Past event:

Film screening & Discussion at the Artists Gala:

On the day of the gala we will be hosting a film screening of Canada is Triflin' and Regina v. xʷ is xʷ čaa, followed by a discussion with filmmaker Neil-Aaron and xʷ is xʷ čaa // kati george-jim!

To get tickets for the gala, check out this link here! Proceeds from tickets will go towards xʷ is xʷ čaa // kati george-jim & Neil-Aaron.

Regina v. xʷ is xʷ čaa film description:

“This short documentary-style video was created to be widely distributed on social media to bring education and attention to on-going criminalization of me and my people on our homelands. The british crown, via canada and british columbia, are criminalizing me through the criminal code of canada for existing as a native woman. The film talks about so-called “victoria, b.c.” the colonial epicentre, and how it hasn’t changed since it’s inception. This short film will hopefully one of many.”

xʷ is xʷ čaa // kati george-jim bio:

My given name is xʷ is xʷ čaa which comes from my mother’s side, tied to my hereditary responsibility to tsuk and lekwungen lands, waters and all familial relations. This land is where I grew up and learned from.

My father’s side of my family is W̱SÁNEĆ of W̱S͸KEM where the US border illegally divides. In our ways, we are gifted and responsible from both sides of our families, and I am actively serving all lands and waters connected to my ancestral homelands.

Kati is my borrowed name in english. George is the english name used to register my family at the Federal Indian Band of “T’sou-ke” and Jim is the english name used for registration at the “Tseycum” Band. It is important to recognize this history of english naming that seeks to replace our ancestral roles and experiences.

I am being criminalized daily. I put my time into learning and growing amongst the struggle for freedom on my homelands.

Canada is Triflin' film description:

Canada is Triflin' is first of all a diss track to the lazily put together smut film 'Vancouver is Dying', as a fake journalist, seeing people put less effort into their journalism than I do, when I'm doing this ironically, is hurting my head. This film is a holistic look at systemic racism in Canada, from the vocal denial of babylons foot soldiers, to the actual indentured servitude Canada is currently holding African, Asian, and Latin American Peoples in. Due to the actions of elizabethemay trying to praise my ancestral nemesis James Douglas as a Black civil rights hero, I will be relaunching Black History month again and washing the illiterate caucastic bomboclattery off of our history and culture.

Neil-Aaron's bio:

I almost got kidnapped by BC RCMP officers while undercover to expose that the Green party of BC had infiltrated Fairy Creek; during all of this I accidentally became a journalist and was interviewed on CBC in which they declared me Founder of IndependentBlackMedia...an instagram page on Instagram.

So with no power comes no responsibility, I had this professional camera gear because after eating and smoking various herbs and mushrooms in a farm bunkhouse during 2020 quarantine and communing with dark forces/my ancestors; they told me vaguely all of the above would happen so I would need the camera gear to defend myself. So here we are, I ruin white functions.

Past event: On this night, we will be celebrating all the artists who are a part of the community-oriented art show Imagination for Liberation! Various artists from the art show will be doing either readings, performing, or showcasing a presentation that is connected to their art work and the central themes of the overall show.

There will be food & drinks provided and will be a mask mandatory event!

Doors will open at 5:30pm and the show itself will start at 6pm. The theatre is located in Emily Carr University of Art + Design and is on the unceded, ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səlilwətaɬ Nations.

This Artist Gala is in collaboration with the BIPOC Creative Collective. The Black, Indigenous, and people of colour Creative Collective advocates for a sense of community for racialized students at ECUAD. We host spaces where we can create art together and actively work on building an anti-racist creative work environment. BIPOC students deserve to take up space in a way that feels safe and representative of our plight. The collective provides inclusivity and solidarity for Black, Indigenous and people of colour in an oppressive systemic structure. In the face of racial marginalization, we believe in community as a supportive basis for action, with Hope propelling us towards the fight for liberation.

