MCML presents a round table discussion curated by multidisciplinary artist Kama La Mackerel on community, initiatives, representation and inclusivity in the arts. The round table will be followed by small discussion groups. John Molson Building, 8th floor, Room 265.
This round-table, curated by multidisciplinary artist Kama La Mackerel, with invited guests Dona La Luna and Shanice Nicole, will provide a space for participants to learn about what is at stake in trying to organize impactful arts-based community engagement. Grounded in their own actual engagement and initiatives, the artists and organizers will discuss the values and skills necessary to develop accountable community-engagement, the challenges in doing this work, as well as the necessity for such spaces. The round-table will be followed by smaller group discussions to allow the participants to explore their own ideas, projects and dreams for community-arts projects in a more intimate setting.
Artists
Kama La Mackerel is multi-disciplinary artist, writer, educator and cultural mediator who hails from Mauritius and now lives in Montréal. Their work is grounded in the exploration of justice, love, healing, decoloniality, and self- and collective-empowerment. Kama’s artistic practice spans across textile, visual, digital, poetic and performative work, and is at once narrative and theoretical, at once personal and political. A firm believer that aesthetic practices have the power to build resilience, to heal, and to act as forms of resistance to the status quo, Kama articulates an anticolonial praxis through cultural production.
lamackerel.net
Kama La Mackerel
Shanice Nicole is a Black feminist educator, facilitator, writer, and (out)spoken word artist. Her writing and work intimately explores experiences of race, health, sexuality, oppression, and freedom - all of which form the many layers of her Black womanhood. She believes that everyone has the power to make change and the words of her favourite poet Maya Angelou resonate deeply, "Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better." See what else she has to say @ShaniceNicoleSpeaks on Facebook and Instagram.
Xin chào! Dona is Vietnamese-Chinese, born and raised in Treaty 6 (Edmonton) and has been living in Tio’tia:ke (Montreal) for just over a decade. She works with art and her love for nature as catalysts towards regenerative practices in transforming and healing the Self, the communities around us, and the Earth supporting our feet. Her passions, curiosities, and experiences have guided her as a community organizer, spoken word artist and creative arts based facilitator. She is the co-founder of SistersInMotion in Montreal, an organization that centers BIPOC women and/or femmes through the joys of art, nature, and sisterhood. She loves to cycle, dance, build things, do art, community organize, and has a skateboard at home that one day she hopes to master.