Items

• MSDAA BIPOC/Queer Speaker Series
  Funded 2021-2022
• How To Get A Thigh Gap
  Funded 2021-2022 How To Get A Thigh Gap is a multimedia project by Nisha Patel (she/her) and Bree Meiklejohn (she/her). Nisha Patel is an artist specializing in poetry and spoken word was the 2019-2021 City of Edmonton Poet Laureate. Nisha’s work explores themes including disability and ableims, illness, identity and race, and her life as a queer South Asian woman. Bree is a University of Alberta student studying English and Creative Writing who writes to themes of marginalization, including fatphobia and sexism, mental illness and disability, and works towards using her artistic work to explore social justice and the role of the arts in achieving it. The multimedia photo/poetry series, How to Get A Thigh Gap, will articulate systemic fatphobia through creatively rewriting the WikiHow Article “How to Get a Thigh Gap” (writing and illustration laden with fatphobia), and replacing the illustrations with self-taken photos exploring fat joy in a fat body.
• Everyday Harm Reduction Online Zine
  Funded 2021-2022 The Everyday Harm Reduction Online Zine is an online semi-instructional zine about what harm reduction is and how one can incorporate harm reduction principles. They aim to fight stigmas associated with the current and ongoing opioid crisis which disproportionately affects QTBIPOC+ folks, with different groups of people needing to cope with differential traumas inflicted by intersecting sources of oppression. The zine will incorporate research on addiction and harm reduction practices and illustrations and writings from local artists. This project is led by Alexa Bender. https://www.instagram.com/penance_art/
• All Ya'll Series
  Funded 2021-2022 All Y’All Calendar, an astrology calendar for prairie queers and gender-bending BIPOC cowboys. Salem (they/them) is a multimedia story-teller, astrologer and an amiskwacîwâskahikan-based prairie boy, Born and barely raised in small-town Alberta, they have loudly declared amiskwacîwâskahikan their soul’s muse. Salem’s vision of the prairies paints it as the backdrop to the stories of flourishing black and indigenous creatives. Their work as an emerging filmmaker and digital media artist works to elevate narratives that centre the stories, aesthetics and values of QTBIPOC and BIPOC artists. Salem’s artistic practice and mission is fueled by astrology, Afrofuturism, and Emergent Strategy practices. In 2021 Salem launched project the All Y’All Calendar, an astrology calendar for prairie queers and gender-bending BIPOC cowboys. “The ultimate spirit of this project is to foster a creative space where Black, Indigenous, and creatives of colour of all bodies can access experience on a photoshoot that celebrates decolonizing what it means to be a cowboy. Queer and racialized people aren’t commonly associated with Western wear, cowboy lifestyles, and gritty plains that are so emblematic of Alberta and the Prairies. This project inserts these people and histories into the contemporary narrative of what it means to be an Albertan.”
• QTBIPOC Community Meetups
  Funded 2019-2020
• The Hue YEG
  Funded 2020-2021 The Hue is a QTBIPOC+ Community Hub. Building community and advocating for QTBIPOC+ inclusion, accessibility, and safety in Edmonton.
• Shades of Colour (SOC)
  Funded 2018-2020 Shades of Colour is a grassroots collective located within treaty 6. They are QTBIPOCs (Queer + Trans, Black, Indigenous, People of Colour) making space for other QTBIPOCs who need this space to breathe. They hope that this will help to fill the gaps within community in ways that affirm our experiences and identity and move towards strengthening healthy multi-generational relationships that are needed.