This past weekend I participated in YAS! (SYMPO! in French), the Youth Art Symposium organized by the Ottawa Art Gallery. Spearheaded by the brilliant and indefatigable OAG Youth and Educational Programs Coordinator Alexis Boyle, YAS! 2017 was aimed at bringing together select young people aged 15-25 who are currently involved with cultural institutions across the province of Ontario in order to join and lead the discussion on making art more accessible to youth. I was also invited to the event, not, alas, as a youth representative, but in order to act as a “graphic note taker,” tasked with providing visual documentation of the three-day event in the form of live, on-the-spot drawings. Here are the results. The reproductions aren’t great as they are taken with my phone camera; the originals stayed in Ottawa. All told, the event appeared to me to have been a smashing success, and went a long way toward restoring my faith in the future of humanity.
Registration desk
OAG Youth and Educational Programs Coordinator and YAS! organizer Alexis Boyle
Keynote Speaker Morgana McKenzie, award-winning film director and cinematographer
AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario) Youth Council
WAHC (Workers Arts and Heritage Centre, Hamilton)

Museum London Youth Council

Thunder Bay Art Gallery Youth Group

Départ, Ottawa Art Gallery Youth Council

Break-out Discussion
YAS! Party at the National Arts Centre
panel discussion
Wrap-up discussion
Spoken word performance by YAS! Artist in Residence Naomi Tessler