Mayworks Festival 2025

40 poster illustrated by Michael DeForge

This year marks the 40th annual Mayworks Festival of Working People & the Arts

May 1 – 31, 2025, across the Greater Toronto & Hamilton Area and online

Mayworks 2025 bears witness to the strength, struggle and imagination of communities seeking labour justice, land sovereignty and a dignified life.

Whether working in multi-channel video, experimental film, a walking tour, sculpture-based installation, poetry, community theatre, or mural painting, the artists work within an honoured tradition of artistic practices engaged in social change.

The works question migrant labour practices, forced displacement, as well as the unbridled expansion of gig work. They explore our fears of organizing, the realities of incarceration, unexplained disappearance, and the resistance that continues to propel us forward.

The Festival begins with a dynamic panel and poetry reading on May 2. This event also marks the official launch of the Mayworks Digital Festival Archive — a database that brings together 40 years of festival programs to honour the countless people whose values and commitments have shaped Mayworks into Canada’s largest and longest-running labour arts festival.

Who’s Afraid of Labour Justice curated by Furqan Mohamed, image courtesy of artists Nahomi Amberber and Saysah.

Guest curated by Furqan Mohamed, Who’s Afraid of Labour Justice? presents works by artists Nahomi Amberber, Saysah, and Farah Ghafoor at Charles Street Video. Together, the artists reckon with what lingers and haunts us through cycles of revolutionary struggles. The program includes live performances in Toronto and a hands-on poetry and collage workshop in Kitchener, ON.

Each year, Mayworks’ Labour Arts Catalyst program invites artists to develop and create new works through collaborative research and art-making with local labour organizations. This year’s residents, Krish Dineshkumar, Monica Cheema, and Andre Mandela Lopez present works responding to these collaborations.

Derailing Dignity by Krish Dineshkumar reflects on the experience of migrant workers who deliver food using bikes in Toronto. The installation and sound piece presented at Whippersnapper Gallery reflects on what we collectively lose sight of when we consent to the practice of fragile and unsustainable labour systems that are veiled as means of bringing comfort to our lives.

To Look, And To Look Again by Monica Cheema, 2025.

In To Look, And To Look Again, Monica Cheema reconnects migrant labour stories to landscape images long shaped by colonial histories. The work-in-progress screening on May 23 will be paired with a facilitated discussion led by the artist.

Developed in partnership with Latin American & Caribbean Solidarity Network, Andre Mandela Lopez journeys through myth, memory and collective awakening in his solo exhibition We Are Free at Wildseed Centre for Art & Activism.

In Hamilton, Parallel Histories: An Anniversary Exhibit curated by Florencia Berinstein celebrates the shared legacy of Mayworks Festival and the Workers Arts and Heritage Centre and reflects on the value of their contributions in labour, community and cultural spheres in Toronto, Hamilton and beyond.

West Indies: The Fugitive Slaves of Liberty (still), directed by Med Hondon, 1979.

Presented with Caribbean Solidarity Network, Fugitive Journeys is a day-long program on migrant labour, emancipatory struggles and the lasting impacts of French colonialism. We present two film screenings West Indies: The Fugitive Slaves of Liberty (1979) and Souleymane’s Journey (2024), followed by a panel discussion on forced migration and work with Chris Ramsaroop and Melanie Newton, moderated by Kevin Edmonds.

A screening and book talk of Banging on the Walls of the Tank: Dispatches from Gaza presents a collection of reflections and analysis written over eighteen years in Gaza by Palestinian academic and activist, Haidar Eid; followed by a virtual Q&A with the author.

Additional screenings include: Tall el-Zaatar (1977) a recently recovered and restored documentary which documents the resistance of Palestinian men, women and children, I’m Still Here (2024) directed by Walter Salles which focuses on activist, lawyer and hero Eunice Paiva during Brazil’s dictatorship in the early 1970s, Sudan Remember Us (2024) where filmmaker Hind Meddeb captures a jubilant moment of defiance among young Sudanese activists in Khartoum, and The Strike (2024) which follows 30,000 incarcerated people who went on a hunger strike that spread across California’s prisons.

Finally, the festival poster, 40, illustrated by Michael DeForge is a striking reflection on symbols of solidarity that have resonated across borders, eras and movements.

Join us and engage in the artwork of our time! All programs are free, some require registration.

To explore the full Festival program, please visit mayworks.ca

Founded in 1986, the Mayworks Festival of Working People & the Arts is a community-based festival which annually presents new works by a diverse and broad range of artists, who are both workers and activists. The programming presents bold, insightful, responses to pressing issues at the intersection of art, social justice and labour. We encourage works rooted in the reality of working people’s lives that advance the struggle for improved working and living conditions. We are actively engaged in a social dialogue that challenges the logics of capitalism and seeks to reimagine and represent a just future.

Contact:
Mitra Fakhrashrafi
Programming & Curatorial Coordinator
Mayworks Festival of Working People & the Arts
programming@mayworks.ca