On December 3, 2020, as per Xaverian tradition, the class of 2021 received their coveted X-Rings. Deciding what to engrave on the inside of one’s ring can be a big decision, and we were curious about what this year’s class had in mind — so we asked them to tell us about what they chose! To learn more about each ring, click on a photo and mouse over it to read the wearer’s explanation.
On October 17, 2020, more than 300 people rallied in Chisholm Park to demonstrate their solidarity with Mi’kmaw fishers. The purpose of the rally was to demand that the RCMP and elected officials honour the Treaty of 1752, which guarantees the Mi’kmaq right to fish for a moderate livelihood, and to act to stop acts of violence and terror against Mi'kmaq fishers. This comes after a week of violence in Saulnierville, where white vigilantes have been cutting traps, raiding lobster pounds, and making threats against the wellbeing of Mi'kmaq people.
The rally began at 6pm with a drum performance of “Honour Song” by Graham Marshall; Billy Joe Muese; Noah Mathews Crimons; Salena Sylvester; Charlotte, Margaret, and Dolena Poulette; and Michelle, Christina, and Rosie Sylliboy. Following the performance, a number of Mi’kmaq community members, as well as a few settlers, took the stage with words of outrage, encouragement, solidarity, and hope. Chris Frazer, professor of History at StFX, acted as the event’s emcee. An experienced organizer and activist, Frazer also played a large role in making the event happen.
Dolena Poulette of Membertou First Nation giving the opening prayer.
Photo by Addy Strickland
Among the speakers was Michelle Sylliboy, a Mi’kmaq artist from We'koqma'q Cape Breton and Professor of Art and Modern Languages at StFX University. Sylliboy emphasized the role of the 1752 treaty, stating that Mi'kmaq people have been here for a very long time, and will be here for a very long time, despite government efforts to silence or ignore them; “we’re not going anywhere,” she said. She called on settlers—her allies and neighbours—to write their elected officials, and ask for justice. “That email that you send to the Prime Minister is a legal document, and they can’t ignore it … you voted them in. They work for you. It’s pretty clear that they don’t work for me anymore, but they work for you,” she said.
Salena Sylvestor, a mom, leader, and Community Studies student who travelled to Antigonish from Membertou First Nation, also took the stage. Sylvestor was emotional, sharing her thoughts about ongoing events in Digby, and explaining to the crowd what was happening there; cut traps, flares, violence, fire. If these acts were being committed by Indigenous people, she stipulated, the RCMP would be employing force to make it stop. She asks, “where’s that force now?”
Sylvestor was followed by Mary Isaac, who reminded the crowd about the real root of the issue. “This is about corporations trying to steal our natural resources and keep us fighting as a distraction,” she said, and encouraged everyone in attendance to “unite as one people” instead of resorting to violence and conflict.
Dolena Poulette, from We'koqma'q First Nation, April and Darlene Prosper, from Paq’tnkek First Nation, and Marin McBeath, a history student at StFX, also stepped up to the mic.
While the speakers were on stage, two rubber boots also made their way through the crowd, collecting funds to be sent to the front lines in Digby and put towards buying necessary supplies. Attendees raised a total of $1145 in monetary donations, and event organizers are looking to collect further donations in material items to send along as well. Readers looking to lend support are encouraged to write, call, or email their elected officials to call for action. Monetary or material donations are also welcome. Charlotte Conolly, an activist from Halifax (K'jipuktuk), has created a list of the various places to donate, alongside templates for reaching elected officials, lists of most needed supplies, and trustworthy news sources; her list can be found online here.
Three dancers led the march.
Photo by Addy Strickland
The rally ended with a march, led by three young dancers, routed from Chisholm through the StFX campus. Marchers waved at the Antigonish RCMP station as they made their way back along West Street.
A livestream of the event can found on The Xaverian Weekly’s Facebook page, here. A recording of the event will also be shared on this week’s episode of Social Justice Radio, Thursday at 5pm on 93.3 The Fox.
On September 9 and 10, 2020, scholars at universities across Canada stepped out of their virtual and physical classrooms to protest racism and police brutality in North America. They paused their teaching and administrative duties, and instead organized marches, demonstrations, and teach-ins in support of a list of demands. Those demands include: defunding the police and redistributing the resources to BIPOC, queer, and trans communities; removing campus police; addressing the underrepresentation of BIPOC faculty at Canadian institutions; and committing to actively “recruit, admit, retain, and mentor” BIPOC students.
