decol

Decolonizing Our Minds conference 2012

The deets:

Saturday February 11, 2012
11:00 am – 6:00 pm
William Doo Auditorium University of Toronto, St. George Campus
45 Willcocks Street
Toronto, ON

The call out:

DECOLONIZING OUR MINDS 2012:
PEOPLE’S INSTINCTIVE TRAVELS THROUGH RESISTANCE

Art is a healing practice, a practice of renewal, exploration and of storytelling. Art is a space of self-definition and self-understanding that simultaneously ties us to larger histories, to a shared narrative.

Art is medicine bridging the gaps between times, spaces and divisions violently constructed by the colonial enterprise. Join the Equity Studies Student’s Union, the Women and Gender Studies Student’s Union, the Black Student’s Association and the Caribbean Studies Student’s Union as we explore and discover the potential that art and creativity offers us in our travels through resistance; to decolonize our minds, our bodies, our experiences and our realities.

Questions: [email protected] or WWW.UOFTESSU.COM

Conference is entirely free, all are welcome, no registration is required, wheelchair accessible, ASL interpreters will be present, gender neutral washrooms, child minding, community shelf, snack and lunch provided.

Program:

11:00 am-11:30: Opening remarks by Stanley Doyle-Wood
11:30-11:45: Performances by Kayla Carter, Linda Luztono and Nadine Williams
11:50-12:40PM: Panel discussion, Resistance and Non-Violence
12:40-1:30: LUNCH (Music provided by DJ Knowthings)
1:30-1:45: Performances by Bucc n Flvr and Doyali Farah Islam
1:50-2:40: Panel discussion, Resistance Through Hip-Hop
2:40-3:20: Performances by Yusra Ali and S.I.C.K.Boyz
3:20-3:45: Critical Area Studies Showcase
3:45-4:00: Performance by Red Slam
4:00-5:00: Keynote Address by Lee Maracle
5:15-6:15: Screening of short films (with subtitles)

About the speakers:

Erick Fabris is a longtime psychiatric survivor activist and newly published ethnographic writer. His first book, called Tranquil Prisons, is a narrative study relating experiences of compulsory psychiatric treatment outside of hospitals. His dissertation on experiences labelled psychotic in biomedicine is framed within antiracist and anticolonial thought.

Kabir Joshi-Vijayan: High school student, journalist with BASICS Community News Service, a people’s media organization. Deals with issues impacting working class people and communities, and seeks to unite organizers, workers, students and other progressives to serve people’s struggles. Also member of Justice for Alwy Campaign Against Police brutality formed in 2008 in response to the murder of 18-year old Alwy Al Nadhir by Toronto Police Officers.

Amanda Parris is a student of passion whose work is inspired by the layered complexity of artists such as Audre Lorde and the critical interrogation employed by activists such as Angela Davis. As a student completing her honours undergraduate degree in Political Science and Women’s Studies, she recognized that art and education could be utilized as powerful tools to create spaces for stories often marginalized by mainstream institutions of power.

With this purpose in mind, she has contributed her energy to several innovative organizations such as the student organization R.O.O.T.S. (of which she was the founder), the critical news show Voices on CHRY 105.5FM (of which she was the co-host), the youth serving organization The Remix Project (where she was the Outreach Coordinator and later Managing Director) and through the creation of Lost Lyrics.

Chandni Desai is an activist-scholar doing her Ph.D. student at University of Toronto, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Her interests include anti-racism, anti-colonial thought, Hip Hop education, feminist praxis, pedagogies of solidarity, social justice and decolonizing education. I have been involved in community organizing locally and globally for over 10 years around issues of justice and equity, and have been working in the international (Palestine) solidarity movement in Toronto for the past five years.

My work on hip hop specifically focuses on Palestinian Hip Hop as a mode of resistance to military occupation, war, settler colonialism, apartheid and gender violence. My work is interested in the ways in which youth mobilize Hip Hop within their own struggles and across movements and borders. I am beginning to draw parallels to the Aboriginal struggle for self determination here in Canada. My work hopes to explore the possibilities and challenges of Hip Hop resistance, solidarity and education.

Natasha Daniel’s influence is as wide as her journey. Whether through the rhymes of Hip Hop philosophers such as Nas or the images taken by Jamel Shabazz and other visual artists relaying their reality, Natasha shares a similar passion, the art of storytelling. Being a self-taught photographer, she is aware of the struggle and need to express one’s story.

Natasha’s purpose to celebrate stories often silenced has led her to help document very complex communities in Canada, Colombia and India through her visual arts foundation, Kahaniya – Sisters Sharing Stories. Since these experiences, Natasha continues to exhibit her visual stories through publications such as Elle Magazine, as well as through exhibitions like the Contact Photography Festival to name a few. The essence of Natasha’s artistry is the blending of mediums. This includes co-starring, co-producing and co-playwrighting a HipHop theatre production, entitled 3 Dollars n’ 6 Dimes.

Angel Simon: The Toronto Kiki Ballroom Alliance (TKBA) is a youth-led organization that provides youth with the opportunity to gain self-confidence using the ballroom arts. The house of Omega is one of the 4 groups that compete in monthly competitions throughout the year.

As a parent (Father) of the house its my job to be that person they can come to about anything, whether it be sexuality, health, personal goals etc. Inside and Outside of the ballroom we are a group of unique talented individuals that have come from all over to grow and learn as a family and use the Kiki scene as an artistic outlet.

Lee Maracle, Sto: Lo nation, grandmother of seven, mother of four, was born in North Vancouver, B. C. and resides in Ontario. Her works include: the novels, Ravensong, Bobbi Lee, Sundogs, and Daughters are Forever, Will’s Garden, the short story collection, Sojourner’s Truth, the poetry collection, Bent box, and non-fiction work I Am Woman and First Wives’ Club.

She was Co-editor of My Home as I Remember and Telling It: Women and Language across Cultures, editor of a number of poetry works, Gatherings journals and has published in dozens of anthologies in Canada and America. She ;has served as the Aboriginal writer-in-residence for First nation’s house, and Visiting Scholar in the Aboriginal Studies and English dept. at the University of Toronto. Ms. Maracle received an Honorary Doctor of Letters from St. Thomas University in May 2009. Maracle is currently an instructor in ABS and the traditional teacher at First Nation’s House

For more information, please see. http://www.facebook.com/events/344352788916095/

 

Krystalline Kraus

krystalline kraus is an intrepid explorer and reporter from Toronto, Canada. A veteran activist and journalist for rabble.ca, she needs no aviator goggles, gas mask or red cape but proceeds fearlessly...