The Mayworks Festival of Working People and the Arts was founded in 1986 by Labour Arts Media Committee of Toronto and York Region Labour Council. Every year the Mayworks arts festival takes place to celebrate working class culture. It has a social justice focus that relates to all. The importance of Mayworks Festival is that it brings the common struggles of all workers into light along with other issues that are not talked about regularly.

The arts community has always faced a struggle to get funding, and for their work to be appreciated. Not everyone understands the value of art and how it works as therapy; it cleans the soul and it reflects human feelings. Everyone lets out their feelings in different ways through different art forms. When people see these art works, they connect with the artist and the work. Through that, they open themselves, their minds, imagination and feelings. The arts are important, as it brings people together, it creates a sense of community and it brings into light the challenges the community faces as a whole and individual challenges. The Arts is one thing that brings everyone together, no matter their ethnicity, religion, and so on. It is a community theory as well, as it shows issues that are present in a community that all do not talk about or people are not aware of.

As these festivals take place to educate people about the disadvantages artists and working class people face, it also brings everyone together to work for a cause they all believe in. It is very important that artists get decent wages, healthy working conditions, and funding, as they keep the community together and make it grow.

Seeing the importance of Mayworks, I was eager to keep an eye out the whole week the festival was talking place to see if the mainstream media talked about it. However, to my surprise and maybe I should not have been, there was no coverage on the festival. Now, to think positive, I say there was and I never saw or heard of it. Not hearing anything from the mainstream media about Mayworks, I decided to see if any alternative media covered it. Although the webstie for NOW Magazine listed Mayworks in their festival list, when I researched their site more I could not find an article fully dedicated on it, which in the end made me a bit sad. Studying the media for that week to see any cover on the festival reminded me of Noam Chomsky’s article called ‘What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream’. Even though it was written over 10 years ago, Chomsky pointed out that the media, for example CBC, is a corporation and it sells a product, and the product is the audience. That corporation, CBC, is selling the audience, such as myself, to another corporation. After that I realized that maybe I should not have been surprised to see no coverage on the festival.

Then it got me thinking, if the festival is not covered by the media than majority of people might not be aware of the festival. So, I began asking my friends questions regarding Mayworks and my main objective was to see if they knew anything about it and if not, to educate them. I asked my friend Steve who goes to York University, some questions after realizing he never heard of Mayworks, I wanted to know why he thinks the arts is important.  In his words the arts is importance because “As they share their art and work with us, they show us what we miss in our day to day lives. They help us take a step and see the world in another way. I think arts such as music, paintings, etc are important because it expresses the artists' feelings in ways that many other forms of communication cannot. In addition, it is the easiest form of communication for people to relate to and connect with these artists' music, paintings, etc.”

Amanda, who loves drawing and painting, she explained to me that art is important because “it shows the variety of emotions that are present in an experience. They form a vision of the future and bring life to what could be a boring society.”

Every artist at the festival is like a mechanism that pushes the event to go on. Mayworks provided and continues to provide a stage for people to express their feelings and struggles in an artistic manner and have their voice heard, which otherwise might not be heard. The festival does a great job at bringing people who share the same issues and concerns together and educating the public about the issues present. Along with many scheduled events, some of the line up included large-scale photographic portraits of the Evergreen Brick site by Dan Bergeron, who created it for Evergreen Brick Works. There was Family Fun Day, where kids and their families took part in exploring basic drawing and painting technologies, and then later learned about creating dramatic soundscapes. Young or old, there were events for all that helped them get in touch with their artistic side and see the artistic side of others.

I m already excited for next year’s Mayworks and I plan on encouraging as many friends as I can to attend the festival. As well, I encourage those who have not heard of Mayworks to check out their site and to make sure they attend the festival next year.