Saturday, September 20th, Large Workshop Room, Main Floor, 1240 Gladstone Ave
12:00pm
Su Alexanian (she/her)
Housing by the people, for the people: community land trusts and building community through shared ownership
Kensington Market Community Land Trust was created to protect the social and economic diversity of our neighbourhood. We’re buying back homes, block by block — keeping housing affordable for our neighbours through community ownership and a non-profit model. Come hear the story of how an idea turned into 40 affordable and deeply affordable homes and counting — the wins, the pitfalls, and the lessons learned along the way.
1:00pm
Mel Cassidy (they/them)
Self-love & Resilience
Come to explore radical perspectives on cultivating self-partnership as liberatory work — and how to do it. In this somatic-based workshop we’ll explore the practical principles of self-partnering, as described in Mel’s book, Radical Relating— knowing yourself, honoring yourself, and loving yourself— and how they can support us in showing up with more capacity for all our relationships and communities. Bring a journal, or something to make notes in. IG/FB
@radicalrelating
2:00pm
Megan
No Care Without Control
As Canadian provincial/federal social services begin to erode, a critique of the Non-Profit Industrial Complex (NIPC) is necessary, as well as narratives of “harm reduction”. The insidiousness of the NIPC will be dissected, particularly its subsuming nature that aims to reinforce social control while paving the way for privatization. This workshop is a desperate plea to recenter meaningful, class-conscious action outside of the NIPC on Vancouver Island and beyond.
3:00pm
Rose Howes (she/her)
Making Comix 101
Making Comix 101 is a quick and dirty crash course in the language of the medium, the craft of developing your craft, and how we marry a process-oriented approach with a desire to make rad-ass-shit (aka; how to be a perfectionist, still enjoy making art, and not burnout). We’ll do this through brief lectures and the making of one page comic zines, which y’all can trade if ya want. If you enjoy any amount of writing, drawing, or graphic design, then you’ll probably like making comics and if you already like them// are curious about making them (but are too scared to begin// feel like quitting) then this is for you more than anyone 😀
Organisation: Silverfish Comics
Instagram: @silverfishcomics
Email: silverfishcomics@gmail.com
4:00pm
Mario Castillo (he/him)
Anarchist sociability in Havana, Cuba
The Alfredo Lopez libertarian workshop and ABRA Social Center are a collective anarchist initiative and a space derived from that initiative, which has existed in Havana, Cuba for over ten years. During that time, we have developed practices, and ideas that we want to share and critically analyze, in light of the great challenges we face everywhere.
5:00pm
Ben (they/m); Annie (they/m); Orchid (they/m)
Trauma informed adaptive self defense (90 min)
Beginner self-defense workshop by traumatized people for traumatized people. We will give you tools for emotional regulation to help you react quickly and basic physical responses to keep yourself and your people safe. We will be able to teach you adaptations for disability on the spot and can do some basic manual wheelchair maintenance. Masks required and provided.
Social media is @autonomyrecovery on Instagram
Sunday, September 21st, Large Workshop Room, Main Floor, 1240 Gladstone Ave
12:00pm
Norman Nawrocki (he/him/bigmouth)
Squat the City! How to use the arts for housing justice
This workshop will combine a presentation of my new book (Squat the City! How to use the arts for housing justice) with a hands-on practical Creative Resistance approach to Victoria housing issues. Participants will collectively explore how to use music, theatre, visuals, etc., to address the problems and promote solutions.
https://linktr.ee/normannawrocki
1:00pm
Wes Carroll
Liberation Song Circle
Gather with us to share songs of liberation, celebrating the ancestors of our past and honoring the dream of a dignified future for all. You are invited to share one or two songs. Bring your voice, your spirit, and an acoustic instrument if you have one to teach us a part of your song. (one acoustic guitar will be provided to share)
insta: @wesconfab
2:00pm
Historical Seditions
Deconstructing Settler Socialism
Based on five years of archival research, “Deconstructing Settler Socialism,” recently released as a book of the same name by HIstorical Seditions, dives deep into the 19th century origins of anarchism and communism amid the genocidal settler colonial context of the “Wild West.” Critical light is shed on the history of “cooperative colony” land projects amid ongoing Indigenous land theft and the foundational role anti-Chinese racism played in constructing a white settler labor movement. Indigenous struggles and acts of organizing and community by Chinese workers are highlighted at various points.
3:00pm
Pixie
(Dis)Organization : Anarchist Archives and the Struggles for Access to Information
What do anarchist activists need to know and how should that knowledge be organized ? This interactive workshop aims to answer this question and many others about access to information as a militant practice. Using history as a form of social power, anarchist archives should be organized as a tool to help us find the information we need in an effort to support our current struggles, and, therefore, to push us towards informed action. Using examples from radical archives in Tiothià:ke (Montreal), we will explore the consequences and opportunities of categorizing and giving access to anarchist material from the past in order to expand our collective power in the present. Information stored in zines, newspapers, journals, posters, flyers, manifestos, practical guides, meeting minutes, and more, can provide crucial knowledge about our communities and the political movements we participate in. Join us for this interactive discussion on strategies surrounding memory politics and the struggles for access to information.
4:00pm
Peter Janz
We Have to Sing!
This Workshop looks at the songs and history of music with activism and the labour community. It is not just about singing the songs but examining them, talking about the history, looking at changing words to make them relevant nowadays and the ideas of writing our own. This Workshop is done in a round circle where everyone has the chance to participate and engage in discussion. There’s no experience necessary, simply a willingness to engage and sing. Everyone is welcome to bring an instrument and a voice.