Together While Apart:
Colouring Pages and Sharing Stories in Celebration of International Women's Day
Abby Nowakowski
Amber Williams-King
Dalawang Babae
Edith Chavez
Kwentong Bayan Collective
Lisa Pijuan-Nomura
Natalie King
Pink Angel
Sab Meynert
Sahra Soudi
Shira Spector
Z’otz* Collective
Community Gallery Exhibition
March 5 - May 14, 2022
Together While Apart is an exhibition of interactive colouring pages and original stories based on experiences that women and gender-diverse people have faced during the past two years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Artists reflected on what unites us, despite the isolation of COVID-19, and ways that we come together to support and care for one another even in the face of violence. In Natalie King’s colouring book page, four people hold one another in a loving embrace, echoing what Sahra Soudi illustrates on their page, “We Keep Each Other Safe.” Edith Chavez's digital story likens experiences of the pandemic to ingredients in a soup. Sharing our stories helps us relate to each other. We know that we are stronger together, that engaging in collectivity and building solidarity is integral to our survival and to liberation!
Visit us in the community gallery and join us in colouring in the pages directly on the gallery walls!
PROGRAMS
Colouring Book
Pick up a FREE Colouring Book that you can take home from the museum. Visit us during our open hours: Wed-Fri 10am-4pm Saturdays 12pm-4pm. Limit of 2 per person while quantities last.
Original stories of artists' and workers' unique pandemic experiences will be released weekly on WAHC's website through the month of March. Stories will also be available for viewing in the Community Gallery.
Downloadable Print-At-Home Colouring Pages
Print a free pdf at home of each of the colouring pages by clicking HERE.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Click on the artists' names to be directed to their websites.
Abby Nowakowski is a queer interdisciplinary artist using printmaking, illustration, and story-telling to explore what shame and confidence look like. Abby’s practice taps into the human tendencies of failure and awkwardness, and works to spread advocacy for consent, share stories, and make space for weirdos.
Amber Williams-King is a Caribbean artist and writer, currently living in Tkaronto. Her illustrative work explores various themes including collectivity, social movements, queerness, environment and black radical traditions. She has received several grants from the Ontario Arts Council, and was selected as a finalist for the 2017 Toronto Arts Foundation Emerging Artist award.
Kwentong Bayan is a collective of two Toronto-based artists, Althea Balmes and Jo SiMalaya Alcampo. In the Filipino language, “kwentong bayan” is the literal translation of “community stories”. Visit lcpcomicbook.com to learn more about the “rest as revolution” project in collaboration with Care Workers Connections Education and Support Organization (cceso.org).
Natalie King is a queer interdisciplinary Anishinaabe (Algonquin) artist, facilitator, and member of Timiskaming First Nation. King’s arts practice ranges from video, painting, sculpture, and installation as well as community engagement, curation, and arts administration. King is currently a Programming Coordinator at Xpace Cultural Centre in Tkaronto. Often involving portrayals of queer femmes, King’s works are about embracing the ambiguity and multiplicities of identity within the Anishinaabe queer femme experience(s). King’s practice operates from a firmly critical, anti-colonial, non-oppressive, and future-bound perspective, reclaiming the realities of lived lives through frameworks of desire and survivance.
Sab Meynert is a multidisciplinary artist currently based in Ontario, working across traditional and digital mediums to synthesize and activate the multiformity of life‘s infinitely unfolding nature.
Sahra Soudi is a multimedia artist, curator, educator, and community organizer based in Hamilton. They have advocated for the participation of BIPOC communities from artist-run centres to national galleries and DIY venues. They are an emerging curator interested in disrupting ableism and colonialism through practices that empower marginalised communities.
Shira Spector is a Jewish lesbian cartoonist with a BFA in Fibres from Concordia University in Montreal. Her debut graphic memoir, Red Rock Baby Candy (Fantagraphics, 2021) listed among “Best Books of the Year” in Oprah Magazine, Booklist, Autostraddle, TCJ, and The Guardian. She is currently creating her second book.
Toronto artists Nahum Flores, Erik Jerezano and Ilyana Martinez formed Z’otz* Collective through a shared interest in collaboration. They create drawings, sculptures and site-specific installations that connect to the storytelling traditions of their Latin American backgrounds. The group has exhibited in Mexico, USA, Taiwan, Croatia, Serbia, China, and across Canada. Their work is in the collection of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
WAHC wishes to acknowledge the Ontario Arts Council, Sexual Assault Centre Hamilton and Area (SACHA), the Hamilton and District Labour Council (HDLC), Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation Hamilton-Wentworth District 21, Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association, Hamilton-Wentworth Unit and Hamilton-Wentworth Elementary Teachers’ Local for their generous support of this colouring book and community gallery exhibition.
We would also like to thank the Canada Council for the Arts, The Province of Ontario, The City of Hamilton, CUPE, The Ontario Nurses Association (ONA), and OSSTF for their support of WAHC’s programs and exhibitions.
