Full schedule of the festival available here.

 

KEYNOTE PANEL: What we long for and where we belong // Ce qui nous appartient et ce qui nous retient

**THIS PANEL IS OPEN TO ALL.**

 

How do we belong, as QTBIPOCs, when our being is so intertwined with longing? How do we envision a present and a future for ourselves when we feel estranged from traditions of our ancestors? How do we draw inspiration from queer and/or trans figures from our ancestries and cultures, when our lineage has broken and we feel exiled from our own sense of self?

As QTBIPOCs, we are often obligated to uproot and reroot ourselves: we survive international adoption, rejection from our families, lengthy immigration processes, violent border crossings and intergenerational trauma, only to find ourselves physically and spiritually displaced. This displacement excludes us from tasting the food that should be familiar to our tongues, celebrating holidays that our calendars cannot find and finding peace and joy in the cultures that were taken away from us.

In this panel, 5 QTBIPOC youth grapple with these questions by speaking of their personal and collective journeys. Through an exercise of reflection, sharing and witnessing, the speakers will each articulate separate yet intersecting roadmaps for QTBIPOC youth to grow in their sense of self, and to find individual and collective healing.

 

SPEAKERS

alejandrx is a queer, non-binary and afro-latinx writer, musician and actor. they're currently studying theater and are hoping to make a career out of acting. they love to experience with different types of art forms and share their story through their art. another one of their goals is to encourage other qtbipocs to perserve in the quebec acting world. they are also an aquarius sun, sagittarius moon and taurus rising. they personally identify as a cat dad and a plant mom. they use the word gay at least 50 times a day and drown themselves in glitter all the time.

Claudia Janampa Huamán describes herself as the lands she wasn’t born in. High rise Andes and deep green Amazon rainforest, all growing out of fractured cement. While boundaries of disciplines fall broken on her tongue, she can be described as a brown lesbian turned artist, with a focus on printed media, performance arts and installations. She is also a former alum and steering committee member of the arts mentorship program Our Bodies, Our Stories. Her single poem zine FUCKING IMMIGRANT is soon to be sold at the bookfair Queer Between the Covers, in person, and in other venues coming up.

Iyan, a Palestinian artist. A Transman and is the writer of Diary of a queer Refugee page. He had noticed that there’s only few writings about Queer refugees in the Middle East and it’s done in western vision for the western audience so he have been documenting his journey, feelings and survival tips hoping that it might help other queer refugees who had to flee like him. He hopes for a better future for the next queer generation in the Middle East where no one have to leave home for a safer place anymore. He’s a song writer and a singer. He wrote songs about check points, detention, sex work and memories. Writing songs to him is like taking photos, he listen to them to remember how things felt at the time he wrote it. 

Jupiter Brown is a Black queer multimedia artist based in Tio'tia:ke/Montreal. Jupiter is interested in the ideas of rhythm, space, language, and mood as interpreted by installation, movement, sound, and visual art forms. Jupiter has been presented by Never Apart gallery, the Blue Metropolis Festival, Off the Page Literary Festival, and elsewhere. Originally from the Washington, D.C. area, they are a graduate of Concordia University.

Yassi Vile is a queer East Asian adoptee. In a broken and stuttering Frenglish, she goes through life having to balance her traumas and hopes. She believes in the intrinsic magic that every women and femmes of color carry as well as in the eventual end of the hetero-cis-white supremacy. In all her stories, she blends feelings of grief and joy together, coating them up in honesty and care. You can regularly see her on the Gender B(l)ender stage, reading her melodramatic pieces at a flow way too fast for the human ear.

 

MODERATOR

root, who will be moderating this panel, hopes to highlight the expertise of his OBOS peers who are featured on this panel. He hopes to offer a glimpse of the beauty, laughter and nourishment of OBOS participants coming together. LOCATION: articule, 262 Fairmount O, Montreal, QC H2V 2G3

 

ACCESSIBILITY

- There will be walking companions on request to help anyone walk to and from the space safely for this event. Please email summer.obos@p10.qc.ca to request the help of a walking companion.

- articule's gallery is wheelchair accessible. There is a ramp at the entrance of the building. The bathroom is partially accessible to persons using a wheelchair; please also note that there is only one support bar.

- If you need childcare, please let us know *48 hours* in advance by emailing: summer.obos@p10.qc.ca

- There will be volunteers to do whisper translation in the space.

- There will be volunteers available to do active listening at the event.

- There will be fidget toys available at the event. We ask folks to please put them back in the box where they took it when they will no longer use it.

- There will be food and refreshments provided

- Cost: This event is free for everyone. Should you want to make a donation, we will have a donation jar at the entrance and you can also support the program by donating here (please select Our Bodies, Our Stories).

 

LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

(be)longing is happening on the traditional territories on the kanien'kehá:ka. As a QTBIPOC community, it is important for us to honor the traditional keepers of these lands and we encourage everyone to educate themselves about the history of this place, and to actively work in solidarity with Indigenous peoples of these lands towards decolonial and anticolonial liberation.

We need volunteers! Please sign up here.

For any questions or concerns, please email: summer.obos@p10.qc.ca