Naivelt Projects

Naivelt 100th was a site-specific, community-engaged arts project marking the 100th anniversary of Camp Naivelt, the historic and still-active summer home of Toronto’s Secular Jewish Left, located along the Credit River in Brampton.

Developed with the Naivelt community and its parent organization, the United Jewish People’s Order, the project drew on the camp’s rich history as a place of gathering, political activism, cultural expression, summer recreation, debate, friendship and intergenerational connection. It explored how Naivelt has changed over time while continuing to provide a space for shared values, collective memory and community life.

The culminating event was structured as a journey through the site and through time. Visitors moved among a series of Decade Stations, each representing a different period in Naivelt’s 100-year history. Located throughout the camp, these stations combined live performance, storytelling, music, archival materials, visual art and participatory activities. Rather than presenting the history as a single linear narrative, the event invited audiences to encounter it spatially—walking from place to place, listening to different voices and experiencing the layers of memory embedded in the landscape.

The Decade Stations drew from archival photographs and documents, oral-history interviews, community story circles, songs, personal recollections and objects preserved by generations of Naivelters. Some focused on significant political and cultural moments, while others evoked the rhythms of everyday camp life: swimming, dancing, children’s activities, communal meals, performances, debates and long-standing traditions. Together, they created a living portrait of a community shaped by continuity, disagreement, adaptation and renewal.

Community members were not only the subjects of the project but also its collaborators, performers, storytellers, researchers and hosts. Their memories and contributions shaped both the content and the form of the event. The project brought together elders, children, artists, residents, former residents and visitors, creating opportunities for stories to be shared across generations.

Through its combination of performance, archives, movement through place and collective participation, Naivelt 100th celebrated the camp’s enduring significance while acknowledging the social, political and physical changes surrounding it. The project honoured Naivelt not as a fixed historical site, but as a living community whose meaning continues to be renewed by the people who gather there.