Past CIF Projects
2024
Portrait & Perspective Drawing
This 11-week course runs in a 2-module structure. Learn techniques to draw:
- Portraits – including the nose, mouth, eyes and ears
- Perspectives – including one-point and two-point perspectives
Lessons start from simple and easy to do exercises, then build on those skills, and eventually reach some advanced ways to accomplish art.
One of our motto’s is that in every class we are here to have fun, and if we learn something new then that is a bonus. Having fun is the most important part of learning.
Creative Expressions Art Nights
A series of community crafting events with offerings held both online and in-person. This project is a celebration of meeting and making, a social way to share your passion for craft, art, and design with the community.
Get social and creative by partaking in community-building activities. Bring a creative project you are working on, or come and see what everyone else is working on.
One free mini-tutorial is offered at each event to get our creativity flowing. In-person events provide participants who attend with the supplies, tools, snacks, and know-how at no cost to participants. Online events will showcase the projects and process of creations made at home.
Creative Expressions Art Nights is led by a peer who is interested in holding community events that provide opportunities for other peers to socialize and create artwork to improve their wellbeing.
Improvisation Theatre
This project is is divided into two separate classes:
Introduction to Improvisation: Discover the secrets of improvisation in this fun, team-oriented 9-week comedy workshop. Learn how to give and accept offers, create an environment and develop storytelling skills. Surprise yourself with your own spontaneity and lose your stage fright as we perform group improv games.
Playback Theatre: Are you a compassionate person? Do you want to take part in meaningful and expressive theatre with a view to starting our own playback theatre troupe? Join our class as we improvise each others stories using fabric, acting, music and movement in a friendly, safe and supportive environment. The final class will be a performance for family and friends.
Musings From Lived Experience
An opinion column by Merle Ginsburg covering topics related to mental health and substance use.
Past Columns:
2023
Hearing Voices Study Club
The Hearing Voices Study Club is a discussion group that meets monthly to read, watch, and listen to media related to hearing voices. The group is open to anyone who hears voices, sees visions, or has other unique sensory experiences or beliefs, as well as loved ones, service providers, students, and any other community members who are interested in learning.
We select critical and eye opening topics related to voice hearing and similar experiences to reflect on how they relate to people’s lives today. After watching a video or reading an article together, we invite group members to share their thoughts. We aim to respect everyone as the expert on their own experiences and to value the many diverse perspectives we bring to the discussion.
Past topics have included: living with and without medication, life after hospitalization, finding meaning in experiences of voices or visions, the history of recovery movements in BC, spiritual perspectives, and more!
Let Art Shine A Path
Let Art Shine A Path is an Art Hub Directory Page to help artists with lived/living experience of mental health/disabilities to expose them to available art shows and more.
Art brings out feelings, meaning, worth, value, and both joy and sadness from within. We want to help artists connect, share information, talk about the art that inspired them, and/or helped in their mental wellness journey.
This project gathers information about events and opportunities throughout the year for artists with disabilities. It supports participants with the application process, sharing their work in art shows (both online and in person), providing the chance to earn some income through their creative outlet.
Let Art Shine A Path is also hosted their own art show featuring the work of local peers.
Adventures in Short Film Writing
Have you been interested in films but don’t know where to begin? Why not start with the creation of a short film script? The basics are covered in this course.
Writing gives you the chance to realize your vision by turning concepts into pictures that can then be turned into a short film. You’ll learn the fundamentals of screenwriting through guided lessons and exercises, and you’ll have the chance to create your very own project in a welcoming, judgment-free environment!
Community Kitchen Club
This project allows people to meet in a social setting to learn new healthy cooking skills. This can help those who are more isolated to participate in food production and not feel pressured to talk in a group. Participants will be able to enjoy healthy food and hopefully improve their skills for preparing healthy food and become healthier in the process.
Drawing Fundamentals
The fundamentals of drawing are being offered in a 11-week course. The last class will be a partial party. I plan to start from simple and easy to do exercises, then build on those skills, and eventually reach some advanced ideas and ways to accomplish art. The course runs in a 5 module structure that builds upon basic skills to more advanced ones.
The goal is for people to have fun in a safe environment where they can learn new skills that will give them confidence in doing art which could possibly give them more confidence in life.
Tour Vancouver
Tour Vancouver as a group, be a tourist in your own city! It allows people with similar interests to come together and do something fun, that they may not be comfortable doing on their own.
I’ve lived in Vancouver for almost half my life yet there are things (attractions) that I have never done. This is due to limited funds and also because I don’t feel comfortable doing them alone. I hope that by offering this group, people who have been living in Vancouver for the majority of their lives, or those who are new to the City, can share this experience together.
2022
TED Talks
The Ted Talks group meets weekly at the same time to view and discuss a Ted Talk on a theme such as motivation, food and culture or ways to communicate and make friends. The group is an in-person opportunity to break the ice and the isolation and view, socialize and discuss a Ted Talk.
The project caters to small groups of peers who have coped with extended periods of isolation and being stuck indoors with reduced socialization and therapeutic opportunities and outlets.
The project provides repeat opportunities for peers to socialize and discuss various topics in a low-pressure conversational environment. The project engages diverse peers at a time when safe, low barrier opportunities to socialize in person are rare and isolation is widespread.
Autobiographical Writing
Write your lived experience in a full length autobiography in a supportive group setting. We meet weekly to discuss what we’ve written and read each other’s progress for insight and encouragement. Putting your life’s journey into words can be healing for you and others that read your story. At the end of 12 months we will have the books professionally proofread. We will be submitting the work to publishers and lastly at least self publish.
Bocce
Have you been yearning to get outside, play, enjoy summer, and/or socialize in a low-pressure environment all isolating pandemic? Go beyond your front door and join us for a classic Italian lawn bowling game called bocce. It is easy to learn and fun to play for diverse abilities!
Bocce in the Park provides a safe, socially distanced, inclusive opportunity for peers to get together outdoors in the local community while being physically active.
The Bocce in the Park group meets at the same time weekly for recreational rounds of Bocce in the park. PPE, sanitizing supplies, bocce equipment and refreshments are provided. At the end of the project we celebrate with a pizza picnic in the park.
Night of Games
A place for folks to connect online and have fun learning new games and playing together. Games played include word games, variations of trivial pursuit, and guess who.
Hosted virtually on Zoom each week. Drop-in, no registration required. Co-hosts take turns leading games.
Participants are not under any obligation or pressure to play any game if they’d rather not.
We hope people will enjoy the social connection & feel less isolated when they join in.
2021
Heroes from Home
Hosted virtually on Zoom, Heroes from Home provides an opportunity for people who identify as having a mental illness to digitally connect with one another and play Dungeons and Dragons in an understanding and supportive environment.
This project will, in a structured manner facilitate social connections between isolated people while imparting skills and knowledge that will allow participants to avail themselves of a large and preexisting community, be that online or in-person.
Writing for the Screen
A screenwriting workshop held weekly on Zoom for persons with Mental Health and/or Addictions issues who have film ideas that they want to explore, develop and share among peers in a safe, nonjudgmental environment.
Writing from the Screen will support participants to feel comfortable finding their own voice with encouragement and acceptance despite the unfamiliarity of the art form. Small, simple exercises will be given for the process of finding their inner movie.
A story or concept from each participant will be workshopped in whatever vehicle they want to use – a short film idea, a feature script, or a TV/ web series. This project will enable participants to conceptualize it, develop it and put it to the test by workshopping it with feedback from peers.
In film school we learned that it is not what you say, it is how you say it. The focus is for the participants to feel comfortable finding their own voice and expressing their truth.