from our conversations, I got to know there are some grants at every level.
My project is all about “tie a knot of kindness, dye with happiness” so during this difficult time I wanted to make everybody feel happy. There were about 20 participants and I taught them how to tie and how to dye that t-shirt. When they opened the big knot after dying it, they were like “Oh, my God what's happened? It's like magic”. So we feel so happy and so connected. There were two parts to the project - one was to foster reconciliation and one was community connection. So for the foster reconciliation part, everyone did two t-shirts, one for themselves and one for donation and I donated those 20 t-shirts to the Aboriginal Friendship Centre of Calgary.
Mohar’s Tie-Dye Workshop
How did you put your community building ideas into practice? What was one highlight from completing your grant-funded project?
Community building as an artist, I believe, is not only making art, your art will be alive, if you put that out in the community. Everyone will see your art. If the art is interactive, people will recognize it and will remember me. My objective is community work through my art. A highlight is that I connected with all the members, I made some new friends, we did some great voluntary work. Many of them were asking me how we can do voluntary work with this, I said “You are doing the voluntary work, you are doing a t-shirt for someone else also and they really need some clothing, fashionable and new clothing, not old”.
“Whatever the situation is in your life, if you are creative, if you engage your brain in a creative way, you will feel good. ”
What relationships/connections did you make through this project, and how did those connections help the project?
I made new connections downtown. In the future, if I get another grant I will use all those people and make more new connections and to make community through art. Creative living is very necessary. If you are creative, you will feel good. Whatever the situation is in your life, if you are creative, if you engage your brain in a creative way, you will feel good. So my community connection with creativity - that's the main goal. And another thing, with that donation part to the Aboriginal Friendship Centre of Calgary, I feel good. My last project with the City of Calgary, I made a connection with Aboriginal Friendship Centre Elder Krista White, she did a blessing, and shared their knowledge and some Indigenous art, and about how Indigenous women were involved in that. And also Lucille, she is one of the beading artists, she was also in my project. I believe that as an immigrant, I am here, I should be thankful for this land so always my project is very much connected with the Indigenous Community and my community. I think I will grow as an artist through this kind of work. It is not the exhibition thing only, you need to do something about your community, always giving back.
How has being involved in community work through projects like yours helped develop your confidence and leadership skills? What knowledge & skills have you and others developed through this project?
So my confidence was like 10% when I applied for this grant. I kept telling Joy “I'm a little bit nervous” because my two projects started at almost the same time and I said “I will do it, but I am nervous”. And I could tell you, this increased my organization skills by like 80%. And my voluntary work managing people. I also taught a new skill to community members. And budgeting - that was the hardest part for the project. My husband has a finance background and he always helped me for the budgeting part, but now I'm getting more confident in that and my leadership skills have developed so much. I also have another grant now from Calgary Arts Development for the next version of this project, which is a tie dye also. It is a reverse tie dye with an ancient craft from India. So I am very much thankful for this grant - I grow up more.
Art by Mohar Gupta
Given your experience, what is one step or action you recommend for others wanting to explore neighbourhood grant possibilities and engage in community work?
So, according to me, if they have a very new idea and they want to work in their community to know more people, they should apply for this grant because it's a small scale grant. You will not need to work super super hard, it’s a small project. You very easily make it with your own great ideas. You will develop community connections plus you are giving a new skill to somebody else. If you have never applied for a grant, go for this grant. It is very easily accessible and the committee for this grant - they are super helpful. They told me that if I can’t write what I’m thinking, just write in your own language and we can make some changes, so that’s really helpful. They should not be fearful. You do have to be super duper energetic to do this kind of community work though because you need to encourage people to get involved and make them happy. Working with people is a talent. Managing people, making them happy, doing the project successfully - it’s a challenge but I am passionate about my art and I am confident so that part helped me with the rest.
In one word, what do you imagine for the future of your community?
“Creative-Community” - The future of the community should be a creative community because creative minds fuel the brain, so that’s what I would say - Be Creative.