Imagination for Liberation

I am a settler of colour, a South Asian woman, a first-generation eldest daughter born to immigrant settlers from Tamil Nadu on the stolen land of the Coast Salish peoples. If there's one thing I'm most grateful for, it is that my Amma named me Miruthula. In my language, my name means softest, and that is how I approach my labour of love in the field of sport and social justice as a masters student, but more significantly, how I show up authentically for my loved ones and my community.

To my loved ones, I am your @friendlyneighbourhoodscholar; intergenerational curse breaker; a beautiful rebel punk; my ancestors’ dreams come true (as are you reader).

I am Miru;

The Storysharer

Artist Statement

Legacies are often tied to our identities when answering questions such as "what is our life’s purpose” and “what will I be remembered by?” We may ask ourselves "what will I leave behind for my people? What will be our legacy?" Legacy is the embodiment of both colonialism and anthropocentrism, transcribed in the systems and structures around us. It asks you what you will leave behind to be inherited.

Perhaps legacy is synonymous to saying “Hey! Pay attention to what I’ve done with my time on earth. This is how I am better and different than you.” A westernised notion of legacy never really occupies the present time because it is meant to resurrect an idea of us into a future where we wish to take up space. In such attempts to impact a future that is not our own, we simultaneously disconnect ourselves from time, space, and each other, like the fallen monarchs and civilizations, which has led to war and genocide of souls around the globe.

Can we reimagine legacy as an opportunity to connect with

an unknown future generation and not control how they will perceive us?

What’s (y)our legacy reader?

Reflection and Connection to "Imagination for Liberation"

This poem grew from a class project on anthropocentrism. It was a way to help me imagine a dismantling of colonial systems that have enabled legacy as justification for violence. However, legacy is not inherently good or bad. The Haudenosaunee’s 7th generation principle centres the past, present, and future connecting relations from 3 generations before and 3 generations after at 1 present moment in time. It sustains the flow of legacy connecting relations, time, and space. There’s a hope in connecting us to lost, hidden, and erased heritages to future generations as guides for holistic wellbeing.

The poem imagines a liberation for ourselves and a future generation that we perhaps will not get to meet, but nevertheless as part of y(our) present legacy. Perhaps (y)our legacy is a chance to nurture the relationships that flow between the Land, entities, and people, so that generations over space and time have the very same chance to do so; to lovingly imagine.