Festival 2023: Labour ARTS CATAlyst
We’re excited to announce that Sonali Menezes, Zinnia Naqvi & Kamika Peters were selected to participate in our 2022-23 Labour Arts Catalyst; a project pairing artists with labour organizations in collaborative art-making!
Sonali Menezes x Labour Against the Arms Trade
Sonali is an interdisciplinary artist based in Hamilton, ON. She holds an Honours BA in Studio Art from the University of Guelph and is the youngest of triplets. While her work spans many mediums, she has been most recently focused in video, zines and printmaking. In 2018 Sonali’s chapbook zine won the Broken Pencil Magazine Zine Award for best literary zine. In 2019 she was the recipient of the City of Hamilton’s Emerging Artist Award in Media Arts. Sonali just quit her day job in art administration so she can focus on making art and spend less time on emails. If you’ve got any tips on how she can continue paying her bills, please let her know!
Zinnia Naqvi x Asian Canadian Labour Alliance
Zinnia Naqvi (she/her) is a lens-based artist working in Tkaronto/Toronto. Her work examines issues of colonialism, cultural translation, language, and gender through the use of photography, video, the written word, and archival material. Recent projects have included archival and re-staged images, experimental documentary films, video installations, graphic design, and elaborate still-lives. Her artworks often invite the viewer to consider the position of the artist and the spectator, as well as analyze the complex social dynamics that unfold in front of the camera. Naqvi’s work has been shown across Canada and internationally. She is a 2022 Fall Flaherty/Colgate Distinguished Global Filmmaker in Residence and recipient of the 2019 New Generation Photography Award organized by the the National Gallery of Canada. Naqvi is member of EMILIA-AMALIA Working Group, an intergenerational feminist collective. Naqvi received a BFA in Photography Studies from Toronto Metropolitan University and an MFA in Studio Arts from Concordia University.
Kamika Peters x Rising Tide Toronto
Kamika Peters is an emerging multidisciplinary artist, some sites of her exploration have been Project Creative Users, Sketch Working Arts, and the Watah Theatre. In 2020, she received an Emerging Artist Award from Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. Exploring collective and personal justice through art, performance and visual arts are the main focus of Kamika’s practice.