Expressions of Queer Pyar: Exploring Identity through art

Date: Saturday 17th February 2024 Time: 5 pm - 9 pm (workshop from 6-7:30pm) Venue: Solid State, 10326 Whalley Boulevard, Surrey @solidstatecoop In this workshop led by Jotika we will use button making to explore themes of identity, gender and sexuality. We will have some discussion, eat some food and make some mini collages which we will turn into buttons! All experiences and levels with art making are welcome. Jotika is a Queer, Disabled, cis, Femme. Her people come from Northern India by way of Indentureship to Fiji. She identifies as a settler on the lands she lives, the unceded, un- surrendered, stolen lands of the Musqueaum, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Indigenous Nations. She is an Interdisciplinary Artist, a Community Organizer, and an Expressive Arts Therapist. She is deeply passionate about the arts as a profound and powerful tool to support a coming back into our bodies and enable us to process our experiences. Creating and witnessing others’ art have helped her cope with the effects of trauma as well as nourished & helped her survive some of the hardest times of her life. Her workshops create spaces to remind folks that everyone is creative and can have access to their imagination. Jotika uses the arts to explore grief, understanding and heal intergenerational trauma, and explore experiences of gender and sexuality as a Queer Women of colour. Her story telling uses various arts mediums that she weaves into one another: collaging, painting, singing and poetry. See more about her and her work www.jotikahealingarts.com on IG @Jotikart @Jotika_Healingart