Settler Colonialism and Queer Heritage Grants

Monday, January 1, 2022 | 12am EST
Canada

The presentation and panel discussion will be available on zoom (Registration required, use the button below to register). You will receive a zoom link via email.

If you miss this presentation/discussion, fear not, this will be archived and available on our website post the event.

“Pride Toronto will have all legal rights over what is produced from this project”

In 2019 Pride Toronto accepted a series of grants totaling $1,850,000 from the Department of Canadian Heritage and the Ministry of Public Safety. These grants promised a series of projects to celebrate police services, commemorate “decriminalization” in 1969, and fund a traveling art exhibit created by Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer artists. In his much-anticipated follow-up to his 2019 research presentation uncovering Pride Toronto’s financial exploits, Tom Hooper will present new research and information on how Pride Toronto misused and exploited the partnership of Indigenous artists and organizations in these grants and proposed programming. This presentation will outline the context of these grants and demonstrate that these actions are part of a broader history of settler organizations exploiting the land and culture of Indigenous people in what is known as Canada.

Following the presentation interdisciplinary artist and Associate Artistic Director of Jumblies Theatre + Arts, Ange Loft, will additionally be in conversation with Tom on topics pertaining to personal and organizational accountability to artists and communities they serve.

Partners

Presenter
Ange Loft

is an interdisciplinary performing artist and initiator from Kahnawà:ke Kanien’kehá:ka Territory, working in Tsi Tkarón:to. She is an ardent collaborator,
consultant, and facilitator working in arts based research, wearable sculpture, theatrical
co-creation and Haudenosaunee history.

Presenter
Tom Hooper

is a historian and researcher of queer criminalization in Canada. His PhD dissertation (2016) examined the 1981 Toronto bathhouse raids and the protest movements that responded to police violence. He also studies the creation of queer mythologies, including the so-called “decriminalization of homosexuality” in 1969. Lately, he has examined how these mythologies have been supported and perpetuated by mainstream queer organizations including EGALE and Pride Toronto.

min Canada

2022