In this episode, Anna Shah Hoque rounds off Season 3 with a chat with the fabulous guest producers of Season 3: Aedan Corey, Keegan Prempeh, Kole Peplinskie, Summer Harmony-Twenish and Matt Miwa.

They dive into how they have cultivated their art practices in Odawa, the push and pull relationship between sustaining a creative practice in a neoliberal capitalist economy, and how and each of their respective communities.

Thank you so much for joining us this season! Thank you to all the participants! What has been your favourite conversation? We hope you have a great summer!

Participants:

Aedan Corey

Aedan Corey is a Two Spirit writer, visual artist, emerging curator and Inuit tattooist from Iqaluktuuttiaq, Nunavut — a town of approximately 1,800 people. Author and illustrator of the chapbook “Inuujunga” (Coven Editions, 2021) and short story “Unikkaannguaq” (Nipiit Magazine, 2020), they began creating art at a young age. Aedan’s work is heavily inspired by their lived experiences as a queer, neurodivergent Inuk. Their goal is always to inspire and advocate for those within their communities through their artistic practices, letting others know that they are not alone. Aedan currently resides on the unceded Algonquin territory known as Ottawa. Check out Aedan’s work on Instagram @uviluq_by_design

Matt Miwa

Matt Miwa (he/him) hails from Aurora, Ontario. He moved to Ottawa in 2000 to attend theatre school. Matt maintains a theatre creation and performance art practice. Prior to the pandemic, Matt toured his theatre piece “The Tashme Project: The Living Archives” across Canada (with co-creator Julie Tamiko Manning). This play traces the oral histories of twenty Japanese Canadian elders. Matt and Julie hope to perform this play for the rest of their lives. Matt's dedication to this play is indicative of his broader love and appreciation for the Japanese Canadian community with whom he frequently works. Most recently, Matt produced the event “Tomoni/Go Together” with CUAG. Tomoni unites Japanese cultural practitioners with local non-Japanese artists in unique and surprising artistic collaborations. @miwa.light.house

Kole Peplinskie

Kole Peplinskie (they/them) is an Anishinabe beader and artist currently living on unceded and unsurrendered Algonquin territory, colonially known as Ottawa. They are a member of Kebaowek First Nation, but were raised in North Bay, ON until moving here over a decade ago. Kole has been creating art in various capacities their whole life, but more professionally starting in 2018. They primarily create beadwork pieces through the brand Rustling Pine (@/rustlingpine on Insta), and have had their piece "Grassroots" shown at Carleton University Art Gallery in 2020 and another piece titled "Trancestors Embrace" at Take Home Gallery in Manitoba in 2021.

Keegan Prempeh

Keegan Prempeh is a Black, non-binary Sagittarius sun on a journey of self-discovery, radical transformation and healing. Xe practices xer art on Anishinaabe territory via music, dance and storytelling. Guided by womanism, collectivism and the pursuit of social justice, Keegan hopes to foster meaningful connections to build community. IG @wefallforever

Summer-Harmony Twenish

Summer is an Algonquin person from Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg who works from a queer and Indigenous feminist lens. With vibrant and playful colours, Summer's digital art and...

What is the importance of controlling, directing and creating spaces for the kinds of stories we want to hear, witness and learn from and about? In episode 10 of the TBC podcast, producer Anna Shah Hoque talks to Adrienne Row-Smith and Hingman Leung about filmmaking, photography and visual storytelling and production.

Anna, Adrienne and Hingman think through developing visual archives directed by their respective lived experiences. They talk about racial bias in visual technologies and cultivating and practicing ethical artistic practices while working with people and creating spaces for stories that centre Black and racialized lives and communities.

Credits: Season 3 graphic created by Hunter Dewache. Custom intro / outro sounds created by Bucko aka Chris Binkowski. Podcast editing is by fin-xuan, with post-production audio work by Nicole Bedford. This season of To Be Continued: Troubling the Archive is generously funded by a Digital Now grant from the Canada Council for the Arts.

