Co-presenting at the closing plenary of the Art + Design for Social Justice Exchange conference presented by the student union at OCADU , alongside Melissa Moore from Y-LLEAD and Jason Samilski (CUE)
Panel hosted by CWSE UofT OISE and the Feminist Art Conference at OCADU. For more information, please see http://factoronto.org/schedule/
For "Creative Catalyst 2015 Symposium on Art and Social Innovation"
Art is an rare and open space to imagine futures, and to communicate these possible futures to audiences. So how do we empower youth to be more socially minded as they become the next generation of changemakers to tackle these problems? This panel explores ways in which art is utilized to create life-changing experiences and empower young people, and the use of art for skills building, training, and professionalization for youth.
(Details TBD)
Writer in Residence Cherie Dimaline hosts a panel discussion on the challenges, successes and resources for multicultural Toronto writers and poets. Featuring workshop leaders, grant agencies, foundations and organizations committed to the diverse literary community in Toronto. Please call 416 395 5639 to register for this FREE program.
iAmnesty 2015 is Toronto’s annual youth human rights leadership conference, hosted by Amnesty International Canada and Amnesty International Toronto Organization. iAmnesty 2015 is a day where delegates from across the city to learn about human rights issues, learn important skills, network with other activists and specialists, and most importantly, HAVE FUN! The day is filled with several talks and workshops given by some of the top leaders in their respective fields.
Context
Design can have good intentions, but the process of designing can be harmful itself. For instance, viewing an issue as a design problem, thinking about communities as stakeholders or clients, or desiring an aesthetic output often clashes with the needs and realities of non-designers or the people with whom we create. Design education can and often works in similar ways. As educators, we are faced with the task of unpacking what design education can and should do—are we meant to teach our students how to work under capitalism? Or, to criticality re-imagine it? In other words—to survive within a harmful system, or to demolish it all together?
As we lead these conversations, we often forget to situate ourselves from within, or look critically at the role our institutions play in the formation of design. We are having to work within schools-as-businesses, often as precarious workers (or, conversely, as comfortable tenured staff!). We are meant to assign marks within bell curves that are informed by capitalism, and we are meant to pick winners and losers for future success (as we define it).
Problematic
If critical design is meant to turn a critical eye on the practice of design itself, how can we apply this kind of thinking to design education? How can we challenge a system that benefits us from within it?
This workshop will ask the following questions:
Overcoming Barriers
What are some of the systemic barriers implicit in the academic industrial complex and how do they play out in the makeup of our faculties and departments? How does this limit our capacity for criticality and encourage complacency? This leads to us ask: how can we support one another as educators?
Reworking Power in the Classroom
How are these same barriers reinforced and replicated in the classroom both through school policies and through interpersonal dynamics? And therefore, how can we undermine school policies and create safer spaces in the classroom? How can we contribute to a culture of transparency and accountability and re-imagine power in the classroom?
Addressing Conditions of Work
How does the political economy of academic labour impact our capacity to deliver the kind of education we want? In order to address this we need to ask, how can we build solidarity and advocate for labour practices that allow us to do our jobs? How can we work and organize with students to do this?
The new issue of This tells readers why we believe Canada needs more feminism—now. In it, we also give a big f*@k that to the popular culture that fostered Jian Ghomeshi, Bill Cosby, and the boys at Dalhousie’s Dentistry school; the one that cultivated mansplaining, manspreading, and street harassment; and the one that encourages apathy toward threats to abortion access, the pay gap, and our country’s Indigenous murdered and missing women.
To help kick off the issue, we're hosting another This is Not a Ted Talk, featuring talks from fierce feminists on body positivity, consent, trans* rights, and more.
SPEAKERS INCLUDE:
COST: $5 at the door, which includes a copy of our March/April Feminist Issue
Public Lecture on intersectional feminism and alternative media at the Sunday Service for the Unitarian Fellowship of Northwest Toronto.
