The FEELed Lab is thrilled to partner with Inspired Word Cafe (IWC) in a new SSHRC-funded Partnership Engage Grant that continues our work on the biodiversities of gender project.
Biodviersities of Gender (or BOG, for short) is interested in making connections between gender abundance and ecological abundance – where many bodies, beings, places, and relations can flourish, in all of their wonderful variations. It understands gender variation and proliferation as a clever, joyful and creative response to changes in ecological places, especially in the context of climate change.
In this iteration of our project, our goal is to meaningfully contribute to building a safer local community where gender, climate and anticolonial cultural abundance can flourish through creative practice.
We are working with IWC because this incredible organization knows the power of creative practice for fostering stronger communities, based on love and respect for diversity. Providing amazing inclusive arts programming in the Okanagan since 2009, IWC believes that participation in the literary and performing arts is not only a right for everyone, both as consumers and to creators, but is also a vital part of the creative and emotional well-being of our local community. IWC’s mandate also specifically includes offering inclusive space for LGBTQ2SIA+ members interested in literary arts and presentation of LGBTQ2SIA+ work. (You can learn more about IWC and their mandates here.)
Together with IWC, we will explore how queer performance and creativity can be a method for connecting gender abundance, climate change and Land relations from new angles. Both IWC and the FEELed Lab see this as a way to continue thinking about and practicing our obligations as predominantly settler spaces on stolen and unceded syilx lands.
This work will take the form of a number of community-engaged creative workshops that we will co-organize over the next year.
The first workshop will take place in collaboration with the 9th Annual Pony Cabaret (get your tickets now! It is bound to sell out swiftly!). We are excited to welcome Joshua Whitehead, Oji-Cree, Two-Spirit storyteller and academic from Peguis First Nation on Treaty 1 territory in Manitoba, who will offer a writing workshop on Friday March 7 2025, exploring these themes. More information can be found here.
Check back for more updates from the BOG squad!
The FEELed lab 