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DD x Nuit Blanche: Sisterhood Through Space

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“Sisterhood Through Space” uses visual and auditory installations to invite audiences to explore the various places racialized and immigrant women form connections to each other.

The Project

This work takes to heart the concept of revealing the space between communities as a potential site for sharing knowledge. This sound installation, led by freelance journalist Aparita Bhandari with support from Mai Nguyen, will immerse Nuit Blanche audiences in the voices and stories of both the women who operate these spaces and the women who find their communities in them, while photographs by James Harbeck provide a visual portrayal of these women and spaces in all their complexities.

The Artists:

Aparita Bhandari is an arts and life reporter in Toronto. She has been widely published, including with the CBC, the Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, and Walrus magazine. Her areas of interest and expertise lie in the intersections of gender, culture, and ethnicity. She is the producer and co-host of the Hindi language podcast Khabardaar .

Mai Nguyen is a freelance writer and journalist based in Toronto. Her writing has appeared in newspapers and magazines including The Globe and Mail, Maclean’s and Reader’s Digest. Her specialties include business, travel, and whatever else interests her, which is a lot of things.

James Harbeck is a Toronto-based editor, writer, speaker, and photographer. His photography was included in the 2018 Nuit Blanche installation “Faces of Scarborough” and he was a poetry contributor to TOK 3.

For more information on this years Nuit Blanche lineup check out:

https://www.toronto.ca/explore-enjoy/festivals-events/nuitblanche/2020-program/nuit-live/sisterhood-through-space/

The Elements of Story: Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns

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Diaspora Dialogues is excited to announce an interactive online program featuring Khaled Hosseini, author of A Thousand Splendid Suns. Co-produced by Canadian Stage and The Toronto International Festival of Authors in association with Diaspora Dialogues.

The Elements of Story delves into the work and ideas of internationally celebrated authors and cultural thinkers.

Participants will embark on a six-week exploration into Khaled Hosseini’s captivating bestselling novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns. Hosted by the winner of the 2020 Canada Reads competition, Samra Habib (We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir), this one-of-a-kind series of interactive discussions and lectures will allow readers to deepen their experience and understanding of the novel and its author through a look into Afghanistan’s complex intersection of politics, religion, and gender.

The online program includes access to:

A live In Conversation with Khaled Hosseini event – Fri Nov 13, 7 pm

In Their Element: three 90-minute lectures by leading scholars, thinkers, and artists exploring related topics.

Mozhdah Jamalzadah: acclaimed Afghan singer and talk show host, dubbed “the Oprah of Afghanistan” – Tue Oct 6, 7 pm

Dr Kamal Al-Solaylee: celebrated author and journalist – Tue Oct 20, 7 pm

Nahlah Ayed: Award-winning journalist and host – Tues Nov 3, 7 pm

The Elements of Story Book Club: three facilitated 90-minute group discussions – Thurs Oct 15, 29, and Nov 12, 7 pm

In addition, participants will have exclusive access to an original series of micro-film poems by Afghan and Canadian filmmakers commissioned especially for this unique event, produced by Golden Hour Productions.

For more information and to purchase tickets please visit:

https://www.canadianstage.com/Online/default.asp?BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::permalink=elements&BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::context_id=

Call for Submissions: Hello, Neighbour

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Calling all Toronto Residents!

Diaspora Dialogues is embarking on a new project called “Hello, Neighbour” — a three tiered community engagement piece that begins with you and ends with a performance on February 23rd at the Heliconian Hall.

We are looking for residents to submit a short content piece animating a favourite element of the city. This could be an intersection or a neighbourhood; a restaurant, a building, a park, we’re not picky! Creativity in your submissions is encouraged: you can write a poem or make an audio or video recording, you can even mail us a plasticine sculpture if you’re so inclined.

Chosen creations and their creators will be profiled on our website, on tokmagazine.ca, and social media channels.

Six artists — poets, writers and playwrights alike — will then create a new artistic piece based on the chosen submissions and then perform their new work on February 23rd.

Those who are interested can send electronic submissions to: info@diasporadialogues.com or can mail submissions to 14 Prince Arthur Ave, Suite 301, Toronto ON.

The deadline is January 28.

Summer Literary Walking Tours Recap

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Thank you so much to everyone who joined us on our summer Literary Walking Tours!

Our first tour of the summer happened on Sunday, July 25. The Literary Walking Tour took attendees through Kensington Market, and was led by poet Rain Ida Chan.

Rain guided an engaging historical tour of the market, during which tour participants and the DD staff were given the opportunity to learn about lots of fascinating sites and facts, including that Bellevue Square Park was once a private yard gifted to the city by the Denison family.

