How She Read: So, what does it mean to Decolonize your mind? A talk by artist/author Chantal Gibson

Streaming via Bluejeans: https://bluejeans.com/273542213?src=htmlEmail
Meeting ID: 273 542 213
Room System: 199.48.152.152 or bjn.vc

Abstract:

I’m in the on-going process of decolonizing my thinking—that makes me feel very uncomfortable at times, so, right now, I’m sitting still in the discomfort and listening to the Intersectional, Indigenous and LGBTQ2 voices that are informing my life and my work. ~Chantal Gibson

In the process of decolonizing her thinking, teacher, artist, author Chantal Gibson believes we can’t change institutions without looking back, ‘loosening our tongues,’ and critically evaluating how colonialism seeps into our classrooms. In this hybrid lecture/reading/artist talk, Gibson will share her book How She Read and discuss how looking back at the classrooms of her past helped her reimagine her current teaching practice.

Biography:

Chantal Gibson is an artist-educator working in the overlap between literary and visual art. Her work challenges cultural hegemony, unpacking imperialist ideologies quietly embedded in everyday things—from academic history books to kitschy souvenir spoons. Her visual art has recently appeared at the ROM in Toronto, the Museum of Fine Arts in Montreal, the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia and Open Space Victoria. In January 2019 she published her first book of auto-biocritical poetry, How She Read, a CBC favorite for spring. Named one of CBC’s top 6 Black writers to watch in 2019, Gibson is an award-winning teacher in the School of Interactive Arts & Technology at Simon Fraser University.

About the book: http://caitlin-press.com/our-books/how-she-read/

“With How She Read, Chantal Gibson has created a searing and a soaring poetic and visual meditation, which acts as a balm for our aching souls. How She Read offers a rich, multi-flavoured one-pot meal to restore the body and mind and ignite creative flight. By turns outraged, elegiac, and loving, Chantal Gibson meditates on blackness, womanhood, betrayal, denial, resilience, and freedom. How She Read flings open the back door to Canada. It sparks an inquiry and packs a wallop in every line and on every page.” —Lawrence Hill, author of The Book of Negroes and The Illegal.

Colloquium Outline:

The first half of the colloquium Chantal Gibson will talk about her work on ‘decolonizing your mind’ and her recent book, “How She Read.”

The second half of the colloquium will feature Dr. Sheri Fabian, University Lecturer from the School of Criminology, will talk about decolonization.