Friday, October 22, 2021
9am – 3pm

Join us for a rich day of learning, connection and reflection, with two workshop sessions specially designed for teachers.

Morning session: Creating an Anti-Racist Classroom with Sade Alexis

In the morning, artist Sade Alexis will work with educators to imagine what an anti-racist classroom looks like. This workshop will use self-portraiture as a framework for participants to understand their own positionality and the political spaces they occupy. With guidance from Sade, participants will question how their own identities influence the learning environments they create, building an understanding of how to make classrooms safe spaces for BIPOC students.

Afternoon session: ReciprociTea with T’uy’t’tanat Cease Wyss

After lunch, cultural knowledge keeper and Indigenous Plant Diva T’uy’t’tanat Cease Wyss (Sḵwx̱wú7mesh/Sto:Lo/Hawaiian/Swiss) will guide participants on a plant walk through MOA’s grounds. Speaking to themes of reciprocity and stewardship, Cease will share her extensive knowledge of the plant world and provide participants with a cup of herbal tea. Cease is also leading ReciprociTea workshops for school groups this fall in her role as artist-in-residence. This professional development session will give educators a preview of the deep learning journey she is guiding students through.

• Friday October 22, 9am–3pm
• Fee: $70 (includes box lunch and herbal tea to take home)

For more information or to reserve your ticket, call 604.822.5978 or email education@moa.ubc.ca.

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About the Artists

Sade Alexis is a Black Woman artist and writer, living, working and loving on the stolen lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Skwxwú7mesh, səlil̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ nations. She was born and raised on these lands, and understands them as the only home she has ever known, and in knowing this she sees it as her duty to fight alongside Indigenous land defenders who actively protect and love these lands. Sade’s work focuses on the ways in which Blackness can be understood and celebrated through art, in all of its complexities and intricacies. She uses her practice as a means of bringing Black experience into the historically colonial art world. Sade also uses her practice to understand what it means to be stolen people on stolen land, her work questions homelands and our ties to them, or lack thereof. She makes her art for working class Black folks, who often are excluded from and barred from art spaces. She is a recent BFA graduate from ECUAD, and is currently working as a freelance illustrator, and as an art instructor for neurodiverse kids.

T’uy’t’tanat Cease Wyss (Sḵwx̱wú7mesh/Sto:Lo/Hawaiian/Swiss) is an interdisciplinary artist who works with digital media, writing, and performance as her multi-disciplinary arts practice. She is a community engaged and public artist and ethnobotanist.

Her works range over 30 years and have always focused on sustainability, permaculture techniques, Coast Salish Cultural elements and have included themes of ethnobotany, Indigenous language revival, Salish weaving and digital media technology. Cease has focussed on connecting her Polynesian roots to her Salish roots through weaving and digital media projects. She has recently been given opportunities for collaborating with Indigenous peoples throughout Oceania, specifically Polynesian peoples. Cease is embarking on a series of Futurisms projects on national and international projects and is currently collaborating with curators, artists and scientists in development of a number of new works. She collaborated with Oli Salvas and Anne-Marie Mellster through the IOC-UNESCO project to create an app entitled “We Are Ocean” that has been a tremendous example to how indigenous and non-Indigenous communities need to unite through a cultural lens in order to raise awareness about sustainability and protecting species at risk, as well as recognition of our part in the colonial destruction of ecosystems.

Her recent VR project collaboration with Damien Gillis and Olivier LeRoux with “Sanctuary”, a 360 Dome experience, leads us through the steps of the aggressive and violent process of deforestation and reminds us of the intricacies of what Ancient and Old Growth Forests are all about, while she encourages us all to take action together to prevent the corporations and governments from destroying the final remains of our declining forests to industry.