HOLDING GRIEF & GRATITUDE: STORYTELLING AT THE GOOD MOURNING FESTIVAL
Living Hyphen joined Evergreen Brick Works’ Good Mourning Festival where we shared stories of grief and gratitude honouring the complexity that makes us so beautifully human.
The gradients of grief run far and wide, and for those of us who have been displaced in some way – whether voluntary or forced, on this land or from another land – our experiences may be tinged with grief in the shape of the deep distances away from our homeland, the disconnection from our ancestors, the forgetting of our mother tongues, the loss of our traditions and culture. At the same time, we are full of gratitude for our adopted homelands, for our triumphs, and for our everyday existence.
In this storytelling gathering, our community practiced holding multiple truths at once, honouring both our grief and gratitude. In a world that holds fast to binaries and absolutes, we strive to uncover the nuance and complexity that makes us so beautifully human.
Date and Time: Saturday, November 2nd.
Location: BMO Atrium at Evergreen Brick Works.
This space is wheelchair-accessible and this event is family-friendly.
Aditi Ganeev Sangwan
Aditi Ganeev Sangwan is a Brampton-based multi-disciplinary visual artist and art educator, as well as a founder of Art Studio Izza, a collaborative focusing on contemporary art, education, photography, and design through community engagement workshops. Born and raised in India, Aditi earned her PhD in Visual Art from Visva Bharati University, Santiniketan, India. She has over two decades of experience as a visual artist and academic scholar. Her works have been shown in various international exhibitions and she has successfully conducted workshops and presented papers in seminars at several prestigious institutions.
Ashima Suri
As a story-teller and a performing artist, Ashima Suri is driven by the desire to share individual and collective stories in order to amplify voices that are often not heard. Ashima actively works within the community as a choreographer, producer, educator, wellness instructor and public speaker.
Jocelyn Yu
Jocelyn Yu is the publisher of Living Hyphen. She has no previous publishing experience but after reading a handful of submissions for Living Hyphen’s inaugural issue, she jumped at the chance to give life to this publication and a platform for its diverse voices.
A seasoned software implementation consultant for decades, Jocelyn Yu has been assisting big companies in implementing their systems. She considers herself lucky for living the best of both worlds of consulting and publishing.
Paul Uy
Paul (he/him) is a Filipino-Canadian writer and artist. He studies and celebrates Zen Buddhism, relationships, integrity, and awareness. From Monday to Friday he writes in the mornings, then practices at Artists Health Centre as a psychiatrist. He also supports psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy through individual and group therapy at Remedy, a community clinic. He meditates on Wednesdays with Oak Tree in the Garden. On the weekends, he’s with the people he loves, dancing, or outside.
Alicia Richins
Alicia is a poet, writer and eldest daughter called to imagine beyond the plausible. She is the founder of The Climateverse, a transformation lab and creative studio focused on radically imagining climate just futures. There, she leverages storytelling and futures methods to articulate and inspire action towards better futures for all, while also working with mission-driven organizations to develop visionary strategic planning and foresight processes. Alicia is a proud Trinidadian-Canadian with roots in Suriname.
Faduma Ahmed
Faduma Ahmed (she/her/hers) is an engineer, artist, and community activist with brachial plexus palsy. Drawing on her lived and technical experience, Faduma has led a variety of outreach programs. From school initiatives that engage kids in STEM, to career pathway programs for black youth, and community building efforts for young adults with limb disabilities. In her free time, Faduma enjoys running, writing, learning languages and trying new cafés around the GTA.
JULIET
Juliet Jones-Rodney (she/her) is a singer and songwriter from T’karonto. In 2022 she released her debut single Free Falling. In 2023 she released two more singles Signs and Distance and began cultivating relationships with creatives around the city across art forms. This year, Juliet released her singles With You and Slingshot. She is focused on connecting with audiences and creatives around T’karonto.
Sarrah Malek
Sarrah Malek is a Palestinian writer and spoken word poet living in T'karonto, Canada. She writes on colonization and resistance using creative performance and magical realism. She is co-editor of Min Fami: Arab feminist reflections on space, identity, and resistance.
