Essay
The Future is
NOW Creating Safe Spaces for Women of Colour in the Arts
words by kristin cheung illustration by jane koo Safe spaces have been largely discussed in mainstream media for the past few years in the context of academic and cultural groups. As defined by MerriamWebster, a safe space is a place of discussion that is free of bias, conflict, and threats. Critics say safe spaces are “coddling” individuals and protecting them from ideas and thoughts they don’t want to hear. I would argue, however, that building a safe space is not about restricting free speech, but rather about developing a gathering place for like-minded people to share their views, stories, and opinions, and build a richer community in the process. We have all felt alone and isolated at some points in our lives; safe spaces can connect us. Metro Vancouver is wonderfully multicultural, but our population’s visible minorities do not always have places for themselves. It is vital that we build spaces that allow them to feel connected. In the arts community, there are some great groups creating spaces in specific artistic disciplines and ethnicities, including the Aboriginal Writers Collective West Coast, Hapa-palooza, Project SAT (South Asian Theatre), and the Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre (VACT). These organizations have been instrumental in providing safe spaces for artists and communities to connect with each other and lift each other up. One example is the success of VACT’s production of Empire of the Son. VACT was established in 2001, born out of the realization that there was not much Asian representation in Vancouver’s theatre scene, both in terms of actors and the stories of Asian-Canadian people. This initiative was started years before #OscarsSoWhite became a trending hashtag.
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By providing a safe space for Vancouver theatre-makers to produce and tell their own stories centred around Asian-Canadian issues, VACT created a generation of artists who now develop projects that sell out venues and tour across the country. Empire of the Son is a production by Tetsuro Shigematsu, a former CBC broadcaster, writer, and filmmaker. The production was supported enormously by the Vancouver Asian community and local media, and had a sold-out run at The Cultch in October 2015. It has now toured Canada, including a stop at The National Arts Centre in Ottawa. Throughout my 10 years of working in the arts in Vancouver—from music and publishing to theatre and visual arts—I’ve seen the success of organizations like VACT in developing great diverse storytelling. But also in the last 10 years, I’ve felt alone. Although Vancouver is diverse and the majority of cultural workers are female, I did not feel there was a space for us as women of colour in the arts. I’ve realized that we needed a space where we could be together and discuss our own issues and experiences. I wanted to develop a space that would tackle the issue of diversity and gender parity in leadership roles; we need people in positions of power to represent our voices. This is why I developed The Future is You and Me with my collaborator Megan Lau. Our free community mentorship and micro-grants program teaches leadership skills to young women of colour in the arts, so that they can develop their own creative projects. This is a space for us to develop new talents, feel safe, and connect with like-minded creatives. Right now, safe space is seen as a privilege. But it is a right.
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