Take Care of Yourself: The Art and Politics of Care and Liberation

Sundus Abdul Hadi is an Iraqi-Canadian multimedia artist. Born in the UAE, she was raised and educated in Montreal, where she earned a BFA in Studio Arts and Art History and a Masters in Media Studies. Her work critically engages current crises in the Middle East through subversive and sensitive reflection, using manipulated photographic imagery, mixed-media painting, artist books and sound. Her most recent work is a self-authored illustrated book titled ＂Shams＂ about trauma, transformation and healing. Complimenting her studio practice, Abdul Hadi curates exhibitions as artist-curator. Most recently, she independently curated ＂Take Care of Your Self,＂ an exhibition and series of events about self-care and struggle, featuring 27 artists of diverse communities. She is the cofounder of The Medium, a global multidisciplinary artist collective. Her work has been exhibited in Palestine, UAE, Canada, USA, France, UK and Saudi Arabia. She has given workshops in Australia, Iraq and Kuwait, and has been a speaker at Nuqat, the Nobel Peace Prize Forum, Telfair Museum, and multiple universities in Canada and the US. Abdul Hadi is a two-time recipient of the Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Quebec (CALQ) Vivacite grant, and received the Makers Muse award from Kindle Project (2018). Her work is part of the Barjeel Art Foundation collection. Abdul Hadi also hosts ＂The Groundbreakers,＂ a weekly radio show about art and culture on CKUT 90.3 fm in Montreal.

Suheir Hammad is the author of Breaking Poems, recipient of a 2009 American Book Award and the Arab American Book award for Poetry 2009. Her other books are ZaatarDiva; Born Palestinian, Born Black; and Drops of This Story. Her work has been widely anthologized and also adapted for theater. Her produced plays include Blood Trinity and breaking letter(s), and she wrote the libretto for the multimedia performance Re-Orientalism. An original writer and performer in the Tony-winning Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry Jam on Broadway, Suheir appears in the 2008 Cannes Film Festival Official Selection Salt of This Sea. In her poems and plays, Suheir Hammad blends the stories and sounds of her Palestinian-American heritage with the vibrant language of Brooklyn to create a passionately modern voice.

Yassin ’Narcy’ Alsalman, formerly known as the Narcicyst, is a musician, actor, professor and multi media artist based out of Montreal, Canada. Being a pioneer of the Arab Hip-Hop movement through is Iraqi trio Euphrates in the early 2000s, Yassin Alsalman, was a seminal member of a growing voice in the public sphere. Currently teaching one of Canada’s only Hip-Hop courses at Concordia University in Montreal, Narcy ethos has been to blend performance with education, media with literacy and creativity with cultural heritage. Yassin is also currently heading an international body of artists WeAreTheMedium, a family of independent creatives that come together for curation, performance, consultation and product based creation.

Teeanna Munro is a spoken word artist and writer whose work focuses on storytelling as identity, resistance and celebration. Her work has been published in The Great Black North: Contemporary African Canadian Poetry, and Geist Magazine and her performances include The Congress of Black Writers and Artists, National Youth Arts Week, Hogan Alley’s Memorial Poetry Festival, and the Canadian Spoken Word Festival. Words that ignite her spirit are family, oral tradition, heritage, community, preservation, generations, and memory.

Jess Glavina is a second-generation immigrant-settler writer, media-maker, and touch therapist based in Tio’tia: ke (Montreal). Interest in oral history and storytelling as self-representation and epistemological practice led to a radio internship at the Centre for Oral History & Digital Storytelling at Concordia University in 2013, which began a passion for community radio. Now as part of the women of colour run radio collective Creators Chorus, Jess coproduces a show called ’Sounds Dramatic’ which explores theatre as art-form, ritual, & political practice through interviews with theatre makers. Recent theatrical involvement includes participation in the Lower (the) Depths theatre residency hosted at the Montreal Arts Intercultural Centre in 2015 under the direction of Barak adé Soleil, and as playwright, codirector and performer of her first play, ’A Chorus of Unidentified Singers’ which premiered in March as part of Concordia’s Feminist Short Works Theatre Festival.

Annick MF is a multidisciplinary gather and cultivator. She gathers stories about and by her community(ies) and cultivates spaces for these stories and experiences to be shared and heard. Over the years her preferred mediums have been audio (radio + podcasts) and video (documentaries) but she also dabbles in theater and writing. She is currently working on a research-creation project that looks at the intersections of black identity and experience in Montreal across language, gender, and generations from the 1960s till now.