Make Your Own Zine April 11 w/ Althea Balmes

Make Your Own Zine w/ Althea Balmes

An assuring zine making workshop for IBPOC. This workshop will be facilitated by Akin King member Althea Balmes. This workshop is open to Indigenous, Black and People of Colour interested in creating or collaborating on pocket zines. Its small size makes it a useful tool for organizing, mobilizing or declaring your love for someone! In this workshop we’ll create pocket zines that focus on self-healing, affirmations and words of wisdom, perfect for times when you feel like your world is out of control. Just take this zine out and remember, you have a loving community who supports you.

Connect, share resources and start creating a self-affirmation pocket guide to feeling okay!

Date: Thursday April 11, 2019 from 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm
Location: Tea Base (Basement of Chinatown Centre) 222 Spadina Ave, Unit C-15
To register, email: hello.wayf@gmail.com
PWYC (no one turned away at the door for lack of funds): WAYF is currently fundraising for future programming and would love it if folks can help us out with some donations.

Snacks and tokens provided. Please let WAYF know ahead of time of your accessibility and dietary needs. WAYF are asking folks to register so that we know how much food to prepare for.

About Althea Balmes:

At the core of her practice is the embodiment of anti-oppressive framework, process of decolonization and community building. In creating visual narratives, she explores themes and stories of migration, labour and personhood. Her work expands on the decolonial aesthetics of the Filipinx diasporic experience.

Her films have been shown at Toronto Reel Asian Film Festival, Kaohsiung International Film Festival, Scarborough Arts Bridging Festival. Her illustrations and comics have been published in Briarpatch Magazine, Rice Paper Magazine, Our Times Magazine, Carte Blanche, Looseleaf Magazine and by Between the Lines Press. As part of Kwentong Bayan Collective, she creates work with and about the love and struggle of Filipinx (live-in) migrant care workers. The Collective have exhibited works in Centre d’art la Ferme du Buisson, Workers Arts and Heritage Centre, A-Space Gallery, Blackwood Gallery, Mayworks Festival among others.

Althea facilitates workshops on visual storytelling and comics working with newcomers, youth, 2SLGBTQI+, racialized groups and under-served communities. She started the Comic- Making Workshop + Residency Program (Cup Doodle Project) in 2016 to nurture and provide a creative space for Asian youth interested in telling their stories through comics.

As a UX researcher she helps designers and developers create consensual, accessible and ethical digital experiences.

She received her B.A in Anthropology and International Development Studies at York University and her Master of Information in University of Toronto in User Experience Design.

About WAYF Collective:
The Where Are You From? Collective (WAYF Collective) is an art-based and activism program for Asian-identified people (that includes but is not limited to Southeast Asian, South Asian, East Asians, Asian-Pacific Islander).

WAYF’s work seeks to address issues of agency that Asians living on Turtle Island experience in defining our identities, visibility, and representation by offering workshops for youth, running Arts events, and creating an online platform for self-representation.

WAYF work from an intersectional, anti-oppression framework to empower Asians to develop critical art practices and build activist spaces that challenge dominant culture after decades of collective silence. WAYF’s mission is to celebrate Asian identities and achievements, build capacity for Asian-identified youth, and connect diasporic Asian communities so that we can create intentional dialogue that disrupts status quo.