The Scholar Strike Canada website states that the concept was inspired by a tweet from Dr. Anthea Butler, who was inspired by the recent WNBA and NBA strike. Dr. Butler’s call for a similar labour action from academics quickly garnered attention, and spurred action in the U.S (her home country) as well as in Canada, where the nation-wide strike was organized by Beverly Bain and Min Sook Lee.
Photo by Addy Strickland
Desmond Cole, a Canadian journalist, author, and activist, gave the keynote to kick off the Canadian strike and teach-ins on September 9. Titled “Abolition or death: Confronting police forces in Canada,” the keynote asked “who is being policed in Canada and why?” The answer is the motivation behind ongoing Black Lives Matter protests, and the driving force behind the fight to abolish the police. Cole spends three minutes of the talk listing the everyday ways in which police violence is perpetuated:
“It’s the arrests and assaults on us that are then documented as assaults against the police … It’s the routine sexual assaults of women by police officers because they know that they can get away with it … It’s the clearing out of homeless encampments during a global pandemic because people who own property don’t want to see homeless people around them ... It’s the thousands of black people in this country who can’t apply for jobs because they have a criminal record for possessing or selling marijuana ... It’s the police intimidation of non-status families, who want to send their kids to school but don’t, because they are scared of being deported.”
Abolition isn’t about money, Cole says; it’s “about our lives.”
Scholars at StFX were quick to join the strike, and support the calls to action. Following Cole’s keynote, dozens of faculty, staff, students, and community members met masked and social-distanced in front of the Coady International Institute. Organized by Dr. Corrine Cash and Dr. Donna Trembinski, the gathering highlighted the voices of people of colour, featuring speeches from Denton Anthony, Tara Reddick, Dhruv Patel, Ornella Nzindukiyimana, and Wendy Mackey. Dr. Cash was very pleased with the turnout, seeing various athletic teams, coaches, and community members out in support alongside faculty and students.
In her own speech, Dr. Cash called for StFX administration to “create a multiracial committee that conducts an audit of all facets of the university to identity racism, discriminations.” She shared that she hopes a study of this kind could be used to inform real action, in the form of a
strategic plan aimed at obliterating racism and discrimination on campus. Dr. Cash encourages anyone who wishes to see the same to email StFX President Dr. Andy Hakin, and let him know.
The event comes at a pressing time for StFX, following the announcement of an increased RCMP presence on campus. A number of the event’s speakers explicitly condemned the school’s decision to allow RCMP on campus, and the province’s decision to involve them in check-ins for isolating students.
Photo by Addy Strickland
Following the speeches, the organizers led a march through campus, stopping to chant “Black Lives Matter” and “no justice, no peace” in front of Dr. Hakin’s office, as well as across from the RCMP station on West Street.
In an interesting turn of events, members of the school’s upper administration, including President Hakin and Academic Vice President Kevin Wamsley, were also present at the march. Donna Trambinski shares that “it was great to see them, but they’re putting into practice policies that are problematic for people of colour on campus.” Attending a march is one thing, but actually doing the work to ensure a safe and equitable campus environment is something else entirely. “It would be really nice to see them do something, and to respond to the problematic announcement of RCMP on campus,” shared Trembinski.
It is evident in their enthusiastic participation that many StFX faculty, staff, and students wish to see an end to racism and discrimination on campus. The question now, is what will it take for that to happen, and how much more of a push do administration need to act?
Arts & Community Editor Addy Strickland interviewed author Martha Wilson over Zoom on July 16, 2020.
Martha Wilson's short story collection, Nosy White Woman, was recently awarded the Alistair MacLeod Prize for Short Fiction at the 2020 Atlantic Book Awards. The prize was established in 2015 to honour the memory of Alistair MacLeod, a masterful short fiction writer who called Nova Scotia home. Wilson was also a finalist for the New South 2018 fiction prize and runner-up for the 2017 Peter Hinchcliffe fiction prize, and has published work in the New Quarterly, Real Simple, The New York Times, The Japan Times, Kansai Time Out, and the International Herald-Tribune. Nosy White Woman is Wilson’s first published collection of short fiction.
AS: Can you start by telling me a little bit more about you?
