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Will You Listen?: Latinx Voices in Tkaronto is a collection of stories which explore how people of colour experience public spaces. Centering the lives of women and non binary latinx identified people, this exhibit contextualizes urban stories and histories often buried in the mainstream white experience. While chronicling their brave journeys visually on a map, these stories highlight personal power and self-healing in the face of feelings of insecurity, unacceptance and heteropatriarchal power struggles.
WUL Exhibit at Whippersnapper Gallery. Photo by Jahmal Nugent
Participants share personal aspirations, stories tied to their loved ones, and accounts of being let down by general social negation. Each story is a “window” into the labour and necessary resilience that each of these individuals face, calling attention to the effects that external pressures have on Latinx bodies, particularly those of indigenous, black, queer, and genderqueer people.
The underlying map of present day Tkaronto ground these stories to place and land. These “windows” imprint real memories and inextricably tie them to the places in which they occur. In doing so, these spaces carry the struggles and resilience of LGBTQ Latinx people and other migrants who have become settlers, visitors, and/or guests on this land.
It's first iteration was a series of short documentaries highlighting the stories of 5 Latinx identified individuals and was showcased at Platform A's 2016 A show. This project reincarnated in 2017 as a projection based installation that was exhibited at Toronto's artist run Whippersnapper Gallery.
Watch full videos:
Collage by Samay Arcentales Cajas
This project was funded by Platform A, VIBE Arts, Toronto Arts Council, and Whippersnapper’s PEERS PROJECTS, which is generously supported by the Ontario Trillium Foundation.