Peace Centre Update
The Peace Centre has had a busy last few months, and the semester is barely at its halfway point.
On Sept. 14, the Peace Centre launched its annual Peace Week, Continuing the Conversation: Reimagining, Rebuilding, Reconnecting. Like everything else this school year, we had to adapt to the changing environments and host Peace Week 2020 online, which proved to be an advantage.
Vital conversations
Guests from Saskatchewan, Alberta, New York, Halifax, and California joined our local speakers to facilitate accessibility pedagogy, dance, and theatre workshops; shared their experiences through Playback theatre; and create dialogues about decolonization and reconciliation with the Dawson and Montreal communities. In doing so, we were able to have vital conversations on how to reconnect with each other, how to reimagine ways to healing, and begin to rebuild ourselves and our societies.
The highlight of Peace Week was our closing keynote speaker, Dr. Kenneth Deer. An Indigenous and human rights activist, Dr Deer was one of the forces and authors of the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This riveting talk took us from the creation of peace amongst the Haudenosaunee to the creation of the UN Declaration and taught different ways to fight for justice and for peace.
Resistance and Resilience
On Oct. 8, the Warren G. Flowers Art Gallery and the Peace Centre opened a unique art exhibition under very unique circumstances. When Diana Rice originally conceived of the project in late 2018, setting the plan in motion, I don’t think any of us expected the labour to last as long as it did. But, after months of navigating through pandemics and uncertainties, we are honoured and pleased to share our newest creation: an online art exhibition, Resistance and Resilience (https://resistanceresilience.dawsoncollege.qc.ca/).
Resistance and Resilience is about privileging the experiences of Legacy and first and second generation racialized migrant/immigrant communities, and celebrates the diversity of histories, narratives, and expressions through art. Resistance and Resilience is about democratizing art and making under-represented voices heard and accessible to all. Resistance and Resilience is about having important conversations and choosing action.
Connecting in new ways
While Zoom and the virtual world has its definite limitations—including a sense of surreal disembodiment—hosting these two very important events online helped us connect in ways that may not have been otherwise possible. Perhaps more importantly, the venue enabled us to have conversations about very real experiences of inequity, injustice and violence. Both Continuing the Conversation: Reimagining, Rebuilding and Reconnecting and Resistance and Resilience is more than just talks, workshops and art. It’s about breaking through the surface and pushing against all forces that wish to silence us. It’s about listening and being heard. And it’s about solidarity as we create a space of equity, social responsibility, justice and peace.
Ildikó Glaser-Hille
Interim Programming Coordinator
Peace Centre