MW: I’ve been in Canada for twenty-five years. I’m American, and I feel very grateful and lucky to be in Canada. My husband is from Nova Scotia. We were in Toronto for ten years and moved back to Nova Scotia when our children were small, so my children have grown up in the country, in rural Nova Scotia, which has been a wonderful experience for them. I’ve really appreciated having the chance to have lived, as a younger adult, in a big city, and then as a mom in the country. I read a lot, though especially during this pandemic it’s harder for me to read a book than it used to be. And I do read Twitter a lot. Like, way, way too much. I especially read political Twitter, and since I still vote in the United States, I follow a lot of Washington journalists and track U.S. political news pretty closely. That takes up a lot of my attention, and I don’t know a lot of Americans here in Nova Scotia who are as focused on it as I am. It can be a little bit isolating, since my family doesn’t want to hear about it. That’s probably my big “hobby” —following U.S. politics.
AS: Can you also tell me about your journey as an author?
MW: I always knew I wanted to write, so it was really so satisfying to have published this book. It took me twenty years to complete it, and in finishing the book, I realized that I was able to finish it and publish it because my mother had died. She died in the spring about five years ago, and in the summer, I signed up for the Humber distance writing course, and I thought, “I’ll finish this short story collection.” I worked on it for a year and then started the publication process, with literary press Biblioasis. We were well into the editing of it before it dawned on me that I’d been able to write it because my mother was gone. I was really surprised by that. Not by not having been able to finish it, but by the opacity of that process—that I did not realize what was going on for months and months, even though I was really engaging with the stories and the publishing process. So I’m very interested that things that can be so apparent in retrospect can be so invisible at the time. It’s not that I thought the stories would be painful for my mom, or too specific—my mom’s not in the book—but it was just too close while my parents were still around.
AS: Did you go into writing these stories with the intention of publishing a collection?
MW: No, but I've always loved short stories, and for years and years I subscribed to Harper's and The Atlantic. Those two were monthlies. The New Yorker obviously has amazing fiction, but it comes every week. I could never finish a New Yorker before there's another one dropped through the mail slot; they just come all the time. The Atlantic and Harper's, during my twenties and most of my thirties, were publishing one story a month each; it was the perfect amount. It was as if the fiction was titrated at a dose to perfectly match the attention and thought I would give it over the course of the month. A novel, you choose it yourself: you go to the bookstore, you order something; or you like a writer, so you buy their book. With the short stories in monthly magazines, it's like they're assigned to you. They just arrive. That had a really big impact on how important short fiction became to me. I still remember a lot of those stories that I read when I was a young adult. I remember them with great clarity. It's something that has nearly disappeared from public life during my adulthood, and that makes me sad. (But it's okay; we didn't have Twitter then.)
AS: For people who are interested in reading Nosy White Woman, can you give us an idea of what to expect?
MW: Because I'm so interested in politics, there's a lot of that; I'm extremely interested in the effects of policy on our daily lives. I'm always telling my daughters who are teenagers that policy is more important than anything else. At the same time, that’s not exactly what the stories are about. They're about families, they're about adult children, they're about marriages, they're about fear and worry and happiness. They're a lot about privacy, and the fact that we all have that private internal life that’s separate from the life that even our most intimate family members see.
Most of my stories are not about race, but I was very conscious about not having whiteness as the default. The title story is about police brutality, especially against men of colour in the United States.
AS: Can you talk to me a bit about the book’s title? Why did you decide to call it Nosy White Woman?
MW: At Biblioasis, Dan Wells (who established the press), suggested it. Fiction editor John Metcalf and I had “The Golden Bra” as the title story, and Dan said to me, what would you think of changing it, making “Nosy White Woman” the title story, because that's really more reflective of your interest in policy and politics and societal issues, and how those play out in our daily lives. And I agreed. I'm not sure of the date; I think it was probably fall of 2018, but one thing that I talked about in “Nosy White Woman” was that we had seen on YouTube and on social media the deaths of Philando Castile, of Freddie Gray, and several African American men shot by the police, for not-valid reasons. It became clearer and clearer over the years I was working on these stories that my experience with the police in the United States is a completely separate reality from the reality that a lot of people have. I've been shocked to come to understand how different those are, and that's the reckoning that white people are coming to. We've really seen that this summer with how white people regard the Black Lives Matter movement: the belief that white Americans have in the validity of that movement has just skyrocketed over the summer.
AS: What do you hope that people take away from reading this collection?
MW: Even though I talk so much about politics, and it sounds like that's all I write about, that's not it at all. One of my early readers, Catherine Newman, called the book “gloomy and hilarious.” I really love that description, and asked the publisher if we could put that on the front—it's my favourite tagline. So I guess I couldn't imagine a better way for my book to be described.