Participants:

Adrienne Row-Smith

Adrienne is a photographer and videographer working in both Ottawa and Toronto. Through the utilization of bold and dark imagery, Adrienne aims to bring marginalized voices to the forefront of media representation and inclusion via her media company Strast Media. Adrienne’s work has been featured in the magazines Splice Media Group & Monkey Goose Magazine and the exhibition To Be Continued: Troubling the Queer Archive at Carleton University Art Gallery (2020). Find her @adriennersphoto and @strastmedia.

Hingman Leung

Hingman is an Ottawa-based filmmaker with a passion for telling stories that bridge different ways of seeing the world and specializing in telling stories through the lens of culture and food. Her first short documentary, on food waste in China (2015), received the Public Ethnography Award. Since then, she’s produced several documentaries and narrative films as director and editor, reaching audiences nationally through CBC and locally in film festivals such as Inside Out Toronto, Ottawa Canadian Film Festival and Digi60. She teaches beginner videography through the Digital Arts Resource Centre and currently volunteers on the Board of Digi60 Filmmakers’ Festival.

In this episode, we begin at a local flower shop: Scrim's Florist on Elgin. Guest producer Matt Miwa and his invited guests Sumayya Mayet and Nesta Charles have all worked there and have each incorporated floral design into their art and creative practice.

Flower shops are unusual retail spaces; they invite artistic engagement and collaboration more than most other retail realms. Scrim's was also the first employment opportunity for both Sumayya and Nesta upon arriving in Ottawa from Johannesburg and St. Lucia (via Toronto), respectively.

This episode traces a day in the life at the flower shop and expands outward as the guests contemplate their queer identities, where they came from and how they navigate Ottawa and Canada's larger queer communities.

Refreshingly, we learn how Sumayya and Nesta walk with an energized sense of hope through the streets of Ottawa.

Credits: Season 3 graphic created by Hunter Dewache. Custom intro / outro sounds created by Bucko aka Chris Binkowski. Podcast editing is by fin-xuan, with post-production audio work by Nicole Bedford. This season of To Be Continued: Troubling the Archive is generously funded by a Digital Now grant from the Canada Council for the Arts.

Participants:

Matt Miwa

Matt Miwa (he/him) hails from Aurora, Ontario. He moved to Ottawa in 2000 to attend theatre school. Matt maintains a theatre creation and performance art practice. Prior to the pandemic, Matt toured his theatre piece “The Tashme Project: The Living Archives” across Canada (with co-creator Julie Tamiko Manning). This play traces the oral histories of twenty Japanese Canadian elders. Matt and Julie hope to perform this play for the rest of their lives. Matt's dedication to this play is indicative of his broader love and appreciation for the Japanese Canadian community with whom he frequently works. Most recently, Matt produced the event “Tomoni/Go Together” with CUAG. Tomoni unites Japanese cultural practitioners with local non-Japanese artists in unique and surprising artistic collaborations. @miwa.light.house

Nesta Charles

Nesta Charles (he/him) was born in Brampton, Ontario. He spent his childhood and adolescence in St. Lucia. As a young adult, Nesta moved back to Toronto, where he pursued studies in interior design, while balancing jobs in construction and landscaping.

Landscaping led to work in flower shops, where Nesta's creativity sparked. Moving to Ottawa, Nesta joined the Scrim's Florist team and worked for years in the floral industry, running his own shop, Fine's Flowers. Nesta now works professionally as a wine consultant and actively cultivates an extensive plant care practice. He is currently pursuing his yoga teacher training and looks forward to contributing to and reaching out to the BIPOC community through his yoga teaching. @adio_charles

Sumayya Mayet

Sumayya Mayet (she/they) was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. A painter by training, Sumayya likes to paint "the natural world." She uses bright and vibrant colours and moves between landscape and intricate still life. Her practice also encompasses ink drawing, watercolour and needlepoint.

In 2020, Sumayya decided to move to Canada to accompany her partner, who is pursuing a PhD in Philosophy. Living first in Hull, Symayya moved to downtown Ottawa and has become an integral member of the Scrim's Florist team, where she works in administration and floral design. @rhag.art