Thursday, 31 Mar 2022 from 12-1:30 pm — Virtual Event
The online panel Erasures: Cultural Activism and Periodicals is presented in partnership with Western Front on the occasion of the Belkin exhibition Laiwan: Traces, Erasures, Resists. In addition to artistic projects, this exhibition highlights Laiwan’s significant work as a cultural activist since the early 1980s. These activities have included her contribution to queer, feminist, multicultural and visual art print publications, notably Angles (1983-1998) published by the Vancouver Gay Community Centre Society, and Kinesis (1971-2001) published by the Vancouver Status of Women. Neither remains in print. In 1991 Laiwan also helped initiate Zimbabwean Women in Contemporary Culture Trust (ZWICCT) in Harare to celebrate women cultural workers.
Moderated by Laiwan, Erasures: Cultural Activism and Periodicals invites her former collaborators Frederick Thomas Edwards, John Kozachenko and Joyce Jenje Makwenda to reflect on their experience as activists and contributors to these periodicals in the 1980s and 90s. In particular, what was the space of consciousness, commons and collaboration that fostered these publishing activities? What were the economic and cultural circumstances that propelled them into the work that they were doing, and the work that they continue to do today? This conversation looks to the pathways forged by activists who were drawn to the periodical as a space of consciousness, and who have fought against the erasure of experience from dominant discourse.
Register for the panel discussion.
BIG Thanks to Tatiana Mellema for attentive reserach and coordination of the program, the Belkin and the Western Front, Susan Gibb, Ben Wilson, Jay Pahr and Josephine Wong for exceptional background help and tech.
Visit HERE for more information.