AS: You were recently awarded the Alistair MacLeod Prize for Short Fiction for this collection. What does receiving this prize mean to you?
MW: It was very exciting. It was encouraging and gratifying to be linked with such an admired name in Canadian fiction, someone so beloved. That was a lovely thing. I also thought it said that my book is in some way speaking to this moment. This particular summer, at least. Especially in the United States, white people are learning more about white privilege, which is one of the most important ways our society is going to move forward.
AS: You’ve lived in Nova Scotia for the last 15 years, and before that, you lived in Toronto after coming from the United States. Has living here, or moving here, impacted your writing?
MW: Yes. It brought me back to my childhood, because I grew up in a small town. I live near Windsor, Nova Scotia, and it's very much like the town in Georgia I grew up in. One of the things I wrote about in what's probably one of my favourite stories, “Midway,” is how small towns used to be much more rural. Talking about when the protagonist is growing up, I wrote, “Since we lived in a town, I thought that was my identity: town person. Now I can see how newly scratched in the dirt that life was, how essentially rural it remained. How all of that held me.” That's something that I've really gotten back in touch with since moving to Nova Scotia 15 years ago. I grew up in a small town but it was really like the country. So many of the people I went to school with were farm kids, and we had FFA—Future Farmers of America; we had 4H. Many of the kids I knew a raised chickens, and the boys would be driving tractors after school and on the weekends. That was the life I was familiar with. Moving back to Nova Scotia has reignited those memories, because that way of making a living is still so apparent here, in ways I never saw in Toronto.
It's really important to honour that lifestyle and not look down on it a second-best. My younger daughter is dying to get out of Nova Scotia. She has very specific plans to go to university in either Toronto or Montreal, and she is out of here the day she gets that high school diploma. Which is fine, obviously. But it's important that we not fall into a trap of believing cities are somehow cooler, or a better way to live.
AS: What can the world expect next from Martha Wilson? Are you working on anything new?
MW: I'm working on a new short fiction collection. A lot of it is about working in a church. Church life really fascinates me, especially the behind the scenes of church life that isn't about attending church, but about the church office. That's something I'm working on now.
On Thursday, June 25, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the Canada Student Service Grant (CSSG), which provides students with up to $5,000 for volunteering in programs related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The multi-million dollar contract to administer the grant was initially awarded to WE Charity, a Canadian organization that claims to empower youth to make a difference, but the contract has since been rescinded in response to public criticism. Looking deeper, there are also a number of equity concerns within the structure of the grant itself.
Even though they are no longer engaged with the CSSG program, the fact that the government awarded WE Charity the contract to begin within warrants concern. The obvious ties between the Trudeau family and WE were immediately criticized by the media, given that there has been little information provided on how the decision to allocate the contract was made. This past week, a number of current and former WE staff have also come forward with allegations of racism, homophobia, and censorship against the organization and its leadership. Former WE employee Santai Kimakeke alleges that he is currently separated from his family and unable to travel from Kenya as a result of false accusations pitted against him by Marc Kielburger (one of the organization’s founders). Kimakeke has also accused Marc Keilburger of psychological abuse and misuse of power, and has further detailed fraudulent and criminal practices, misappropriation, money laundering, and tax evasion committed by the organization on his blog, “Odd Truths About We Charity.” Amanda Maitland and Talitha Toles are two other former staff members who have spoken out, detailing the organization’s racist tendencies.
For those familiar with the organization, these recent allegations shouldn’t come as a surprise. Jaren Kerr, a reporter for Canadaland, has investigated ethical issues within the organization since 2018, with findings including the use of child labour in their supply chain, a toxic work environment, bullying from senior leadership, high burnout rates, false advertising, and a lack of professional boundaries. Even earlier, in 2015, WE came under fire after footage of We Day and criticism of WE trips to Ecuador was scrubbed from CBC’s “Volunteers Unleashed” —a documentary centering on the harms of voluntourism—just before its air date. The footage that did make it into the film, according to the interviewee featured, was heavily altered to direct criticism away from the organization.
