The Strike (2024)
Film screening + discussion
Date & Time
Friday May 30, 7-10PM (Doors open 6:30PM)
Location
Innis Town Hall
Innis College, 2 Sussex Ave
Toronto, ON
Accessibility
Wheelchair accessible with assistive mobility devices at the rear of Town Hall. The theatre has power-assisted doors for full access. Assistive-listening devices are also available by request. An accessible gender-neutral washroom is located on the third floor. For requests, email programming@mayworks.ca
The high-security Pelican Bay prison was designed for mass-scale solitary confinement, often for a decade or more, and with little due process. In 2013, 30,000 incarcerated people went on a hunger strike that spread into a feat of unity across California prisons. The Strike follows these solitary survivors who fought to abolish indefinite isolation. Followed by a discussion moderated by Furqan Mohamed. All Mayworks Festival events are free. Registration required.
Panelists
Jordan House, Brock Labour Studies
Nala Ismacil, Barton Prisoner’s Solidarity Network
Jordan House is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Labour Studies at Brock University. He is the author (with Asaf Rashid) of Solidarity Beyond Bars: Unionizing Prison Labour (Fernwood Publishing, 2022).
Furqan Mohamed is a writer, educator, and arts worker from Toronto. She is interested in all things culture, kinship, and abolition. Her work has been featured in publications such as The Local, where she was an inaugural Journalism Fellow and 2022 Digital Publishing Award nominee, Maisonneuve, C Mag, and Canthius. You can find her poetry as part of the “Poems in Passage” project on the TTC, and a 2022 artist residency with inPrint Collective in collaboration with the Mackenzie House museum. She loves asking “Who’s Afraid?” as often as she can, chatting about poetry and translation, especially when working on sales and community for trace press, and is currently completing her graduate studies at OISE at the University of Toronto.
The Barton Prisoner Solidarity Project is an abolition group that aims to reduce the isolation that prison walls create through various projects.