KAC EVENTS
Upcoming Kingston Arts Council Events
Anti-Oppression for Artists and Cultural Producers
Tuesday, September 14, 12PM.
Join Rania El Mugammar on September 14 at 12PM for Anti-Oppression for Artists and Cultural Producers, an online workshop hosted on Zoom.
This free workshop for artists and arts workers explores the language, theories and practices of anti-oppression within a critical understanding of culture as a product of colonial, racial, gendered and intersecting violence. Institutional and community based strategies for building equity and unlearning oppression are central to the content and objectives of the workshop. Creative, technical and collaborative models for actualizing the work of liberation will be explored. Group activities, case studies and discussion are critical tools to apply the learnings of this workshop. Artists will examine the power dynamics that shape access, inclusion and opportunities in Canada’s arts and cultural landscape. The anti-oppression framework will be used to critique institutional dynamics as well as personal artistic practices. Participants will have access to a plethora of digital and print resources to continue their learning journey beyond the scope of the session.This workshop uses individual and group activities as well as discussion to apply learnings.Participants will have access to a plethora of digital and print resources to continue their learning journey beyond the scope of the session.
Learning Objectives
- Learn key attitudes for practicing anti-oppression.
- Contextualize narrative as a tool of injustice and explore opportunities for interrupting stock stories.
- Reflect on social justice challenges and opportunities within the context of the arts and cultural sector.
- Explore the concepts of cultural appropriation vs. cultural exchange, gain an understanding of the cultural order and the relationship between marginalized communities and mainstream arts and cultural institutions.
- Reflect on creating a more equitable and accessible space in the context of their work and the community.
- Gain an understanding of the language surrounding anti-oppression to facilitate independent learning.
- Reflect on these power dynamics in the context of the sector. Explore concepts, qualities, and practices of radical solidarity.
Facilitator
Rania El Mugammar is a Sudanese Artist, Liberation Educator, Abolitionist, Anti-oppression Consultant , multidisciplinary performer, speaker and published writer. Her work explores reproductive justice, transformative justice & abolition, art as liberation and digital justice.
As a writer, Rania's work explores themes of identity, womanhood, Blackness, flight, exile, migration, belonging, gender, sexuality and beyond. Rania's primary mediums are poetry, spoken word and oral storytelling. She is a published poet, storyteller and playwright. Rania is deeply interested in poetic form and the auditory texture of words as well as the visual/aesthetic impact of language and form.
Rania is an experienced anti-oppression, abolition and liberation educator and consultant who is unflinchingly committed to decolonization and freedom as the ultimate goals of her work. She has worked extensively with contemporary arts institutions, STEM based enterprises, media organizations, educational institutions and community/grassroots spaces.
Registration and access
The workshop is free, and the Kingston Arts Council is encouraging donations.
The workshop will last 2.5 hours, and will not be recorded. Please note that the event will accept a maximum of 60 participants. Please email laura@artskingston.ca with any questions regarding this workshop.
This event will have ASL interpreters and Live captioners. Let us know if you would like to discuss accessibility for this event, we want to make sure everybody can attend our programs.
Contemporary Arts Institutions: Meaningful Inclusion in Action
Tuesday, September 28, 12PM.
Join Rania El Mugammar on September 28 at 12PM for Contemporary Arts Institutions: Meaningful Inclusion in Action, an online workshop hosted on Zoom.
This free interactive workshop engages participants in different places in their equity learning journeys to develop new insights and strategies towards learning inclusion and unlearning oppression as it pertains to Canada’s arts and cultural landscape. We will examine historical contexts, personal narratives, power structures and systems that shape inequity in our world. We will also explore how these systems manifest inside our relationship with ourselves, our interpersonal connections, in our work spaces as well as systemic manifestations and barriers. We’ll also take a look at how we heal from traumas of exclusion and inequity and learn tactics for leveraging our privileges to imagine and actualize a meaningfully inclusive organization and on a larger scale, world.
Participants will explore organizational models for meaningful inclusion, anti-oppression and intersectional anti- racism. Case studies and applications will be examined to address inequity in funding, curation, adjudication and arts training. Participants will reflect on process, policy and practice as means for addressing institutional oppressions. On a larger scale, participants will be invited to explore the role of contemporary arts institutions, initiatives and funders in shaping Canada’s national identity and our understanding of justice beyond representation. Participants will have access to a plethora of digital and print resources to continue their learning journey beyond the scope of the session.
Learning Objectives
- Learn to reflect on assumptions, attitudes and behaviours.
- Learn to ask questions that foster learning/address biases.
- Understand and interrogate the dynamics that shape their lives in relation to others.
- Reflect on manifestations of oppression and exclusion in contemporary arts and cultural spaces.
- Learn strategies and solutions to addressing internalized, interpersonal and institutional oppressions.
- Gain an understanding of the language surrounding anti-oppression to facilitate independent learning.
- Apply learning to the context of their work and within their dynamics as a team.
- Reflect on power dynamics in the context of the sector.
- Explore concepts, qualities and practices of allyship.
- Learn the difference between diversity and meaningful inclusion.
- Examine ways in which we can leverage our privileges to shift power dynamics and create meaningful inclusion.
- Practice calling in order to address oppressive situations and mediate conflicts stemming from them.
- Reflect on creating a more equitable and accessible space.
Facilitator
Rania El Mugammar is a Sudanese Artist, Liberation Educator, Abolitionist, Anti-oppression Consultant , multidisciplinary performer, speaker and published writer. Her work explores reproductive justice, transformative justice & abolition, art as liberation and digital justice.
As a writer, Rania's work explores themes of identity, womanhood, Blackness, flight, exile, migration, belonging, gender, sexuality and beyond. Rania's primary mediums are poetry, spoken word and oral storytelling. She is a published poet, storyteller and playwright. Rania is deeply interested in poetic form and the auditory texture of words as well as the visual/aesthetic impact of language and form.
Rania is an experienced anti-oppression, abolition and liberation educator and consultant who is unflinchingly committed to decolonization and freedom as the ultimate goals of her work. She has worked extensively with contemporary arts institutions, STEM based enterprises, media organizations, educational institutions and community/grassroots spaces.
Registration and access
The workshop is free, and the Kingston Arts Council is encouraging donations.
The workshop will last 2.5 hours, and will not be recorded. Please note that the event will accept a maximum of 60 participants. Please email laura@artskingston.ca with any questions regarding this workshop.
This event will have ASL interpreters and Live captioners. Let us know if you would like to discuss accessibility for this event, we want to make sure everybody can attend our programs.