SakuraFest workshop: Portraits of Community Care
Join us for a dialogue and art-making workshop exploring the role of women and non-binary people within Japanese Canadian and Nikkei community life. This workshop is co-facilitated by Erica H Isomura and Nico Koyanagi.
In this beginner-friendly workshop, Nico will lead the group in conversation around care, gendered labour, and community wellbeing, inviting participants to reflect on their personal experiences. This will be followed by a mixed-media/collage art activity, during which Erica will teach participants how to create portraits as homage to loved ones. No prior experience is necessary.
This workshop will be approached from a stance of creative empowerment, solidarity, and making visible what labour and care goes unseen in everyday life and community. Participants are invited to bring copies of personal photos to use in their projects, notably of women, family members, care givers, mentors, or teachers who have played a caretaking role in their lives.
Tickets
$5 +HST to reserve a spot.
Nobody is turned away for lack of funds.
Please e-mail izumi at izumik@jccc.on.ca if the cost is prohibitive
Led by Erica H Isomura (MFA, artist) & Nico Koyanagi (RSW, peer support)
Erica H Isomura is an artist, writer, and educator whose work is rooted in community. She was raised by a Chinese Canadian mom and sansei dad on the west coast beside the Sto:lo (Fraser River). Erica's inter- and multi-disciplinary practice combines storytelling, book arts, printmaking, collage and mixed-media art with land-based and critical diasporic knowledge. Erica has taught community art, bookmaking, and creative writing workshops across Canada. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph.
Nico Koyanagi is a mixed-race yonsei, registered social worker, community organizer, educator, and mediator who prioritizes connection and healing in all aspects of her work. She grew up as a settler in Nogojiwanong on Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg territory (Peterborough, ON). Through her community work with the BIPOC Growing Collective, Mata Ashita, and Tsuru for Solidarity, Nico is interested in how we can live with more compassion, kindness, and care towards ourselves, each other, and the earth alongside challenging oppression in all forms.