The Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections (CTASC) escape the reading room and reach out to the wider public through the work of its researchers and partnerships. Over the winter semester, archival holdings played a starring role in two public exhibitions featuring Helen Lucas and Yorkville's folk music scene in the 1960s.

Helen Lucas : “Roots to Present”

Curators Jenna Shamoon and Simon Wharton borrowed sketches from the Helen Lucas fonds to put on an exhibition at the Papermill Gallery in the Todmorden Mills Heritage Site between 8 February and 5 March 2017. The exhibition, the first retrospective of this remarkable Canadian artist, was part of the “TO Canada with Love” year-long program of celebrations, commemorations and exhibitions to honour Canada’s 150th anniversary. Images from the opening reception are available on Helen Lucas’s website.

Yorkville and the Folk Revival in Toronto

Michael Primiani, a fourth-year history major, and Stacy-Allison Cassin, the W.P. Scott Chair in E-Librarianship at Scott Library, curated an online exhibit which explores Toronto’s folk music scene in the 1960s. Images from the Toronto Telegram fonds are compared alongside images from the City of Toronto Archives and Primiani’s photographs of the present to illustrate Yorkville’s earlier past as a neighbourhood haven for hippies, art and music. More information about the project can be found on the York University’s Department of History website.