Imagination for Liberation is a art show that is grounded in the collective wisdoms and actions of various change-makers, fighters for freedom, abolitionists, artists, writers, scholars, and community members. It is founded on the understanding that we are all born with abundant imagination and that in order see the transformation, liberation, and change we so rightly deserve, it will require the continual collective efforts and actions from a multitude of peoples and communities. It will require building upon what many have already done before us - what many are doing now - building upon their fight, actions, creation, sacrifice, and more.

But it will also require us to create something new, it will require us to imagine, to use our Imagination for Liberation.

Once we nourish our imaginations, our personal and collective imaginations, we can all potentially find and build diverse, creative, unique, tangible pathways/methods/actions towards liberation. It can empower us to understand what our unique part is in the collective efforts towards change.

Currently, Imagination for Liberation art show is being exhibited at Arrieta Art Studio, which is on the unceded and unsurrendered land of Qayqayt, Kwikwetlem, and other Halkomelem speaking Peoples. The artshow will be open until the end of March 2024.

If you are interested, you can find tickets here!

Past event: This is a beginner friendly workshop for learning tatreez. Tatreez is a form of traditional Palestinian embroidery that was historically practiced by Palestinian women and taught across generations; it was inspired by geometric shapes, animals, plants, and objects of the Palestinian landscape and life. Tatreez was not merely a form of art- it was also a way of relaying narratives. We will learn how to create a simple tatreez stitch of one of three classic patterns: braid, bird, or cypress tree, as well as how to finish it into a bookmark. All materials will be provided. This workshop is for Global Majority communities (BIPOC). 

Disclaimer: Anti-Palestinian and anti-Indigenous commentary or discourse is not welcome and will not be tolerated by the facilitator. The workshop is offered based on a consensual sharing of the facilitator’s cultural practice and predicates an environment of mutual respect. The facilitator welcomes sensitivity in understanding each other’s lived experiences.

The facilitator acknowledges that this workshop is taking place on the traditional and stolen lands of the Coast Salish peoples, particularly the Qayqayt First Nation (qiqéyt)/قَقَيْط. Qayqayt in hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ means “resting place”. The traditional territory of the Qayqayt First Nation was abundantly used for fishing, hunting, and picking cranberries, but the Qayqayt peoples were violently displaced through colonization. The Qayqayt First Nation is the only first nations community in BC without a current land base. The facilitator invites participants to interrogate their relationship with settler-colonialism, and to consider the interrelatedness of tactics of genocide and displacement, from Turtle Island to Palestine and vice versa.

About the facilitator: Jenan Afaneh (she/her/any) is a writer and craft-maker from Occupied Palestine. Jenan is interested in nature, poetry, and all things beautiful.

Please note, this workshop has a limited capacity and supplies. The workshop will be open for 6 people. 

If you are interested, you can sign up here

Past event: Join Aya & Adonis for a soft, reflective, and liberatory evening of poetry, followed by an artist talk and chit chat. Bring yourselves, your loved ones, and cozy up to the soulful words of Aya & Adonis. Connect with community and bask in the transformative power of collective dreaming practices and immerse yourself in the rhythm of our shared experiences. This workshop will encourage participants to draw throughout, with the option to add your pieces alongside Aya's poem "worlds apart".

Adonis Critter King, is a Black and nonbinary, inter-disciplinary poet, writer, theatre creator, director, facilitator, and activist. Their arts practice is rooted in social justice as daily practice, revolution as habit that starts in the home, and QT2BIMPOC safe space curation. Their work uses afro-surrealism, visionary fiction, and The Poetic Surreal to explore the joys and complexities of mad and disabled QT2MBIPOC life, the unsettling nature of becoming, and the difficult choices we must make to liberate our futures.
Adonis was the 2016 Youth Poet Laureate of Victoria, the 2017 recipient of the VACCS (Victoria African & Caribbean Cultural Society) Community recognition Award, and in 2020 they received the Witness Legacy Award for Social Purpose and Responsibility Through Art.

Aya Clappis is an Afro-Indigenous truthteller, visual artist and DJ who currently resides on the unceded homelands of the Quw'utsun peoples. Aya’s ancestral lineages are of the Somalinimo and Nuu-chah-nulthath (mainly, Huu-ay-aht First Nations). Their work strives to center decolonization, collective liberation, and Indigenous sovereignty through graphic collage, poetry, and storytelling of Indigenous resistance, survivance, and love.

