🌈 🧵 🦋

Save the Date! 📣

🗓 Saturday October 3
🕚 11am-4pm
📍 The Black and Here Community Centre (1327 Douglas Street)
🎟 Free or By Donation at the Door
🎨 Local Artists & Vendors TBA
🛍 BYOB (Bring Your Own Bags!)

OR pick up your own Black and Here merch tote bag with artwork by @theswcreations 🎉

Story Theatre invites you to our Community Market and Pop-Up Event at the Black and Here Community Centre!

As we bid goodbye to summer, join us in supporting small, local businesses and get your holiday shopping done early! 🛍

With free activities for kids run by Story Theatreall throughout the day, parents and families can shop freely and take in the new Black and Here Community Centre in the heart of downtown Victoria.

A fundraising event for Story Theatre, the Community Market will feature local vendors and artisans ready to welcome children and families to this daytime event.

Each vendor is generously donating 15% of their market profits to Story Theatre, in support of accessible arts programs for children across BC. We are excited to share the line-up soon.

A huge thank you to the Black and Here Community Centre, BC Black History Awareness Society and REP Here in Canada for welcoming us into their beautiful community space, where all families are welcome and celebrated.

🗓 Wed September 30 on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation
🕚 6:30-8:30pm*
📍 The Play Theatre - 108-561 Johnson Street

Registration Required

$20 minimum donation* directly to the Indian Residential School Survivors Society (IRSSS) Lamathut 24/7 Crisis Line

*All proceeds will be directed to IRSSS via their donation page linked above. Story Theatre will not be accepting regular online donations Sep 29, Sep 30, or Oct 1.

Discussion Led by Associate Producer, Monica Ogden

From an article by ancestor Lee Maracle, “I Couldn’t Forget”, 2015

“Justice Sinclair articulated what we all knew to be true: “What took place in residential schools amounts to nothing short of cultural genocide.” As he summarized the report, we wept. We could not bear to hear it, but we knew it needed to be said. We could not bear the pain of hearing it because then the reality would become so powerful. The honorary witnesses aged before the eyes of the camera as the words tumbled out onto the floor. Some of the MPs clenched their teeth too, desperately trying not to break down before the cameras.” - Lee Maracle

Workshop Goals

Anti-racism work has always been about sustained action. Big or small, the responsibility to act and protect racialized community members, the lands, the waters, the air, lands on all of us.

In this 2 hour workshop and discussion group, we will focus on:

• What direct anti-racist actions can look like for lower income artists

• Practising identifying and disrupting racism

• Group commitments and strategies of accountability to build sustainable financial support of Indigenous & Black led organizations in lək̓ʷəŋən and W̱SÁNEĆ territories

• Participants will be provided a list of resources, including more donation recommendations

• Required Reading/Engagement: Coming Soon

Monica Ogden (they/she/siya) is a queer, disabled, non-binary Pilipinx artist, producer, and anti-racist educator living uninvited on the territories of the lək̓ʷəŋən and W̱SÁNEĆ territories peoples. They have familial ties to Pangasinan & Illocus Sur, Philippines, and England. Monica’s focus on the overlapping systems of gender, racialization, and colonial gender-based violence inform their work in community, in theatre and the arts, and within systems of academia (BA in Gender Studies from the University of Victoria). They credit and honour the knowledge and life of Lee Maracle as instrumental to their development as a human, educator, laugher, and fighter.

We encourage you to attend and support the South Island Powwow before the evening workshop. Please give generously to the Songhees Nation as they produce their 5th Annual event.

Inspiring drawing below created by a young anonymous student in Victoria. It is partially quoting Mifflin Gibbs, the first Black person to hold elected office in BC in 1866.