Jenn Seniuk: My Friend Dave Project
You just never know who you’ll meet or how you’ll impact someone’s life. Art therapist and counsellor Jenn Seniuk was working in community outreach to “fill in some gaps” between clients and found herself at a warming station for folks living outside, getting to know some of the people gathered there. And that’s how Seniuk met her friend Dave.
“I actually met Dave on my first day and I had never laughed so hard at a job and had so much fun, and there was just something so charismatic and so genuine about him,” she says. “It was -40 that day, it was so cold….
“And he told me, one day, he was like, ‘Jenn, I don’t need food. I have my ways of getting food. I have really good connections and community and I clean for people, I take the garbage out, I get fed. I come here for the community connection, and I come here to have conversations about art and travel….’ And I was like, okay, wow, this is really shifting my biases that I didn’t even know I had around folks that are living outside. And then Dave one day was like, ‘I want to write a book about my life, like, other people have tried to help me, but it never really amounted to anything.’
“And I was like, ‘Okay, let’s do it, let’s do it.'”
The project, My Friend Dave, supports marginalized and vulnerable men, sharing their stories through creative expression. The project itself is reaching beyond writing a book, however. According to Seniuk, there’s digital storytelling, music making and an art show planned for next June, which she hopes will make it easier for people to have difficult conversations around the housing crisis or those living outside.
“(The project) just supersedes or bypasses the shame,” she says. “Like, there’s just so much shame in this community, and the guys don’t need to sit and talk about the shame — the art holds space for all of it without them needing to be just retraumatized or entrenched in it. And it’s a way for them to kind of move that up and out of their bodies, and so it’s so important.
“I’ve seen these guys change dramatically in four months of just — I think it’s like the community aspect being met with love, but then also the option of expressing themselves through this art. I think there’s just something so powerful about it, and culturally too, for some of the guys, it’s just very deep in their bones to use art and creative expression to tell their stories directly or indirectly and find space for that shame.”
Tune into this week’s Storytelling Podcast to learn more about Jenn Seniuk and how the My Friend Dave project acknowledges and humanizes those who often get overlooked on the streets, bringing dignity and validity to their stories and recognizing their creativity.
About The Storytelling Podcast
Sharing diverse stories of creativity in our city, The Storytelling Podcast shines a spotlight on artists and projects that connect Calgarians to the arts. Part of The Storytelling Project, this series raises awareness about Calgarians who, by living creative lives, are making Calgary a better city, affecting positive change and enriching others’ lives.
Have a story to share? Email us at submissions@calgaryartsdevelopment.com.