Looking to the grant itself, its valuation and structure have also raised a number of pay equity concerns. The grant provides students with $1,000 for every 100 hours volunteered, up to $5,000. Broken down to an hourly wage, that comes to $10 an hour—well below the minimum wage across Canada. Coupled with CESB, students could potentially earn $22 an hour if they are able to complete the full 500 hours of volunteer work—but the likelihood of that happening seems slim. 500 hours is an extremely high expectation (equivalent to the number of hours they’d work over the course of 3 months at a regular 9 to 5 job). For students who are also caring for family, pitching in at home, taking courses online, or actively looking for work, 500 hours would prove next to impossible.
The way the grant is structured adds to its inequity as well, in that it has the potential to leave huge amounts of labour unrecognized. Because the grant is broken into sections of 100 hours, if a student volunteers 199 hours, they’ll only be paid for the first hundred. Unless a student is completely certain they’ll be able to complete the hours in sections of 100, they could finish the four months with a lot of uncompensated work.
The initial CESB announcement was already concerning for many, given that it was a hefty $750 less than CERB’s $2,000—appearing to value students less than the working population. Now with the announcement of the CSSG, the pair suggests that the government only values the wellbeing and security of students if they are able to benefit from their labour. CESB hardly provides enough for students looking to pay for rent and food, let alone tuition, so many will have no choice but to sign up for the CSSG. Funnelling students into a semi-accessible four-month volunteer program through which they will be underpaid, and that appears to take the place of efforts to create student jobs, is exploitative at best, and takes advantage of students who are struggling financially.
Can we really call it “volunteer” labour if students need the extra money in order to survive?
It is also important to recognize who is eligible for the program. International students, students over 30, and students who have received CERB at any point—which is quite a large portion of students—are ineligible. Those students are not immune to the costs of living in Canada, and some (international students) pay far higher fees for tuition while at school, likely increasing their need for such a program. Evidently, then, the grant isn’t meant to support all students.
The CSSG as a program is deeply flawed. Taking the implementation of the program out of the hands of WE Charity is a step in the right direction, but it doesn't solve the issues that come with the grant itself. Whether the grant proves to be successful for the young people who apply remains in question, but the outlook, considering the issues presented above, isn’t good.
On June 19, 2020, StFX University announced its intentions to host students back on campus in September, with the majority of classes being offered in-person. Until the nineteenth, StFX was one of the few Canadian universities yet to make a decision regarding online vs. in-person classes, and students, staff, and faculty alike were eagerly awaiting the official announcement. Now that we have an answer, the question is, what does everyone think?
For the week following the announcement, I collected survey responses from 88 members of StFX faculty to find out what they are thinking and feeling about the university’s decision. The responses came from both contract and tenure or tenure-track faculty, and from more than 22 different departments. This article is a summary of what I found.
Overall, faculty are largely divided in their opinions about whether StFX made the right decision. 35% of faculty surveyed agree or strongly agree with the statement that StFX made the right decision to host students on campus in the fall, while 42% disagree or strongly disagree. The remaining 23% opted to remain neutral.
For those who agree with the decision, the mental health of students is front of mind. Dr. Angie Kolen, for instance, believes that in order for us to remain mentally healthy, “we need to be social, see people—in person.” Another professor, who wishes to remain anonymous, agrees with the decision largely because the alternative (online delivery) would cause more harm, and exacerbate a number of problems that already exist. Those problems include the mental health struggles that Dr. Kolen mentions, as well as academic struggles and social inequity. Then, there would also be an array of new problems to deal with, such as inconsistent internet access. Online education, they say, “has been shown to exacerbate social inequities, further widening the gulf between high-performing students who often come from wealthier … backgrounds and students who are disadvantaged.”
Those who are more skeptical, however, also speak to the inequities that an in-person approach might exacerbate. A number of respondents point out that students and faculty who are immuno-compromised will likely face increased difficulties and lower quality education, having to take or teach all their courses online regardless of an open campus. One professor, whose son has asthma, worries that returning to in person teaching would put their son at serious risk. “What of faculty, students, and staff with serious health problems or in vulnerable age groups? What about parents with young kids and nowhere to place them? What about elder care,” they ask?
If an outbreak occurs, many faculty are also concerned that the resulting shift online will look much like it did in March: chaotic, rushed, and nowhere near the quality of education students are paying for. A scramble to get home could also create financial hardship for many students, or prove impossible for those who need to cross international borders. What more, faculty are being told by administration that “they do not have to provide any more accommodation for students who have to self-isolate and miss face-to-face classes than they normally would if students get sick,” despite the fact that the situation we are in is far from normal. The professor who pointed this out was also concerned that some faculty may be penalized for putting in the extra work to support sick students, and consequently spending less time on other aspects of their jobs such as research.