The Association of Registered Graphic Designers (RGD) and George Brown Student Members of our Student Rep Committee organize a monthly event at George Brown that hosts alumni to speak on a topic relevant to their field.
The topic this month is "Things they didn't teach you in design school" and focusing on designers who started their own business after school, listen to their talk and ask question
Our speakers are
Jeremy Dimmock of Polyester Studios www.polyesterstudio.com
Sheila Sampath of The Public www.thepublicstudio.ca
This free event with free popcorn will feature speakers Sheila Sampath and Roberto Chiotti, whose practices reflect the intersection of art, design and activism.
Sheila Sampath incorporates grassroots activist strategies with graphic design and popular education as Principal and Creative Director at ‘The Public’. She is the Editorial and Art Director of the award-winning Shameless magazine. Roberto Chiotti is a Toronto architect and founding partner of the award-winning firm Larkin Architect Limited. Chiotti designed and built an off-the-grid solar home in which he lives when not teaching in the city. Roberto will share with us his extensive knowledge about self- sustainable living, sustainable design, and their intersection with environmental activism.
The screening of Waste Land will begin at 6pm. This film follows renowned artist Vik Muniz’s journey to the world's largest garbage dump, near Rio de Janeiro, where he photographs an eclectic band of “catadores”—self-designated pickers of recyclable materials. Muniz’s collaboration with these inspiring characters as they recreate photographic images of themselves out of garbage offers stirring evidence of the transformative power of art and the alchemy of the human spirit.
The Hancock Lecture is an inter-disciplinary lecture that was started by Margaret Hancock back in 2001 to discuss and examine issues of global citizenship, Canadian identity, and social justice. In the last few years, the Hancock Lecture has addressed topics pertaining to youth political engagement through gaming, and social media, healthcare, and online fundraising.
This year, our committee which consists of 9 very involved undergraduate students at the University of Toronto, have chosen the topic of Slacktivism: The Future of Activism in the Age of Social Media.
At the Lunch and Learn event, we hope to introduce the concept of slacktivism, in a more informal way. Attendees, primarily students at the University, will be invited to mingle discuss topics related online activism.
WRITING FROM WITHIN
co-presented by Shameless magazine
Tuesday, November 18, 2014 @ 9:30PM (after the performance)
In the mainspace at The Theatre Centre (1115 Queen Street West)
FREE ADMISSION to the panel CASH BAR!
How do we participate in a media-saturated, digitally enhanced culture, without contributing to the damaging norms and oppressive systems that limit us all? Join some of Toronto’s most dynamic journalistic voices in a conversation about navigating media landscapes, preserving integrity and doing what you love for people you hate.
Moderator: Janice Neil
(Associate Chair, Ryerson School of Journalism)
Panellists: Septembre Anderson, Jill Andrew, Andrea Houston, Sarah Liss & Sheila Sampath
Talk and Q&A at the Hamilton Feminist Zine Fair, reflecting on the challenges and opportunities of ten years of independent feminist publishing.
Co-host with comedian Catherine McCormick at the Urban Space Gallery in Toronto. Details to follow.
Guest presentation at Unifor conference in Port Elgin, Ontario. Details to follow.
Guest lecture at OCAD University. Details to follow.
The Art and Activism workshop hosted by The Public in partnership with the Art Gallery of Mississauga builds on the The Sahmat Collective: Art And Activism in India since 1989exhibit. Using the exhibition as a starting point for discussion and inspiration, participants will explore their own relationship to local and transnational activism, and build solidarity through the creation of their own political art print.
Saturday, September 13, 10 am - 5 pm,
Glass Pavilion, Mississauga Central Library
$40 AGM members / $45 non-members
To register, visit AGMpostermaking.eventbrite.ca
AUGUST THEME: "An Invocation for Beginnings"
Bad Ass Babes With Big Ideas (BABBI) is a panel discussion that brings together the smartest, most innovative and unique minds in Toronto to explore the theme from a different views to find commonalities. Each edition has a different fascinating theme of conversation and team of experts. Afterwards, everyone has the opportunity to meet with each other and with the panelists.
