BREAKING ARRIERS
THE LEGACY OF 12 BLACK TRADE UNIONISTS CHANGING CANADA

By Anna Jane McIntyre and Alexandra C. Yeboah, in collaboration with the Coalition for Black Trade Unionists (CBTU)

Breaking Barriers is a bookwork and poster that highlights the experiences of organizers, artists and participants of the Coalition for Black Trade Unionists (CBTU) including: Albert Jackson, Violet King Henry, Stanley Grizzle, Fred Upshaw, Bromley Armstrong, June Veecock, Herman Stewart, Marie Clarke Walker, Mark Brown, Janice Gairey, Christopher Wilson and Yolanda McLean. Research, interviews and text by Alexandra C. Yeboah, illustrations byAnna Jane McInytre. This project was developed through the Mayworks Labour Arts Catalyst.

Breaking Barriers poster 
May 1st to May 31st
United Steelworkers Hall, Foyer Window (Available to view from outside, dusk until dawn)

Breaking Barriers Book Launch
Friday May 20th, 7PM – 8PM (Doors open at 6:30PM)
United Steelworkers Hall 

ANNA JANE MCINTYRE

Anna Jane McIntyre is a visual artist-parent with a practice combining shape-shifting, mark-making, thinking, doing, looking, breathing, $5-improv-benevolent-capitalism and microactivism. Anna’s work investigates how people perceive, create and maintain their notions-of-self, belonging and culture through behaviour and visual cues. Projects may incorporate giant emojis, feminist-foosball-tables, community workshops, parade floats, commercial signage, thinking forests, urban ecology forest-school cahiers prioritising BIPOC kids, time-travelling-soundscapes-mapping-abstract-narratives, Speaker’s corners, love-letter-services and homages-for-the-forgotten.

Anna’s projects are an expression of Afropresentism that combine her cultural influences (Trinidadian, British, adoptive-Canadian) through the juxtaposition of familiar materials in novel contexts. Her work acknowledges the past and present, imagining a surreal dream of what is to come.

ALEXANDRA C. YEBOAH

Alexandra C. Yeboah is a Brampton-based writer, creative spirit, facilitator, and mental health advocate. Her writing explores themes relating to social consciousness through multiple formats, on matters pertaining to cultural identity, gender-based violence, education, precarious employment, homelessness, faith, and mental wellness. Alexandra’s love of curiosity and adventure-seeking is what often drives her quest to discover new things, meet new people and find compelling stories to tell. She is also especially passionate about helping others transmit ideas to inform, inspire and transform. Currently, she serves as a volunteer member of the Peel Poverty Lived Experience Table.

YOLANDA MCCLEAN