Another big factor for those against the decision was whether they thought students and faculty would follow the rules. 65% of faculty surveyed disagree or strongly disagree with the statement that they believe StFX students will respect social distancing protocols, while only 20% agree or strongly agree. Concerns about fellow faculty not following those protocols were expressed in survey responses as well. For many, this distrust in others is a big reason why they feel unsafe returning to work. For others, there are still simply too many unknowns. Dr. Tharshanna Nadarajah, who teaches Math and Statistics, believes that given the identified risks, “forcing students back on campus is putting the school’s financial interests over student safety—regardless of how they try and spin it.”
Of the faculty members surveyed, only 35% of faculty said that they had been consulted by StFX prior to the announcement, while an even smaller 30% agree or strongly agree with the statement that StFX adequately consulted with and considered the needs of faculty prior to making their decision. For those who were consulted, some also expressed that they felt their concerns were ignored because of the institution’s financial concerns.
The responses of contract faculty versus those of tenure or tenure-track faculty also revealed a number of inequities within the university’s decision-making process. While all faculty are being asked to contribute a significant amount of labour to preparing for both online and in-person teaching, part-time and contract professors aren’t being paid for that work. Another respondent pointed out that the various seminars, webinars, and townhalls being hosted by StFX administration might be missed by contract employees who are technically not employed by StFX during the summer, and may be busy with other jobs or commitments. This respondent wonders “how many contract employees will miss out on opportunities to learn online teaching methods, or proper safety protocols because of their current employment status?” Many contract faculty also don’t receive sick leave (paid or unpaid), or other health benefits, which in the midst of a global pandemic, makes returning to work all the more unsafe. Failing to provide all faculty with sick leave and health benefits while asking them to return to return to work, as one professor puts it, “is to treat them as disposable.”
Not all contract faculty were upset about the decision to open campus, however. One professor shared their excitement over the decision, because had the university decided to shift online, their position may have been cut; they were grateful to still have employment in September. Others appreciated the opportunity to learn how to teach online, despite the fact they weren’t being paid—looking at it as free professional development.
Overall, faculty opinions on StFX’s decision to reopen campus for in-person instruction are mixed. Some are overwhelmingly in favour, while others remain skeptical that the university’s plan will be effective in preventing an outbreak of COVID-19. The most common trend among responses was a concern about the inequities that either decision would have exacerbated, leaving us to wonder why so many inequities exist to be exacerbated in the first place. For an institution that prides themselves in social justice leadership, StFX has a lot of work left to do.
The Antigonight Art After Dark festival is looking forward to its eleventh year despite challenges posed by COVID-19, and they’re looking for artists to help make it happen!
For those who’ve visited the festival in the past, they’ll know it for it’s vibrant, colourful, and energetic takeover of the town’s streets, parking lots, and sidewalks—featuring dozens of different artists and performers in various genres. Typically centered in the connection and interaction between artists and members of the community, with last year’s attendance estimated at 3,000 people, this year’s festival may look a little bit different than what visitors are used to. Connecting with the arts, however, is more important than ever. Festival Director Emma MacDonald believes that “art is integral to who we are” and that even though we’re living through some fairly unprecedented times, there’s no better way to connect then through creativity.
Despite new regulations regarding social gatherings, MacDonald is excited about the possibilities that a socially-distanced event might allow, sharing that just because the festival might not look like what we’re used to “does not mean that it will be any less special.” She shared that “by creating an alternative festival plan we are not only supporting creative professionals in our community, but it may also be a bright spot for the community in the coming months.” A distanced festival also brings about new opportunities to engage community members who might live farther away.
The festival organizing team is inviting artists, collectives, and community organizations to submit original project ideas that celebrate and consider ways that we can encounter art and be connected even if we cannot gather in-person. Previous projects have including music, dance performances, painting, sculpture, workshops, storytelling, and theatre. All submissions are welcome, whether digital or non-digital, and unconventional ideas are encouraged. The deadline for submissions is Friday, June 26 at midnight. The submission form and relevant instructions can be found here, on the Antigonish Culture Alive website.
Successful submissions will be presented, performed, installed, or displayed during the Antigonight festival from September 1 to 12, 2020. Leading up to the festival, Antigonight will also be running several community projects, so keep an eye out for the announcements on any ACA or Antigonight social media!