Panelists:
Mikaela Dyke: Dora Award Nominated Actor and Writer
Samantha Fraser: Producer/Creator of the Playground Sexuality Conference
Chivon John: Wellness Advocate & Creator of webshow "Hot n Holisitic"
Sheila Sampath: Editorial Director of Shameless Magazine
Moderator:
Brandy Morris: Possibility Scout, Brilliance Instigator, and Partner-in-Implementation
A talk and Q&A on design, social justice and praxis at The Public at the George Brown College School of Design Art Showcase.
Loki Design and The Public are excited to announce the Toronto launch of issue 13 of Four Minutes to Midnight. Based in Montreal, Four Minutes to Midnight is an experimental literary arts zine working at the intersections of typography, poetics and radical politics. Issue 13 features visual art, writing and design from a diverse host of contributors, including the Dutch design studio Experimental Jetset, performance artist and author Jacob Wren, Montreal photographer Vo Thien Viet, Toronto writer and editor Hilary Rexe, and Montreal visual artist and collagist Madame Gilles.
Thematically, the issue emerges out of the editors’ experiences of the Quebec student strike, but is not specifically about it, reflecting more on the poetics of 10 years of community organising, designing and publishing, making music, and strolling through gentrifying neighbourhoods in opposition to neoliberal capitalism.
http://2356.lokidesign.net/2014/05/four-minutes-to-midnight-issue-thirteen/
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The evening will feature a conversation between FMTM editor and designer, Kevin Yuen Kit Lo, and Sheila Sampath of The Public Studio, moderated by Patricio Davila. Having long admired each others work, this conversation will provide an opportunity for the speakers and audience to explore ideas around art and activism, and the challenges and rewards of running an activist design studio.
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Sheila Sampath has been crafting creative for social good since 2003. She has a background in grassroots, community-driven anti-oppression activism, around which she centres her approach to graphic design and popular education as Principal and Creative Director of The Public. She is the editorial and art director of award-winning magazine, Shameless—Canada’s feminist voice for young women and trans youth, and is actively involved in local art and music communities, playing in Toronto band, Tu Suis, and serving on the board of the South Asian Visual Arts Centre. She is an instructor at OCAD U, a member of the British Council’s TN2020 Network and a fellow of the Royal Society of Artists. Her work as a designer has been widely recognized and awarded and her political writing has been published internationally. Her first book, Letters Lived, was published by Three O’Clock Press in the fall of 2013.
http://thepublicstudio.ca/
Kevin Yuen-Kit Lo is a Montreal-based graphic-designer, community organiser and educator. He runs the independent design studio Loki Design, specialising in work in the community and cultural spheres, publishes the zine Four Minutes to Midnight, and teaches in the department of Design and Computation Arts at Concordia University.
As a community organiser and activist, Kevin is engaged on multiple levels within grassroots organisations in Montréal and beyond. He is a founding member of the Howl Arts Collective, a member of Artivistic, a board member of Archive Montreal and a long-standing jury member with Memefest.
http://www.lokidesign.net/
AO invites you to The Perimeter Series—a series of panel discussions on issues related to contemporary design practices, academia, and industry. Public and Community Engagement through Design is the topic of our second discussion. This panel will explore the role of art and design in community and public engagement, and will aim to define how design practice and process has been utilized to foster social change and give a voice to the public it inhabits. The panelists will cover their approaches and challenges of community projects, how they inform their practice, while bringing to light any criticism surrounding design in the public sphere.
Keynote speaker at the THIS MUCH conference at OCAD University. More details to come!
Co-facilitated with Michelle Kay.
Charlie's Freewheels is a non-profit in Regent Park that helps kids build bikes and learn about bike safety. Sheila and Michelle will be co-facilitating a workshop on community activism and alternative media
Join Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath, as we honour extraordinary Ontarians for theircontributions towards eliminating racial discrimination at the 18th Annual J.S. Woodsworth Awards Ceremony.
