Unpacking the stigma of being a Black person on a farm, in relationship with nature, growing food for oneself that is not coded as poverty or slavery, is a personal and collective experience that is fruitful to the narratives of Black people. For this project, culminating in a curated public walk, Ashley Marshall celebrates (situates, and stimulates) Black people having food, access, land, sovereignty, freedom, and returning to ways of eating and gathering that challenge colonialism.

Darrell Epp is a Hamilton-based poet whose work has appeared in over 130 magazines, including Poetry Ireland, Exile, and Queen’s Quarterly. He is currently translating his poetry to several digital mediums, including audio and video.

This project aims to create a community-designed mural within the main lobby of the YWCA’s 75 MacNab Street South location in Hamilton, which is home to the residents and guests of the YWCA Transitional Living Programs and Carole Anne’s Place. This space will memorialize, honour, and celebrate the lives of community members that the YWCA has served, who have lost their lives through their experience of homelessness.

For this project, Hamilton musicians Leo Dragtoe and Michael Myszkowski recorded and produced Church Bells and Little Spells, an album spanning a variety of genres and musical styles including jazz, funk, blues and pop, and which explores the central theme of the constant struggle for freedom, happiness, and purpose amid the hectic, heavy, constraints of everyday life.

Listen to the album online.

This project, which aims to create an ongoing collaborative space for marginalized voices to connect with peers and community, will produce a series of poem films by disabled artists.