Listen to original stories from workers and artists who explore the diverse experiences of women and gender-diverse people during the pandemic.
COVID-19 has disproportionately affected women workers in both paid and unpaid labour. Job loss, lockdowns, economic instability, loss of community, parenting and family caregiving, illness, isolation, and mental health are just some of the myriad of issues that women and gender-diverse people have grappled with over the past two years.
Watch this week’s story: Goodbye Uterus! Hello Global Pandemic!
By Lisa Pijuan-Nomura
Stories will be released here on WAHC’s website each Tuesday, starting on International Women’s Day, March 8th and will also appear in Together While Apart in the Community Gallery from March 5 – April 2, 2022.
Watch more stories from IWD 2022
ABOUT THE STORYTELLERS
Edith Chavez was born and raised in the heart of Mexico City. She loves to learn about other cultures and ways of life. Edith is the mother of a boy, which makes her life very colourful. One of her favourite quotes comes from Ramon De Campoamor: “Nothing is true and nothing is false. All depends on the colour of lens through which we look.”
Cecil Nievales Cecil is a storyteller, writer, mom, foodie and entrepreneur. She has participated in storytelling writing workshops with Kwentong Bayan Collective and CCECSO (Caregiver Connections, Education and Support Organization). She has presented her work live and virtually with Myseum Toronto in Myseum’s Intersections Quarantine Edition: Care Work Stories, Here and There Storytelling Event. She is a member of Caregiver Connections, Education and Support Organization (CCESO) a volunteer-run organization that has supported care workers/caregivers, newcomers, and migrant workers. Her passion for stories has focussed on Filipino Care Workers, memories of home and everyday life with family. Her work combines her love of storytelling passed onto her by her beloved grandmother.
Karen Ancheta Karen is a Hamiltonian-Filipina-Canadian multidisciplinary artist, co-founder of Porch Light Theatre as lead facilitator of The House Key Project, which made their debut with a site-specific audio youth show TIN CAN TELEPHONE @hamontfringe 2021. She is an original member of the Hamilton 7. She has worked on Red Betty Theatre’s Decolonise Your Ears Festival, Kwentong Bayan Collective’s Here and There for Myseum , workshopped for @filipinasofhamont, storytelling w/Edith Chavez’s Dias Los Muertas 2021, The Hamilton 7 and with The Safer Spaces Project, https://www.industrypresents.com/safer-spaces. Her production work includes wwww.onesmallvisit.com, props/acting in You’re Invited produced w/ARC.
Karen stands in partnership with Industry for The Garden Project and The Garden Party in November at the AGH. Karen is looking forward to continuing work with Fertility Monologues with Light Echo, Conversations Around The Table with Open Heart, dramaturgy on Healing Thread with Tethered The Ghost, creation with Living Grieving Collective, directing this summer at Port Dover’s Lighthouse Festival. She was 1 of 15 chosen for #iamstillanartist, an installation celebrating Hamilton artists during the pandemic. Karen is a recipient of a Hamilton Arts Award 2021. Currently, Porch Light Theatre is Company In Residence at Theatre Aquarius.
Cecil and Karen collaborated as Dalawang Babae for their original story for WAHC’s Together While Apart digital storytelling series.
Lisa Pijuan-Nomura is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in Hamilton. She creates mixed media collage, story, movement and sound together to create dynamic performance pieces. She is currently an Artist in Residence with Luminato Festival working on a body of work entitled Sin/Con Palabras – With/Without Words that explores themes of aging, invisibility, body memory, pop culture, women in history and gender.