On Sunday, August 12, we joined spoken word artist Sheniz Janmohamed and Aga Khan Museum Educator Laboni Islam for a Literary Tour through the Aga Khan Museum.

Sheniz and Laboni guided a reflective and creative tour through the Aga Khan Museum and its grounds. Tour participants were treated to poetry readings, creative writing prompts and an exploration of how our presence impacts the spaces we inhabit.

A big thank you to our wonderful and talented tour guides, who made the Literary Walking Tours so compelling and captivating, and our wonderful audiences who came out to spend a Sunday morning with us.

Of course, events like these wouldn’t be possible without the support of our funders.

If you’re interested in more events from Diaspora Dialogues, join us this September at Word on the Street and Nuit Blanche.

TOK Launch Party Recap

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Thank you very much to everyone who came out to celebrate the launch of TOK Magazine, a new platform for fiercely honest, freshly original writing from our cities, and from around the world.

The launch party started with a little mingling, and a few opening remarks before our Writers’ Roundtable began. The Roundtable, moderated by Aparita Bhandari, kicked off with readings from Reema Patel’s upcoming untitled novel, an excerpt from Augusto Bitter’s play, CHICHO, poetry by Aisha Sasha John and an excerpt from Mia Herrera’s novel, Shade.

Following the readings, the Roundtable launched into a discussion about the literary landscape, how its succeeding and failing, and what we have to do to make the space more inclusive and representative of our social fabric.

“I wasn’t seeing people like me getting published” – Reema Patel on why she thought no one would be interested her book.

— TOK Magazine (@TOKwriting) June 21, 2018

“Finding these communities, like @ddialogues, is so important to me… it’s nice to see changes to the literary scene orgs like DD are making” –@miaherrera

— TOK Magazine (@TOKwriting) June 21, 2018

“When I was younger, when I was a poet in the city, it was unthinkable that I wrote… I couldn’t be seen as a writer for the longest time” – @metheaisha

— TOK Magazine (@TOKwriting) June 21, 2018

“I think the progress I see is finding other ways to tell stories that aren’t the Anglo/Eurocentric ones we’ve inherited in Canada” – @augustobitter on subverting expectations in theatre

— TOK Magazine (@TOKwriting) June 22, 2018


These are just a few of the ideas discussed during the Roundtable. The on-stage conversation was followed by a thought-provoking Q&A with audience members.

Of course, our TOK Launch Party would not have been possible without the support of our funders, our extremely talented panelists and the lively and engaged audience members who attended.

For more compelling and original ideas, check out fiction, poetry, podcasts and more at tokmagazine.ca.

To attend more events like the TOK Launch Party, be sure to visit diasporadialogues.com/news-and-events/.

BOOKS FROM THIS EVENT

Stories from the Six Recap

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Thank you very much to everyone who came out to celebrate Stories from the Six: Diaspora Dialogues at Doors Open.

The day began with a screening of David Bezmozgis‘ NATASHA. NATASHA is the story of a forbidden romance between a 16-year-old Russian Jewish immigrant kid in Toronto and his cousin by marriage, a 14-year-old girl from Moscow with a scandalous past. It was adapted from David Bezmozgis’ book of the same name.

Following the screening, actor Genadijs Dolganovs (who portrays Roman in the film) sat down with film critic Tina Hassannia to discuss the film and his experience as an actor.

After a short break, we returned to watch Self, an episode of Moumy Mbacké’s docu-series, On the Topic Of. Following the screening, Moumy discussed her inspiration for the series, as well as her experience as a Toronto-based filmmaker with DD moderator, Miranda Newman.

Next up, we were honoured to share the trailer and behind-the-scenes footage for Sharon Lewis’ film, Brown Girl Begins, adapted from DD mentor Nalo Hopkinson‘s book, Brown Girl in the Ring. The screening was followed by a wide-ranging discussion moderated by NOW Magazine‘s Chris Rattan.

Finally, we closed with a panel called, “Writing Toronto on Screen,” featuring Charles Officer, Lu Asfaha, and Sanjay Talreja. The engaging discussion was moderated by DD’s Zalika Reid-Benta and featured clips from Charles Officer’s Unarmed Verses, Lu Asfaha’s Freedom Summer and Sanjay Talreja’s Cricket and the Meaning of Life, Toronto Taxi, Surkhaab and Looking for Yusuf.

DD would like to thank our wonderful roster of talented filmmakers and writers and Zoomer Media for hosting us as part of their Doors Open programming. We’d also like to acknowledge Mongrel Media, and our supporters, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the Ontario Trillium Foundation, the Toronto Arts Council, the Michael Decter Foundation, Manulife, the McLean Foundation, and the Kaszas Group – BMO Nesbitt Burns.

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