The Dialog newspaper at George Brown College is hosting a spring conference focused on bringing together campus and community journalists working in alternative and independent media.
The Be Alternative: student and independent media conference will feature a mix of keynote speakers, panel discussions, skills workshops and socials.
For more information, see the website here.
D.I.Y./D.I.T.
Independent media-making, community-collaboration & participatory practices
Sheila is the editorial and art director for Shameless, an independent feminist magazine for teen girls and trans youth, and principal and creative director at The Public, an activist design studio specializing in changing the world. This talk and Q&A will address the challenges and pragmatics of do-it-yourself media-making and outline the opportunities that come from the application of do-it-together practices.
Speaking on collaboration, youth engagement and the intersection between between creativity and politics.
Please join us for a very special evening with two incredible and inspiring contributors to Letters Lived: Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and Rozena Maart!
Leah and Rozena will be reading from their contributions to Letters Lived and sharing conversation with Editor Sheila Sampath.
About Leah:
About Leah: Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha is an award-winning queer femme mixed Sri Lankan (Burgher/Tamil)-Ukrainian/Irish writer, poet, educator and cultural worker. She is the author of Love Cake and Consensual Genocide and the co-editor of The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence in Activist Communities. She a co-founder of Toronto's Asian Arts Freedom School and Mangos With Chili a lead artist with Sins Invalid. She is currently finishing Dirty River, a memoir, Writing the World, a radical queer of color writers' manual and Homegirl City, a graphic novel.
About Rozena:
Rozena Maart is a professor of Gender Studies and Director at the Centre for Critical Research on Race and Identity at the University of Kwa Zulua Natal in Durban, South Africa. Born in District Six, Cape Town, she was nominated for the “Woman of the Year” award at age 24 for her work in the area of violence against women and for co-founding the first Black feminist organization in South Africa, Women Against Repression [W.A.R.]. Rozena has published several journal articles and essays and three books, including the award-winning Rosa’s District Six and The Writing Circle.
About Letters Lived:
Letters Lived: Radical reflections revolutionary paths features letters written by a diverse group of international and cross-generational social justice activists to their teen selves. In these letters, they reflect on the incredible journeys they have taken since their teens—and what they wish they could have known back then.
How do we learn to trust and love ourselves, as well as navigate our bodies, families, identities and communities? These candid, powerful and relatable letters engage the personal and the political as we grow: whether combating social injustice, reconciling racial and cultural backgrounds, sexualities and genders, or building strong communities.
Find out more at http://threeoclockpress.com/titles/letters-lived
Shameless magazine is holding its second annual silent auction and fundraising gala! We hope you can join us for an amazing evening in support of Shameless, an award-winning progressive magazine for teen girls and trans youth.
Come bid on some incredible items, enjoy excellent music (featuring DJ Betti Forde), food (courtesy of the Afghan Women’s Catering Group) and drinks (with thanks to Black Oak Beer) and help support our volunteer-run magazine for teen girls and trans youth.
Every dollar we raise from the auction goes directly to funding Shameless magazine, helping fuel our mission to bring needed alternative voices to the media landscape.
Tickets are $20, and can be bought online or at the door.
We’re pleased to welcome Susan G. Cole and Alice Klein, both of Now magazine, as keynote speakers at this event. The evening will be hosted by Andrea Houston of DailyXtra.
Join us for the launch of Letters Lived, featuring an installation by Coco Guzman, and readings by Rae Spoon, Elisha Lim and Kit Wilson-Yang.
The launch will be following a day-long youth writing and zine-making workshop, co-facilitated with Kit Wilson-Yang and Kate-Christine Miller. The zine will be available at the launch event.
SheSpeaks is a conference for newcomer women, girls and trans people to meet each other and hear from inspirational leaders around creating social change and working towards economic justice for all newcomer and racialized people.
Sheila will be speaking about anti-oppression, economic justice and sustainability, labour and her work at The Public.
