Jane Street Speaks is a nonprofit organization founded in 2018, servicing artists in the West-end of Toronto. Our mission is to provide a platform for artists to showcase their artistic practice, create avenues of growth for emerging talent and to provide artists with opportunities that they may not be aware of or have access to living in marginalized spaces. 

 

Our founder, Nathan Baya, is an artist and community leader born in the Jane and Finch neighborhood who began creating artistic opportunities for himself when he realized how under-resourced the community was. While putting on his own shows, Baya was approached by a number of his peers and neighbors asking to be his opening act and inquiring for ways they can be involved with the unique arts opportunity. This became the catalyst for JaneStreetSpeaks as Nathan started hosting Open Mic Nights for artists, giving them an arts platform that the West-End of the city truly needed. From there, the organization grew to provide other community programming such as clothing drives, workshop series and small-scale concerts.

 

Most importantly, JaneStreetSpeaks advocates for residents of marginalized communities to speak on their own narratives, reclaim the space to share their personal experiences and to contrast the many single-story narratives that gets disseminated in mainstream media. JaneStreetSpeaks stands for positive representations of residents so that younger generations can feel inspired to aspire towards their dreams, wherever they come from, and for individuals to feel empowered to live positive, healthy and prosperous lives.