The art show will be located at Arrieta Art Studios (329 Columbia St Suite 106, New Westminster, BC), which is on the unceded and unsurrendered land of Qayqayt, Kwikwetlem, and other Halkomelem speaking Peoples. This event is on February. 10, 2024 at 6 pm. We have a limited capacity of 25 people. Masks will be mandatory.

Food and beverages will be provided. If you have any food allergies, please let us know in advance. The studio is also skytrain and wheelchair accessible.

If you are interested, you can sign up to attend here

Past event: In this workshop, participants explore the collective creation of our future world, by grounding us in our personal power and the skills we have to make it a reality. Rooted in social justice, climate justice, and critical race theory, we explore value based creation, the how-to’s of building change, and the power of freed imaginations.

Adonis Critter King, is a Black and nonbinary, inter-disciplinary poet, writer, theatre creator, director, facilitator, and activist. Their arts practice is rooted in social justice as daily practice, revolution as habit that starts in the home, and QT2BIMPOC safe space curation. Their work uses afro-surrealism, visionary fiction, and The Poetic Surreal to explore the joys and complexities of mad and disabled QT2MBIPOC life, the unsettling nature of becoming, and the difficult choices we must make to liberate our futures.

Adonis was the 2016 Youth Poet Laureate of Victoria, the 2017 recipient of the VACCS (Victoria African & Caribbean Cultural Society) Community recognition Award, and in 2020 they received the Witness Legacy Award for Social Purpose and Responsibility Through Art.

The event will be at Arrieta Art Studios (329 Columbia St Suite 106, New Westminster, BC) which is on the unceded and unsurrendered land of Qayqayt, Kwikwetlem, and other Halkomelem speaking Peoples. The workshop is on February. 3, 2024 at 5pm. We have a limited capacity of 25 people. Masks will be mandatory.

Food, various snacks, and beverages will be provided. If you have any food allergies, please let us know in advance. The studio is also skytrain and wheelchair accessible. 

If you are interested, you can sign up to attend here

Past event: Join us as we commemorate "International Kite Day" with poems, group dialogue, and create kite-themed digital art. We hope to make this day and act of solidarity accessible for anyone who may not be able to attend in-person, and possibly share our kites virtually, or take the digitally made kites and turn them into real life kites afterwards! This event is open to all ages, kids are welcome!

Over the last two decades the children and youth of Gaza have flown paper kites by the seaside as a way to openly and continually resist Israeli colonial violence. The kites are not only seen as symbols, but are also acts of resilience, defiance, liberation, hope, and freedom. In videos you see the kites rising above man-made borders, openly defying the open-air prison & on-going colonial violence, flying high into the open sky. As one young girl states in the film “Flying Paper”, when they fly their kites in the sky, it feels like they’re “the ones flying in the sky, we feel that we have our freedom, that there is no siege on Gaza, when we fly the kite, we know that freedom exists”. Palestinian youth have also used kites to actively dissent by setting them on fire and landing on the occupied lands within “Israel”.

We will start the session by offering prompts for writing and reflecting, watching short videos, and engaging in some dialogue. We will also be spending some time throughout the session creating art based off of our reflections. We hope to create kite-themed digital art during our time together. We will be using Landing Space, which is a free website that provides a community library resource of images, along with a page and some tools you can use to play around with the images you find on the website and create collage-like work. You can also use art materials that you have available personally in your space.

Past event: Come for a night of creating art together and thinking through what resistance means for each of us, and how we can imagine what we can do in this world to fight for liberation. We open the space to share the pieces of art created within this gathering on the studio walls. For more information and to sign up for this event, you can head to the google doc we made for this art session.

Past event: Come for a night of creating art together and thinking through what resistance means for each of us, and how we can imagine what we can do in this world to fight for liberation.

Past event: The long nights of winters allow for rest, reflection, and rejuvenation. Let's tune into nature's cycles and engage in acts of creative imagination as a community.