For centuries, working people have found ways of pushing back against injustice on the job, and in society.
The labour “fightbacks” explored in this first instalment of Work In Progress include collective actions like strikes, challenging racism and colonialism, and using art to make statements that push back against those in power. They illustrate how groups have challenged the status quo and organized for change across Canada, and across time.
Work In Progress: Fightbacks! includes contributions from Community Curators Shawn Clarke and Stephanie Cormier of OPSEU Local 535, Mohawk land defender, musician, filmmaker and educator Layla Staats, and Vancouver-based artist Marlene Yuen.
About Work In Progress:
Work in Progress — a multi-phase redesign of the Workers Arts & Heritage Centre’s heritage exhibits unfolding until 2027 – reimagines how working people’s stories are told, and who gets to tell them.
Experiences of labour and work are changing at a pace not seen in decades. This project positions our exhibits as an evolving process, and a long-term collaboration between WAHC and community members across the country.
Through Work In Progress, 30 snapshots in labour and people’s history will be honoured with the help of a group of Community Curators– workers, activists, artists and organizers from Hamilton and beyond. From land defenders to care work, tenant activism and mutual aid to unions of unemployed workers, Work In Progress honours and uplifts the many ways people have worked for a more just future across space and time.
To use the words of one Community Curator: “So much of working-class history is left out of textbooks,” she says. “These are stories of resistance, of wins worth remembering. They help people see what’s possible.”
Layla Staats is Mohawk Turtle Clan from the Six Nations of Grand River. Her work stems from her Red Road to reclaim her Mohawk identity as a generational survivor of residential schools. Layla is a Filmmaker and Storyteller who premiered her second documentary “Boil Alert” at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2023. She recently launched her musical career with her first single “White Pine” which tells the story of her work as a land defender and water protector, bringing awareness to Indigenous issues across Turtle Island.
Marlene Yuen (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist who lives and works on the unceded and ancestral home territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Her current focus is on illustrations, prints, comics, zines and handmade books. Marlene’s books and zines have been retained in special collections archives nationally and internationally. She has also created artworks about Vancouver’s historic Chinatown and Chinese Canadian workers for museums, galleries and public art programs. Her mural, The Journeys Here, is currently part of a traveling exhibition, Odysseys and Migration, at the Royal BC Museum.
Shawn Clarke is an arts worker, singer-songwriter and amateur photographer living in Toronto. As a musician, he writes reflective, honest and often humorous songs about personal relationships and the human condition. Singing and performing with the people he loves and respects has become a simple but essential joy in life. In March of 2024, Clarke joined his co-workers and friends on the picket line at the Art Gallery of Ontario to document their month locked out of the gallery. For him, taking photos gave him purpose, and a unique way to participate in the strike.
Stephanie Cormier is a Toronto-based artist, teacher and arts worker. Her art practice spans sculpture, textiles, and photography. With a passion for housing justice and activism, her artwork also aims to question hierarchical organization and capitalist value systems, leaning towards systems of compassion, strength, and a wilding of modernist idealism. Cormier holds a BFA from the Ontario College of Art and Design (2005) and an MFA from the University of Guelph (2014), has exhibited across Canada and participated in exhibitions and residencies in the US, the Caribbean, and the UK. She was born in Montreal but came of age in rural parts of the Caribbean, returning to Canada as an adult.
Work In Progress is a multi-phase project that has been in development since 2018. As such, many staff and committee members past and present have played a part in shaping it. WAHC acknowledges the following people who impacted this project in ways great and small since its inception:
Siobhan Angus, Florencia Berinstein, Ada Bierling, Tara Bursey, Kento Cady, Dan Hill, Arun Jacob, Rob Kristofferson, Alec Latham, Meredith Leonard, Chantal Mancini, Sonali Menezes, Sylvia Nickerson, Simon Orpana, and John Summers.
