The History of the Children's Choice Awards

In collaboration with the students of Parkdale Public School, Toronto, The Children's Choice Awards featured a jury of kids, ranging in age from 7 - 15, critiquing the art works presented at Alley Jaunt based on criteria they developed, and distributing awards at the offical ceremony on Saturday August 11.



The jury was comprised of some of Parkdale's brightest minds: Sanath, Latha, Callum, Kahlil, Zoe, Lara, Dalton, Lauren, Camille, Wendy and Hayley. They spent the entire day walking through the alleys around Trinity Bellwoods Park, sharing the duty of pulling injured jury member, Lara, in a wagon and reviewing the 32 intstallations.



The jury sat under a tree in Trinity Bellwoods park and, in heated and confusing deliberations that almost popped a blood vessel in Artistic Director Darren O'Donnell's brain, chose the lucky and talented recepients of the 14 chocolate-covered trophies that the jury had laboured over all week.



THE WINNERS
Best Overall: Simila Civelek
Most Relevant to the City: Petrina Ng & Shannon Phair
Most Meaningful: Nadia Jurd & Riaz Mehmood
Best Concept: Shari Kasman
Most Depressing: Marco Buonocore
Most Relaxing: Elida Schoght
Scariest: Tanya Read
Most Fun: Cardboard Heart Imagination Laboratory
Most Hilarious: Shannon Gerard
Most Attention to Detail: Zanette Singh
Most Attention to Detail: Claire Despaire
Most Canadian: Praire Jaunt
Happiest: Brian & Madelaine Lyons
Most Eco-Friendly: League of Tangents
Special Award: Team Alley Jaunt.

Special thanks to Souvankham Thammavongsa for volunteering to assist the jury and Kahlil's mom, Jocelyn, for the watermelon.

The Children's Choice Awards

The inaugural Children's Choice Awards is a decisive intervention that delves into Melbourne Festival: a group of Melbourne kids from the suburb of Footscray are chauffeured from event to event, they check out the art and offer brash, incisive and audacious opinions. And then they hand out a few awards! Watch for the young jury as they crawl all over the Festival, their tender knees protected from the evils of the world by the thinnest of red carpet. Then check out the Award Ceremony and hear their pronouncements.

This blog will document the jury's exploits as they run from event to event to event to event. The fun starts on October 6, so please check back then.

Mammalian Diving Reflex is a Toronto-based research-art atelier dedicated to investigating the social sphere, always on the lookout for contradictions to whip into aesthetically scintillating experiences, producing one-off events, theatre-based performance, theoretical texts and community happenings.

Working with adults and children alike, Mammalian Diving Reflex creates critically-engaged participatory events including Slow Dance with Teacher, Old People Shooting Guns and the international hit Haircuts by Children.