Exploring Black Ecologies

Black communities in so-called Metro Vancouver have navigated complex relationships with the nonhuman world shaped by extraction, violence, urban displacement, and climate change. What does it mean to create a Black sense of place and presence in Metro Vancouver? How do we form ecological practices and kinship in such a place?

Join us on Saturday, July 4th for a walk at Deer Lake Park, followed by a workshop led by Feven Tesfay at the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts reflecting on Black ecological practices and insurgent forms of knowledge in Metro Vancouver.

You can attend the walk, the workshop, or both!

While all community members are welcome, this event is intended to center and prioritize the experiences, perspectives, and participation of Black community members.

We respectfully acknowledge that this work is situated on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), and kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem) Peoples.

Although this particular event is focused on Black ecological practices and ways of knowing, it forms part of a larger Black Ecologies project that we are developing as artists-in-residence through the Deer Lake Artist Residency. Black Ecologies is a framework that has long grappled with Black presence on Indigenous lands and the relationships between Black and Indigenous communities. These tensions and questions remain integral to our thinking and will continue to unfold as the project develops.