Recognition of First Nations Peoples and Land Acknowledgement
Mayworks Festival for Working People and the Arts acknowledges that we are situated upon traditional territories near the meeting place of Ontarí’io (Lake Ontario) and Gabekanaang-ziibi (the Humber River). These territories are ancestral and traditional lands to many First Nations: the Wendat, Anishinabek Nation, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, and the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation. With gratitude, we recognize and are in solidarity with the enduring presence of members of these nations on the land where we live and work together for a just future. We also recognize that this land is home to many Indigenous people, and we recognize the enduring presence of Indigenous peoples across Turtle Island.
The treaty that was signed for this particular parcel of land is collectively referred to as the Toronto Purchase and applies to lands east of Brown’s Line to Woodbine Avenue and north towards Newmarket. This treaty is still standing and it is our responsibility to uphold it.
Mayworks Equity Statement
Mayworks Festival acknowledges we live in a society rooted in oppression and inequalities and that structural injustices – including those resulting from colonialism, racism, sexism, heteronormativism, classism, ableism, and ageism – inflect our experiences. The Mayworks Festival strives to amplify the collective knowledge gained by representing our experiences of oppression, with the goal of building intersectional solidarity to reimagine a just future.
Mayworks Festival also acknowledges that low-income earners, those living below the poverty line, and other economically marginalized people are disadvantaged in employment and society.
Mayworks strives together in community to represent the experiences of people who are damaged by and resist extractive capitalism in all of its forms.