Download our Schedule at a Glance pdf below

VABF 2024 Workshops – Schedule at a glance_

Both Days @ 4:00 pm, Back Entrance: Food Not Bombs

Serving free vegan food on Lekwungen Territory for well over 25 years, the Anarchist Bookfair will not be complete without catering by Food not Bombs. Visit them here: https://victoriafoodnotbombs.ca

Both Days, at Back Entrance: Masks4Victoria

Masks4Victoria will have an information table outside the back gym doors. They will be available to show folks how to make DIY air purifiers so that more people could have what they need to access cleaner air in their spaces for much cheaper – information re: building corsi rosenthal boxes and viral mitigation, and will have ‘demonstration’ CR boxes for to show folks how to build their own cheaply. People will increasingly need access to cleaner air with more and more wildfires, pollution, and viruses, so Masks4Victoria want to find ways to help make our communities safer and more prepared.

Both Days, at Back Entrance: Plenty Collective

Visit Plenty Collective outside the gym for a pop-up Free Store. Come grab some new clothes ranging in styles and sizes, all for free!

Both Days, inside Hallway Ramp: Existence Project Art Installation

The Existence Project is a grassroots organization that seeks to
humanize homelessness through the power of multimedia storytelling.
Visit their interactive Frontlines Gallery along the ramp of the
Fernwood NRG any time during the Anarchist Bookfair to engage with
powerful imagery shared by people with lived experience of homelessness
and frontline workers. Check out their video storytelling work here:
https://www.theexistenceproject.ca/library/

VABF Workshops 2024

* Saturday, September 21st

Indoor Room

• CANCELED____12:00 – 12:50pm: “Surveillance and Counter-Surveillance” with Gord Hill (he/him)
  • Description: Introduction to surveillance techniques used by police and intelligence agencies and methods to counter these.
  • Bio: Gord Hill is a member of the Kwakwaka’wakw nation, author of the graphic novel The 500 Years of Indigenous Resistance Comic Book

• 1:00 – 2:20pm: “Knots as Liberation” with Seth (he/him)
  • Description: Being able to make what you need out of widely available materials can be a great source of freedom. Did you know you can turn a bedsheet into a hammock in three minutes with a single knot? That you can make a compostable dish scrubber from ‘invasive’ scotch broom in as little time, that may work better than what you can find in a store? This workshop will be a combination of hands-on practice and inspiration for how you can take your resourcefulness further so that the world becomes your lego.
  • Bio: Seth researches and experiments with simple technologies, old and new, in order to help people free themselves from the consumer economy and support the creation of regenerative cultures. He also teaches kids wilderness survival skills, plays folk music, and writes.

• 2:30 – 3:20pm: “Decolonial Living: Fostering Deep Connection with Self, Others and Land” with Sage Armitage (she/her)
  • Description: What if there is no single, right way to approach decolonization? Our drive for integrity and compassion can often lead us to try and find the “right” way forward and it can be frustrating or even debilitating when we can’t find one that fits in all situations. The systems of colonial capitalism, patriarchy, white supremacy, ableism, and general exploitation of people and Nature are incredibly complex, so we can benefit from a simple framework that we can revisit over and over again. The goal is to explore an approach that helps us transform the oppressive systems of our society while making choices we can truly stand behind.
  • Bio: Sage is Swiss and Cree, living in the Colquitz River watershed on stolen land the lək̓ʷəŋən peoples steward and belong to. Her biggest passion in life is to facilitate opportunities for growth and connection, especially during challenging times. To this end she support parents, educators and activists to develop skills that create radical and generative changes in the world.

• 3:30 – 5:50pm: “conflict resolution in the context of liberation” with jade (they/them)
  • Description: an interactive workshop exploring what conflict is and why conflict resolution is essential in community work. participants will be offered space to reflect and share what has shaped the way we handle conflict under white supremacist, imperialist cisheteropatriarchy, and be offered new ways of being in conflict with each other.
  • Bio: jade is a first-generation vietnamese, queer, nonbinary, disabled person currently residing on the unceded territory of the Musqueam, Squamish, & Tsleil-Waututh Nations. they have been facilitating workshops and organizing in community for over decade, with particular focus on anti-oppression, queer & trans liberation, & feminism. their intentions for the bookfair is to network and create safer spaces for exchanging knowledge and wisdom so that we can tackle the difficult, messy, and necessary work of growing and organizing together.

Outdoor Workshop Tent

• 12:00 – 2:50pm: “We Have to Sing” with Peter
  • Description: A workshop on labour songs and musical activism. Purpose of this workshop: Music builds community. Music is fun. Music touches hearts. Unions, movements and community projects (historically) always had music and art around them so let’s continue this tradition. Questions to ponder: Do we still have songs people could sing together on the picket line? Are there songs that make sense to workers of our day and age and speak to our experiences?
  • Bio: I am a proud labour activist as a member of the BCGEU and the IWW. Music and resistance is what keeps me firey for the future! I am a member of the newly founded South Island Workers Cultural and Education League (SICEL) working at building community and connection among workers.

