We’re excited to launch a new Toolkit for Black Futures Month that reimagines what it means to decolonise creative partnerships and collaboration within the arts sector – and beyond.
The Moving Together/Arriving Together (MT/AT) Toolkit creation residency was designed from the outset as a reflective, evolutionary, experiential exploration of the potential of our signature Arrivals process as a tool for decolonisation in the arts.
We’ve had much to draw on to inform our inquiry over the last two years. Our partnerships with Prismatic Arts Festival in 2023 and Vancouver Moving Theatre for Heart of the City Festival last November enabled us to bring together culturally rooted artists of all artistic disciplines to collaborate and co-weave stories for audiences, thanks to the support of our funders Canada Council for the Arts and Canadian Heritage Foundation.
Village Stories also provided a platform for artists to collaborate to share their Arrivals experiences with digital audiences in relation to cross-cutting themes such as healing intergenerational trauma, migration and archival histories.
Decolonising Form
By its very nature, the MT/AT Toolkit is an artifact of an unusual decolonising partnership; one that resists the confines of traditional toolkit creation and tropes – top tips, tools and strategies. Instead it sets questions in motion and invites you into the dance.
At its core, this collaborative co-created resource explores a way of thinking, feeling and creating that challenges the habits of capitalist modernity. The two-week residency offered a container for eight participating artists to address six themes through the lens of their own culturally rooted experiences in a way that bumped up against internal notions of perfection and of what constitutes ‘art’. Creating in the digital space of the SeedPool also allowed participating artists to experiment with digital forms.
Below is a brief reflection from ALP AD Diane on the residency:
Toolkit Themes
The creative seeds in this Toolkit are provocations that invite you to explore questions under the six themes:
- Understanding Decolonisation
- Clarifying Collaborative Pathways
- Creating Common Ground
- Building Equitable Relationships
- Capacity Building, Support and Agency
- Collaborative Decision-Making and Co-Creation
Our deep gratitude goes to those Arrivals artists who took part in the creation the MT/AT Toolkit last December: Zainab Amadahy, natty abdou, Larissa Blokhuis, Lydie Dubuisson, Mutya Macatumpag, Diane Roberts, Joanne Roberts, and Anju Singh.
