Celebrate the Workers Arts and Heritage Centre’s 30th birthday and Mayworks Festival’s 40th with a tour of Parallel Histories: An Anniversary Exhibition and a zine making workshop!
Join curator Florencia Berinstein, former Executive Director of both WAHC and Mayworks, for reflections on how both organizations have provided a unique space for cross sectoral gathering and art making within a progressive framework of inclusion and social justice.
Afterwards join artist and writer Sonali Menezes in WAHC’s backyard for an opportunity to collect stories and memories about WAHC and Mayworks into a zine that will set a course for the next era of labour organizing and labour arts.
Florencia Berinstein (she/her) has worked in the arts and culture sector both as an arts administrator and an arts facilitator, in deep collaboration with a broad range of community groups. Florencia was the Festival Director of Mayworks Toronto from 2001-2012 and the Executive Director of the Workers Arts and Heritage Centre from 2013-2022. She has extensive experience in developing and executing community engaged projects that address issues of social justice. Currently, she is a Museum Administrator with the City of Toronto’s History Museums.
Sonali Menezes (she/her) is a Hamilton-based multidisciplinary artist and writer. Sonali makes art as a way to find meaning under the weight of capitalism and the unending anxiety of the climate crisis. Her zines live in personal and public zine libraries worldwide. Her work has been exhibited at Tangled Art Gallery, Xpace Cultural Centre, Centre[3] for Artistic and Social Practice, Temporary Gallery, Younger than Beyonce Gallery, and the Art Gallery of Hamilton. Her first book named after her popular zine, Depression Cooking is forthcoming with ECW Press in 2026.
Register here for Parallel Histories: Tour + Zine Making Workshop
WAHC wishes to acknowledge the Ontario Arts Council, the City of Hamilton, the Province of Ontario, CUPE National, the Canada Council for the Arts, Canada’s Building Trades Unions, OPSEU/SEFPO and Teamsters Local Union 879 for their support of our exhibitions and ancillary programs.
For more information, please contact Sylvia Nickerson, Programming and Exhibitions Specialist, at (905) 522-3003 ex. 29 or sylvia@wahc-museum.ca.