• 3:00 – 5:50pm:“Community Resource Mapping” with Corina Fischer (she/they/any)
  • Description: A practical workshop where participants will discuss shared and individual needs and work on creating neighbourhood maps which can help identify and source answers to these needs; for example, identifying who/where in your neighbourhood has capacity and skills for growing food, building, mending ect. This mapping exercise seeks to develop a consciousness and practical steps for divesting from capitalist and state solutions for meeting our/community needs.
  • Bio: Corina Fischer is an anarchoqueer settler artist and facilitator who grew up on unceded Lekwungen and WSANEC territories. Recent projects include directing Humans of Fairy Creek for Vancouver Fringe 2024, and ongoing work with WHOS Prison Theatre.

All-Ages Workshop Space

• 12:00 – 1:20pm: “Supporting Young Readers at School and Home” with Meaghan MacDonald (she/her)
  • Description: This workshop goes through the mechanics of how reading happens in our brains and how to support someone in starting that journey, and maintaining a strong footing in reading skills for life. This workshop is designed to support homeschoolers, as well as to support and advocate for students in formal schooling to become strong, confident readers.
  • Bio: Meaghan is a local teacher with 12 years of experience in Grades 1 to 8, and is completing a Diploma in Literacy and Masters in Special Education.

• 2:00 – 3:20pm: “Co-Creating Culture: Dreams of the Future” with Aiyana Chauhan (they/them)
  • Description: Time spent in playful imagination is necessary to bring about the future we dream of. Come play games, tell stories, paint, and daydream about a world outside of the capitalist death cult that’s leading us further along the road of apocalypse (a journey started years ago through industrialization and colonization processes). Through child-friendly activities this workshop asks “What do we wish was different?” and “How do we shift our family and community cultures to ones of autonomy, dignity, collective care and reciprocity?”
  • Bio: Aiyana Chauhan (they/them) is a mixed-race settler whose family has resided in Tk’emlups, Lekwungen, W̱ sáneć, Quw’utsun, and Malahat Territories since the 1960’s. Their career is focused in family support, neurodiversity, and disability justice. They are passionate about the intersection of neurobiology and culture—and how these might be used to co-create a more caring and just future.

• 4:00 – 5:20pm: “Hot Mess: Mothering through a Code Red Climate Emergency” with Sarah Marie Wiebe (she/her)
  • Description: Join in a conversation with Dr. Sarah Marie Wiebe, author of “Hot Mess” and Assistant Professor at the University of Victoria, about parenthood through a code red climate emergency. The conversation will include opening remarks from the author about bringing new life into a world on fire and the 2021 heat dome, then open up discussion about lived-experiences and strategies for community-building during the
    current climate emergency.

“Hot Mess” draws on hospital codes to explore the connections, Wiebe opens up tender conversations about intimate matters of how our bodies respond to emergency interventions: informed consent, emergency C-sections, reproductive mental health, and anti-colonial and anti-racist resistance. A critical ecofeminist scholar, Wiebe invites collective envisioning and enacting of caring, ethical relations between humans and the planet, including our atmospheres, lands, waters, animals, plants and each other. Books will be available for sale by Camas Books. For more information see: https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/book/hot-mess and about the author here: https://www.sarahmariewiebe.com/

* Sunday, September 22nd

Indoor Room

• 11:30 – 12:50pm: “Spiral movement, restoring the bodies natural patterns” with Cee (he/him)
  • Description: The modern world (chairs, devices and shoes specifically) have changed our relationship with our bodies, movement, posture, and resting. This workshop will give an introduction to ways we can recode the body into healthier patterns of walking standing and resting. Healthy movement and rest facilitate longevity for comrades within the movement. As modern civilization colonizes our minds, it also changes our relationship to our bodies.
  • Bio: Cee has been a yoga teacher, body worker, martial artist, for over 15 years. He now trains people in the GOATA movement system, getting to the root of many disorganized movement and injury patterns. Find him at @rebel.lionfitness

• 1:00 – 2:20pm: “Confessions of an Anarchist Author and Playwright” with Norman Nawrocki (He/Him/Bigmouth)
  • Description: After having written two dozen plays, hundreds of songs, and 17 books of poetry, short fiction, novels and novellas, this anarchist author has something else to share. Encouragement. For other anarchist writers of fiction, poetry, song and theatre. A short presentation about my Creative Resistance. And the need for others to practice it. With discussion.
  • Bio: Norman Nawrocki is a longtime anarchist artist, musician, author and community organizer who first self-identified as a bigmouth agitator in his teens. He co-edited the anarchist journal, The Open Road (1976-1981), worked on BC Blackout, Les Pages Noires, La Nuit, etc., for Black Rose Books, at the Montreal anarchist bookstore, co-founded the Montreal International Anarchist Theatre Festival, the Anarchist Writers Bloc, etc., and has toured the world with his former anarcho cabaret rock ’n roll band, Rhythm Activism and solo. About a million people across North America have attended his live, hit educational sex comedies about sexual politics. He teaches Creative Resistance workshops on and off campuses around the world. His last play: ‘Marusya Nikiforova: Ukraine’s Legendary Anarchist Warrior.’ His last book: Vancouvered Out. His last article: in The Fifth Estate. His last album: The Nawrockis / Borscht.

