Winter 2023 Programming at the Workers Arts & Heritage Centre, Hamilton
Collectivo LASTESIS, Un Violador en Tu Camino/A Rapist in Your Path, Public intervention, Valparaíso (2019)
Celebrate people power this season at the Workers Arts & Heritage Centre with two new exhibitions, and a visitor-led redesign of our exhibits about the past, present, and future of work.
The People United
Curated by Tamara Toledo
In WAHC’s Main Gallery
February 8 – April 15, 2023
Opening Reception and Curator’s Talk with Tamara Toledo: Friday, February 10, 7-9 pm.
Through the work of the Beehive Collective, Colectivo LASTESIS, Carlos Colín, Cristian Ordóñez, and Syrus Marcus Ware, The People United dares to reflect on the power of people who follow a path of transformation towards a different outcome.
The Beehive Collective marks the history of colonization and capitalism throughout Mesoamerica, celebrating social movements that resist neoliberalism and extractivist developmentalist projects and collective action during times of climate change. Colectivo LASTESIS share their anti-patriarchal message through public interventions as their performances evolve into viral forms of protest worldwide. Carlos Colín offers the individual an opportunity to multiply and spread voices of solidarity, with the message that the power lies within the collective. Cristian Ordóñez captures images of combative youth underlining their courage and resilience, as well as their organizational capacity to change the course of Chilean history. And finally, Syrus Marcus Ware offers a space of hope as he imagines the collapse of capitalism, and a not too far away future where social restructuring is based on care, acknowledgement, respect, and relations.
The exhibition renders struggle and hope. It offers moments of resurgence, contestation, and emancipation, but most importantly acknowledges the power that lies within people, and a vision of what our collective future could be.
Join us for a series of ancillary programs presented in support of The People United.
Saturday April 8, 2023, 10 am | Mesoamerica Resiste! Workshop with the Beehive Collective.
Saturday, April 8, 2023, 1 pm | Second Saturday Family Workshop with the Beehive Collective.
Thursday, April 13, 2023, 6:30 pm (Virtual) | Feminist and Political Collage: Interdisciplinary Strategies for Performance Workshop with Colectivo LASTESIS.
Photo credit: Tara Bursey
Bread and Butter
January 13 – February 26, 2023
An exhibition of art and objects from our permanent collection, including the work of Carole Condé and Karl Beveridge, Cees van Germerden, George Walker, and Leonard Hutchinson.
In WAHC’s Community Gallery
Food is often prepared and shared as an act of love and care, and in the spirit of justice and solidarity.
Our access to food comes to us through a constellation of working people, from farmers and delivery workers, to groups fighting for greater food security for all.
This exhibition of art and objects from our permanent collection explores the ways that food has been brought to our tables in times of plenty, and times of challenge.
During this exhibition, help us contribute non-perishable items to local community fridges. Leave items in the gallery, and we will deliver them to one of Hamilton’s six community fridge and pantry locations for you.
At WAHC, we see museums as works in progress. Work with us to re-imagine how we represent the stories of working people!
In 2019, we stripped our walls of 20-year-old exhibits representing labour history in Hamilton and beyond. These exhibits privileged an industrial workforce, and realities of work and life that look and feel distant for many.
Inspired by principles of design thinking, Work In Progress consists of a series of interactive prototype exhibits produced by WAHC staff. We invite you to share your ideas and experiences of work, labour, and activism through innovative guided encounters with our prototypes. These prototypes will evolve over the next year, and inform how we redesign future exhibits.
Experiences and understandings of labour and work are always shifting. This is echoed in our view of cultural spaces as valuing process over permanence – we see our Centre as a work in progress. Help us challenge how work and labour is understood, and represent your experiences so that others may learn from them.
Interested in having your workplace, class, union local or community group take part in Work In Progress? Contact Soka Luft-Rodriguez at soka@wahc-museum.ca for more information, or to book a guided tour.
Work In Progress branding design by Osman Bari.
Work In Progress is made possible through the generous support of the Hamilton Community Foundation.
WAHC wishes to acknowledge the Ontario Arts Council, the City of Hamilton, the Province of Ontario, CUPE National, the Provincial Building and Construction Trades Council of Ontario, the Canada Council for the Arts and OSSTF for their support of our exhibitions and ancillary programs.
For more information, please contact Tara Bursey, Executive Director at (905) 522-3003 ex. 23 or tara@wahc-museum.ca
Workers Arts & Heritage Centre
51 Stuart Street
Hamilton, Ontario
www.wahc-museum.ca
WAHC is fully accessible.
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