In 2006, two artists fled the high cost of living in Vancouver and moved to a place where they knew absolutely nobody, Bruno, Saskatchewan, population 500. They set up a storefront building in which they housed their own unique brand of café / art shop / community centre / music venue called All Citizens from 2007-2011. McCarroll kept a blog called Going Rural of her travels and experiences moving and setting up shop. This blog (text and photographs) forms a significant chapter of the All Citizens art book and serves as an introduction to Saara Liinamaa's essay on rural interventions. The documentation (in text, interviews, and photographs) of the artistic practice of three local senior women formed McCarroll's MFA thesis project in the Documentary Media Program at Ryerson and constitutes another significant chapter. Cartoonist David Collier visits one of these women in Bruno and provides a comic essay in his own style. Also contributing is artist Jason McLean. But the heart of the All Citizens project was the store itself, a meeting place, shop, cultural centre, music venue and all things in between. It was the ultimate culmination of a DIY aesthetic forged onto a rural landscape. Includes Bonus CD: Daniel, Fred, and Julie: Live at All Citizens.

Serena McCarroll's profile page

Saara Liinamaa is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Guelph.

Saara Liinamaa's profile page

David Collier is the author of Portraits from Life, Hamilton Sketchbook, and The Frank Ritza Papers, which was nominated for a Doug Wright Award. He previously lived in Saskatoon but now lives in Hamilton. Chimo will be launched at the Brush With War exhibit at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa in December and then at Grit Lit in Hamilton and TCAF in Toronto in Spring 2011.

David Collier's profile page