EMMA Talks

About EMMA Talks

EMMA is a Mini-Art Festival and Speakers Series that ran from 2015-2018, and is currently on hiatus.

The core purpose of EMMA talks is to bring important stories by women and gender diverse writers, activists, thinkers, storytellers, makers and doers, from the periphery to the public.

Together their stories built a powerful and engaging collection of talks, celebrating and building on the conversations, imaginings, and hard work of so many individuals, communities and movements, which lead to a creative cross-pollination of ideas.

EMMA was co-dreamed by carla bergman and Corin Browne, and to date, one of our most beloved projects!

HOW IS IT ABOUT MUTUAL AID?

Each event collected donations, which were divided in two:
a. 50% of donations at the door went to the speaker’s choice of cause/project/individuals
b. 50% paid all the tech and support staff
Speakers were paid by partnering institutions and grants

We produced terrific, high-quality video shorts of each EMMA talk for our website so that folks can share widely, and thus amplify the speakers’ voices and ideas.

MORE ABOUT THE TALKS

EMMA Talks (both the live and the digital formats) are professionally produced, accessible monologues.

EMMA Talks counteracted the social silencing of women’s stories and work.

EMMA Talks carved out a well-deserved space for women and gender non conforming folks to share their stories and their work with a diverse and large audience.

Each EMMA Talk began and ended with a short social gathering, co-hosted by SFU. This also included a facilitated community engaged art making time. This social gathering and art making was in place of a Q & A, and allowed for folks to meet one another, to converse and share thoughts from the talks.

Partners

Our core partner is with SFU’s Vancity Community Engagement.

We also partnered with:

First Nations Studies Program

SFU Institute for the Humanities

FACULTY OF COMMUNICATION, ART AND TECHNOLOGY

EMMA Talks is part of Arts In Action! (thank you!)

In partnering with these amazing folks and institutions, we are able to support our grassroots initiatives and also pay everyone involved, including women technicians — something that is very important to us.

The Talks

ASTRA TAYLOR

Where Are The Gears? Thoughts on Resisting the (Neoliberal, Networked) Machine

If you wish to view Julie’s talk please email and we will send you a link.

email: [email protected]

JULIE FLETT

Atayokee! On bookmaking, language and storytelling. November 4, 2015. Vancouver, BC.

CHIEF JANICE GEORGE / CHEPXIMIYA SIYAM

L’hen Awtxw – Weaving Knowledge into The Future. October 19, 2017, Vancouver, BC

VIVEK SHRAYA

I’m Afraid of Men, October, 1, 2018 Vancouver BC

DR. AMINA WADUD

Feminist Muslim Voices, curated by Tahia Ahmed. May 3, 2018. Vancouver, BC

KIAN CHAM C.

All* The Ways That Capitalism Sucks *Or At Least Some Of Them, April 8, 2015. Vancouver, BC.

HIROMI GOTO

PROTEST. November 4, 2015. Vancouver, BC.

JACKIE WONG

Easy does it: On gentleness and moving through hardship

MANEO MOHALE

The Scrutiny of Now. April 27, 2016. Vancouver, BC.

KINNIE STARR

February, 28, 2017. Vancouver, BC.

SALIA JOSEPH

Chen Chen Stway, October 19, 2017, Vancouver, BC

LEANNE BETASAMOSAKE SIMPSON

decolonial love: building resurgent communities of connection, April 8, 2015. Vancouver, BC.

ANOUSHKA RATNARAJAH

Excerpts from Mixed Vegetable

Andrea Warner

Too Many White Guys: the up-valuing of men by men

Melanie Matining

This EMMA Talk does not have a video recording.

CARMEN AGUIRRE

Shame On Me

REBECCA SOLNIT

We Could Be Heroes. February 17, 2016. Vancouver, BC.

SARAH HUNT PODCAST

Link to Paper

Community Engaged Art

At EMMA Talks we are really interested in the ways in which an intentionally curated community based art event could actively transform conventional audience/speaker dynamics by enabling different kinds of engagement. And we’re really interested in exploring the possibilities of collaborative art-making as a community response to important issues and ideas.

With support from the BC Arts Council, the City of Vancouver Cultural Services, and the BC Multiculturalism Grant program, we were able to commission community-engaged artists from diverse mediums to produce a collaborative art event that explores the themes of each talk.

We acknowledge that the strongest community-engaged art projects are sustained, long term projects that allow relationships to build over time. We hope to inspire this type of engagement to embolden the audience’s overall experiences as well as aim to build a stronger and vibrant community surrounding the Talks over time.

We have held many amazing Community Engaged Art events along side our talks:

The Thoughtful Photo Booth by community engaged artists: Sylvia McFadden and Vivienne McMaster
Vanessa Richards led the audience in participatory song before and after Rebecca Solnit’s talk. (read more about this night)
Tin Can Studio created an art engagement called Common Threads — which explored ‘connection; through the metaphor of thread through this participatory activity.
We have been working this past year with Tin Can Studio as our artists in residence. see below for more details on the first two.
“Playing Post-colonial – A Decolonizing Activity Book for the Woke and Weary,” which also included a giant size Sinulkay & Ladders board game! Design by Ta7talíya Michelle Nahanee with Art by Paisley Nahanee. This is for Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Matriarchs event, Curated by Michelle Nahanee.