In this skill-building workshop, participants will explore how art and impactful visual language amplify social movements. Participants will make their own media, inspired by the history of: zines, wheatpasting, and related democratic multiples produced in the context of queer, trans, Black, and Indigenous liberation movements, and their intersections with local and international struggles against imperialist, settler colonial, ableist, and capitalist violence.

Over the course of the workshop, participants will be introduced to the fundamentals of relief printmaking, including carving techniques, positive and negative space, and inking. Participants will work in groups to brainstorm visual imagery used for social movements of their choosing. They will then carve their own stamps and share their created visual symbols with each other to make posters. Participants can take their stamps home, so that they can make prints and intervene in public space in perpetuity.

Note: Please check back here for registration.

This series of artist-led workshops consider how expressions of voice operate “off the page” to explore the world-shaping power of narrative, which continues to be urgent amidst ongoing colonial violences. Participants will experiment with the influence of language, media, and art on how stories and knowledge are acted upon, shaped, and recorded. Through a lens of embodied and collective critical practices, these workshops ask: How do we seek the difficult questions? How do we recuperate images from the gazes of their uncomfortable archives? How can visual print media and protest intervene in everyday life, through web-like ways? How does your voice influence your surroundings?

This program is co-produced in partnership with C Magazine.

 

Artist Bio

Pardis Pahlavanlu

Pardis Pahlavanlu is an artist and illustrator living as a guest between Tkaronto (Toronto) and unceded Coast Salish territories (Vancouver). While her academic studies have revolved around systems of power in contemporary colonial states, her artistic work has centred on the healing that is necessary in these contexts.

In her workshops, Pardis aims to make art-marking accessible to all, allowing room for imagination and play to take place. She meets people where they are at and offers various approaches for teaching printmaking, collaging, and other mediums. Her goal is that participants walk away with pride in their learning capacities and an eagerness to learn more, in whatever that may be.

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