Zico
Zico is a Cairo-born and raised hip-hop and spoken word artist. He writes with a sharp, poetic pen from a personal and intimate perspective, hoping his words can create whatever small moments of solace art can offer. He recently published his first poetry collection, Reeds: the ideal gathering of the unwell, which collects pieces on personal and collective diasporic experiences, calling us in to find comfort and consolation in sharing them with one another.
Anto Chan
Anto is a Queer Chinese-Canadian spoken word performance artist, facilitator, mentor, producer, student and writer. His chapbook “Love So Far: Romantic Reflections” was released in 2020. He is the founder of the Canada Council-funded InnerGenerational and his OAC-funded album of the same name will be released in 2024. He was nominated for the inaugural Lillian Allen prize as a full member of the League of Canadian Poets and has headlined Guelph Poetry Slam, R.I.S.E Poetry & Verses Festival Vancouver. His life's work focuses on expansion, intersectionality, and self-love through the page, stage, and community.
Leopard Menace
Gitanjali Lena (a.k.a. Leopard Menace) is a queer nonbinary Tamil / Sinhalese writer, performer, and cellist. Born in England, they now live in T’karonto. They co-founded the Teardrop Collective for South Asian queer and trans theatre artists. Queer comedy, Leopards & Peacocks is their first play. Their writing appears in Fireweed Feminist Quarterly, the Whose Your Daddy Queer Parenting Anthology, Parallel Tracks 2.0, Hir Magazine, and the Maza Collective Digital Anthology. They completed their first poetry collection Overgrowth; the understory in Fall 2024.
Nawaaz Makhani
Nawaaz (he/him/his) is an educator, activist, and multi-disciplinary artist. He has been exploring different art forms (writing, water marbling, and tabla) to better understand himself and his place in the world around him. Nawaaz’s work and collaborations often meet at the intersection of mental health, consent education, unwrapping toxic masculinity, and healing generational trauma. His most recent work was a solo show titled “bol, brown boy, bol”, supported by a community of creatives and which won the 2024 Best of Toronto Fringe Award.
Tia Alandra
Tia Alandra is a multidisciplinary artist and arts administrator, genetically disposed to elude definition in 100 words or less. Tia is a poet, musician, zinester, pot-stirrer, tree whisperer, dream believer, feeler, and justice seeker on a quest to make being more bearable. Blending poetry and folk melodies, she writes from the sweet spot between chaos and comfort, telling stories of love, loss, and renewal.
Explore the Performances
WHAT IS THE GOOD MOURNING FESTIVAL?
The Good Mourning Festival is a two-day festival at Evergreen Brick Works that invites the public to come together to reclaim death as a special part of life. This event is dedicated to exploring and honouring the significance of mourning in public spaces. In a world where grief is often private and hidden, the Good Mourning Festival invites you to celebrate the profound communal aspects of mourning. Through workshops, food, art installations, walks, and more, we create a space where grief can be expressed, shared, and understood. The Good Mourning Festival is more than an event – it’s a chance for people to embrace the full spectrum of human emotion in our public spaces.
ABOUT Evergreen Brick works
Evergreen Brick Works is Canada’s first large-scale community environmental centre. It is a dynamic venue in the heart of Toronto’s Don Valley exploring ideas and leading-edge green technologies, and a vibrant public space where visitors can engage in a broad suite of hands-on environmental programming. Transformed from a collection of deteriorating heritage buildings into a global showcase for green design and urban sustainability, Evergreen Brick Works is both a stage and incubator for Evergreen’s programs.
The Good Mourning festival invites the public to come together to reclaim death as a special part of life. EBW invites visitors to explore the universal themes of grief and death with open hearts and open minds. The day offers a warm embrace, featuring interactive installations that invite you to engage, workshops that encourage meaningful conversations, and art pieces that celebrate the human experience. Come and be part of this inviting space where you can connect with others, share your stories, and find comfort in the shared journey of life and loss.