• 2:30 – 3:20pm: “Insurrection vs. Prefiguration: An Unbridgeable Chasm?” with charred (he/him)
  • Description: The primary goal of this workshop is to facilitate a discussion of the current state of a fault line that has long structured anarchist theory and practice: the rift between individualist, insurrectional approaches to radical social change, and approaches that are oriented to the prefigurative construction of alternatives to the world as we know it.
  • The discussion will be grounded in two ways: one, by focusing on practical questions of organization – how and why we do what we do – rather than becoming lost in abstractions; two, by engaging with each other via a common text that we will all have read. This grounding points to a secondary goal of the workshop, which is to cultivate a more careful and respectful approach to working together on questions that are important to us, in the name of building a stronger tradition of anarchist theorizing.
  • The text will be only a few pages long and available for download as a PDF or audio file at thesnag.org/pubs.
  • Bio: charred is a farmer, writer, and off-grid theorist who lives on a nearby island. The excerpt for this workshop is from a project he is currently working on, called “Theses on Post-Doom Anarchy”.

• 3:30 – 4:50pm: “More Than Two, Second Edition: Cultivating Nonmonogamous Relationships with Kindness and Integrity” with Eve Rickert (she/her) and Andrea Zanin (they/he/she)
  • Description: Eve and Andrea will talk about the new edition of the classic nonmonogamy book “More Than Two” and Andrea’s new book “Post-nonmonogamy and Beyond”. They will give a short reading followed by a Q&A.
  • Bio: Eve Rickert is a Gen X, queer, solo polyamorous, relationship anarchist, neurodivergent cis woman who is the curator of the More Than Two Essentials series and the founder and publisher of Thornapple Press.
  • Andrea Zanin is a white, nonbinary, middle-aged queer writer has written about nonmonogamy and BDSM/Leather for the Globe and Mail, The Tyee, Bitch, Ms., Xtra, IN Magazine, Outlooks Magazine and the Montreal Mirror.

Outdoor Workshop Tent

• 11:00 – 1:50pm: “Heater Bloc Victoria, space heater making workshop” with Goose and Artur
  • Description: Showcasing this collective and what it does locally. Then a hands on learning session showing how to make safe alcohol heaters from start to finish.
  • Bio: Heater Bloc Victoria is a Mutual aid collective building safe alcohol tent heaters for the locally unhoused population of Victoria.

• 2:00 – 3:20pm: “Block Print Patch Making” with Gloomybunz (they/them)
  • Description: Come learn how to make block printed patches for your clothes and more! Gloomybunz will be demonstrating how to do the printing process with some of their own blocks and then workshop goers can try carving and printing their own block, or use Gloomybunz blocks, to make patches! Materials will be provided, unless you want to bring some of your own fabric or clothes to print on (Just make sure they’re mostly cotton).
  • Bio: Gloomybunz is a self taught printmaker and anarchist artist currently residing on Snunemuxw Territory. They love sharing art with their community. Check out their art shop at gloomybunz.com

All-Ages Workshop Space

• 11:30 – 12:15pm: “Beehive Collective Rhyming Storytelling for all ages: The True Cost of Coal” with Dee (he/they)
  • Description: Featuring larger than life and intricately detailed art murals from the Beehive Collective, rhyming storytelling, and participatory discussion about our interconnected histories, the struggles of today, and the fight for a just and sustainable future. Based largely around the graphic and book The True Cost of Coal.
  • The True Cost of Coal graphic uses mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia as a lens through which to understand the historical and contemporary story of energy and resource extraction. With a gigantic portable mural teeming with intricate images of plants and animals from the most biodiverse temperate forest on the planet, the Bees will share (and seek) stories of how mountaintop removal coal mining affects communities and ecosystems throughout Appalachia and beyond.
  • The True Cost of Coal examines all of our connections to coal, while celebrating stories of struggle from mountain communities. The last chapter of the story also looks to the future, raising questions about alternatives, remediation, and regeneration.
  • Bio: the Beehive Collective is an all-volunteer collective of artists, activists, and educators, dedicated to cross-pollinating the grassroots.

• CANCELED_______1:00 – 2:20pm: “Plants for a Stateless Future” with philippa joly
  • Description: Join community/clinical herbalist philippa joly on a neighbourhood walkabout to learn some healing powers of common city plants. We will also learn to look at the land and read its hidden ecology.
    

• 3:00 – 4:20pm: “Put It On The Ground” with Art Farquharson (he/him)
  • Description: We’re preparing the next generation to lead. We’re sharing our songs because music unites us in class struggle. The body of justice music is rich, diverse and poignant. What better way to raise our children than to give them a gentle path to maturity through music? Please, everyone, bring your instruments.

• • Bio: Art has a song for every occasion, or thinks he does. He’s ready to be surprised. His allegiance to the working class is unwavering. Between laughing and crying he’ll always choose laughter.