About Mabelle Avenue
Mabelle Avenue is a historically underserved, high density, low-income inner-suburban neighbourhood in Central Etobicoke, Ontario. Four of the seven rental towers lining the block are owned and operated by Toronto Community Housing - the second largest landlord in North America. The block is highly diverse and majority-racialized with a strong Muslim population from Somalia, South Asia and the Middle East. Over the past three years, the block has seen rapid densification with multiple new developments, which has made our work at Mabelle Arts all the more relevant. We see our organization as a bridge between residents and cultures and believe that now, more than ever, our neighbours need space to meet one another and become friends.
About Mabelle Park
Since 2007, Mabelle Arts has brought together artists, architects, builders and gardeners with thousands of community members of all ages and backgrounds to reimagine Mabelle Park from an abandoned thoroughfare to a vibrant artpark and arts and culture hub. Mabelle Park represents a new kind of social infrastructure - one that can more nimbly respond to community needs and desires and increase collective resiliency.
About Mabelle Arts
Founded in 2007 by Executive Director Leah Houston, Mabelle Arts launched out of a highly successful four year residency on Mabelle Avenue by our predecessors, Jumblies Theatre. Since then, Mabelle Arts has grown into an innovative and sustainable charity with strong roots in community-engaged arts, grassroots community development and placemaking. With a yearly budget of $1 million, Mabelle Arts has grown into a strong and stable organization with deep roots in our local community.
Theory of Change
Woven together, these ingredients become the social infrastructure that supports community connection, ownership and care.
Relationships
Strong relationships between people and places builds shared power, a place to stand together and an ability to support one another.
Art
Artmaking brings people together to do something fun, surprising and great. It gives us a chance to make instant change; to co-create something that has never existed before and to see things (and each other) in new ways.
Programs
Programs develop out of arts-based activities, experimental projects and shared learning. Together with community members and partners we respond to the problems we see with our artist minds and explore new opportunities to make our community better.
Places
Together we co-create places that respond to community needs and desires; reflect local cultures and concerns and welcome people across real and perceived differences.
Our History
Mabelle Arts grew out of a four-year residency by Jumblies and its Artistic Director, Ruth Howard. From 2003 to 2007, Jumblies worked in partnership with Montgomery's Inn and Toronto Community Housing to bring community-engaged arts to Mabelle Avenue. The residency brought together hundreds of residents of all ages and backgrounds with professional artists to explore local stories, create together and build lasting relationships.
About Jumblies Theatre
Founded in 2001 by Ruth Howard, Jumblies Theatre creates radically inclusive community arts projects across Canada. Inspired by the British Community Play form, Jumblies undertakes multi-year residencies in neighbourhoods, bringing together community participants and professional artists from diverse disciplines. With the motto "Everyone is welcome!", Jumblies expands where art happens, who gets to be part of it, what forms it takes and whose stories it tells.
A Bridge of One Hair
The Etobicoke residency culminated in the production "A Bridge of One Hair," which premiered at Harbourfront Centre as part of the World Stage festival in 2007. This large-scale, participatory performance featured original music by Alice Ho, poetry by Hawa Jabril and Duke Redbird, and brought together hundreds of community participants in a powerful theatrical celebration. The production earned a Dora Mavor Moore Award nomination for Outstanding Costume Design.
Becoming Mabelle Arts
Following the success of the residency, the community was ready to continue the work independently. In 2007, Leah Houston founded Mabelle Arts, carrying forward the spirit of radical inclusion, community engagement and artistic excellence established during the Jumblies residency. Mabelle Arts became one of three thriving "Offshoot" organizations that grew from Jumblies' neighbourhood residencies, joining Arts4All in Davenport West and the Community Arts Guild in Scarborough.
Our Foundation
The approach we learned from Jumblies Theatre remains foundational to our work today: multi-year commitment to place and community, radical inclusion, collaboration between professional artists and community members, and building lasting local leadership. From those early days to today's Mabelle Park—the first park in Canada designed by and for a low-income, racialized community—the seeds planted during the Jumblies residency continue to grow.
About the Founder
Leah Houston is the Founder and Executive Director of Mabelle Arts. Over her fifteen years of leadership, Leah has developed strong skills related to strategic growth, governance and partnership development. In that time, Mabelle Arts has emerged as a powerful example of what's possible when people come together to make art and solve problems. With a team of compassionate, smart and imaginative colleagues, Leah and Mabelle Arts are re-defining the role of the arts in low-income communities. Leadership development and civic engagement; public space transformation and design; grassroots tower renewal and local economic development are all integral to the work of Mabelle Arts under Leah's leadership. Leah is a graduate of York University’s Environmental Studies Department and holds an M.A from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. In 2021 she was awarded the inaugural Tim Jones Creative Placemaking Award for her work in the Mabelle neighbourhood.
Leah is available for speaking engagements. Contact info@mabellearts.ca for more information.
