Beyond Words: home/land
BIPOC Art Series
Fall + Winter 2024-2025
Saturdays, 1-3pm
November 9, January 25, March 8
Open to: BIPOC Queen's students and community members
Free + in-person program + art packages provided
Beyond Words was created by BIPOC for BIPOC. Beyond Words aims to foster a safe and creative space centred in art healing for Queen’s University students and members of the Katarokwi-Kingston community who identify as Black, Indigenous, and people of colour. We will be using art as a tool for expression and discussion in order to help facilitate healing within our mind, body, and spirit. Art as healing is a growing movement that has a lot to offer to individuals working through emotions that can be difficult to put into words.
History, Memory, Place: Exploring Home and Land through Tatreez
Saturday, November 9, 2024
Union Gallery
1-3pm
In the first session, Union Gallery is partnering with Baraa Abuzayed to explore the concept of home/land through traditional Palestinian embroidery called tatreez. We will be discussing the concepts of history, memory, and place and how they are represented through colourfully stitched patterns. Through this session we will talk about the connection between land and embroidery.
BARAA ABUZAYED
Baraa is a Palestinian scholar, currently based in Katarokwi Kingston. She’s a Ph.D student in Cultural Studies, and her current research focuses on themes of social reproduction, home, family, fragmentation, and survival. Through her research-creation practice, Baraa incorporates mixed media installation using textiles and film. Her work often involves incorporating traditional Palestinian embroidery techniques and patterns by blending different mediums.
Materials and Symbols: Creating Home through Jewelry Making
Saturday, January 25, 2025
Union Gallery
1-3pm
In the second session, Union Gallery is collaborating with registered art therapist Melanie Gray and Queen’s BIPOC Talk. We will be making jewelry to discuss home/land and how symbols and materials can help represent what home means to you.
MELANIE GRAY
Melanie graduated from Queen’s University in 2016 with a BAH in Art History and Indigenous Studies. She went on to complete her graduate program at the Toronto Art Therapy Institute where she graduated in 2018. Her thesis was titled The Ohén:ton Karihwatéhkwen Project: Introducing Art Therapy to Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory using the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address. As an Indigenous Art Therapist, Melanie continues to be grounded in her Haudenosaunee culture and uses this understanding in her art healing practice.
QUEEN’S BIPOC TALK
Queen’s BIPOC Talk is a branch of the Peer Support Centre and is a confidential, non-judgemental peer support service and safe space for BIPOC students to work through their experiences while being supported by peers, as well as creating opportunities for BIPOC students to connect with one another and build community.
What Does Home Mean To You?: Collage Workshop
Saturday, March 8, 2025
Union Gallery
1-3pm
In the third session, Union Gallery is collaborating with Queer College Collectives (QCC) to facilitate a collage making workshop on the topic of home/land. We will be focusing on what home means to you as an individual. We will discuss how a home could be a physical space, but could also be the people around you, or certain symbols that represent specific memories that feel like home. We will discuss different concepts of what a home could be and use collage making as a way to represent our thoughts.
ALYSSA VERNON
Alyssa Vernon (she/her), born in Hamilton, Ontario, is a Jamaican & Guyanese collage artist currently based in Kingston, Ontario. Alyssa is a passionate Black and queer teacher and learner who incorporates collage into educational spaces to blend creativity into learning, while imagining futures where everyone is free.
Alyssa works through her lived experiences whilst collaging, pulling from themes of Black girlhood, (un)belonging, queer liberation, and community; whilst reflecting on Black histories to help imagine liberatory Black futures. Through her collages, Alyssa intends for Black people, particularly Black women, to feel like their stories and experiences matter and have value, to feel represented and seen, and to promote healing and love.
Alyssa is also the Co-Founder and lead programmer of Queer Collage Collective (QCC). QCC is a queer-led, anti-oppressive arts collective for healing and the strengthening of mental health. Follow and get in touch with QCC to see the work Alyssa is up to currently: @queercollagecollectives.
QUEER COLLAGE COLLECTIVE (QCC)
QCC events are for healing, expression and the strengthening of mental health through creating art. They aim to provide an accountable space to facilitate anti-oppressive conversation.
What to Expect
Beyond Words is an arts based public program that is centered around art healing with the intent to create a safe and creative space for Queen’s University students and Katarokwi-Kingston community members. Beyond Words 2024/2025 will provide students with an opportunity to engage in discussion pertaining to Union Gallery’s annual curatorial theme of home/land. Participants will be able to come together and explore what these concepts mean to them through art making and facilitated discussion.
YASHFEEN AFZAAL, PROGRAM ASSISTANT
Yashfeen Afzaal is in her fourth year at Queen’s University pursuing her BAH in Art History. She was born and raised in Markham, Ontario and has always loved going to museums and art galleries growing up. At Union Gallery she has been the program lead for the BIPOC Art Therapy Series Beyond Words. She is passionate about public programming as it is a wonderful way for people in the community to come together and enjoy each other's company while also enjoying art.