Category: Literary Arts

To Be Black, Is To Be Free — Emancipation Day 2026

July 30 – August 14, 2026

On August 1st, 1834, the Slavery Abolition Act came into effect across the British Empire, setting up pathways for the emancipation of over 800,000 enslaved persons of African descent. While most of those emancipated resided in the Caribbean region and the African continent, it is important to remember that slavery had also been carried out in what is now known as Canada. 192 years later, the SUM galley, together in partnership with Hogan’s Alley Society and the Vancouver Black Library, would like to recognise this overlooked part of Canadian history with a series of programming around what is now celebrated as Emancipation Day.

TO BE BLACK, IS TO BE FREE

To Be Black, Is To Be Free commemorates the essence of Emancipation Day by bringing together the works of Vancouver-based artists Simone Chnarakis and Valerie d. Walker. This duo exhibition serves as a celebration of queer Black resilience by exploring the ways in which liberation can be cultivated and passed down. Chnarakis’ photographic and videographic works present a tribute to her chosen family in Vancouver’s ballroom community alongside an intimate homage to her Jamaican grandmother. Likewise, Walker’s large-scale indigo-dyed fibre works reclaim the legacy of indigo as a plantation commodity, creating an immersive environment informed by her African Diasporic, Scottish, Japanese, and Indigenous Hawaiian heritage.

To Be Black, Is To Be Free opens July 30 with a reception from 6 – 9pm at SUM gallery. Attending the opening is FREE but registration is recommended. The exhibition runs Tues – Sat, noon – 6pm, until August 14.

TO BE BLACK, IS TO BE FREE
SIMONE CHNARAKIS & VALÉRIE D WALKER
Exhibition Opening
Thursday, July 30th
6 – 9 pm
SUM gallery
FREE
#425 (4th Floor) – 268 Keefer St.

Opening Registration

HAUS OF BUKURU x HAUS OF EBONII DRAG TAKEOVER

To further engage with the theme of liberation intrinsic to To Be Black, Is To Be Free, Mx. Bukuru, Batty Banks, and Acacia from the Haus of Bukuru, Vancouver’s Blackest & Transest Haus, will be taking over SUM gallery with a crystalizing drag performance on August 1st. Joining them for this unforgettable evening of Black expression will be Mx. Jackson and Call Me Keeks from Edmonton’s own Haus of Ebonii as well as DJ O Show and burlesque artist Rainbow Glitz!

This event starts at 7pm and is FREE to attend but due to limited space registration is highly recommended. Our Emancipation Day programming is presented in partnership with our dear friends at Hogans Alley and Vancouver Black Library. Note: This event is 18+.
 

EMANCIPATION DAY
DRAG TAKEOVER
Saturday, August 1st
7pm
SUM gallery
FREE
#425 (4th Floor) – 268 Keefer St.

Drag TAKEOVER Registration

EMANCIPATION DAY
SPOKEN WORD EVENT

Sunday Aug 2 may be the day after Emancipation Day, but the love and joy will still be going strong at Vancouver Black Library for SUM gallery’s annual Emancipation Day Spoken Word Event. Valérie d. Walker, Siobhan Barker, and April Sumter-Freitag will share the mic to discuss the complicated history of what it means to be black and to be free. Black attendees are also encouraged to share their own writing or to share an excerpt from their favourite Black author, poet, or writer. Everyone is invited to this special afternoon at VBL!

EMANCIPATION DAY
SPOKEN WORD EVENT
Sunday, August 2nd
2pm
Vancouver Black Library
FREE
#072 (Lower Ground Level) – 268 Keefer St.

Spoken Word Event Registration


Folklore, Feminism, and Sea-Maidens: A Mythic Evening with Nalo Hopkinson in Conversation w/ Valérie d. Walker

On Thursday, May 25 at 6:30pm, join Massy Arts Society, SUM gallery, SFU Library, SFU Public Square & Massy Books at The Djavad Mowafaghian World Art Centre for a special evening with one of the world’s preeminent writers of science fiction and fantasy:

Folklore, Feminism, and Sea-Maidens: A Mythic Evening with Nalo Hopkinson in Conversation w/ Valérie d. Walker

We welcome you to enjoy this wide-ranging conversation between Nalo Hopkinson & Valérie d. Walker, as these two multidimensional artists discuss the realms of myth, story, wonder, beauty and rigour that inspire their creativity across genres, forms and worlds.

Registration is free/by donation, open to all and required for entrance.

REGISTER

Several Nalo Hopkinson titles will be on sale during the event.

Venue & Accessibility

The event will be hosted at The Djavad Mowafaghian World Art Centre, on the Vancouver campus of Simon Fraser University— 149 W Hastings St, Vancouver, BC V6B 1H4.

Please refrain from wearing scents or heavy perfumes.

SFU COVID-19 protocols in place: Masks keep our community safe and are mandatory (N95 masks are recommended as they offer the best protection). We ask if you are showing symptoms, that you please stay home.

About The Author

Nalo Hopkinson is a Jamaican-born author living in Canada. Her novels and short fiction have received the World Fantasy Award, the Sturgeon Award, the Sunburst Award for Canadian literature of the fantastic, and the Nebula Award, among others. In 2021, Science Fiction Writers of America gave her the Damon Knight Memorial “Grand Master’ Award for her contributions to the genre and the community. She is the first woman of African descent and the youngest person to date to receive this award. Hopkinson is currently a professor in the School of Creative Writing of the University of British Columbia.

In Conversation with SUM gallery board member:

Valérie d. Walker is a Renaissance Artist, alchemyst, transmedia maker, educator, curator, Indigo Griot, Radio-Wave creatrix & BIPOC Femme Afro-Futuristic transmitter. She holds 5th level Ikebana (Japanese flower arranging) & Chado (tea-ceremony) degrees with Urasenke-Kyoto & lifetimes of Indigo knowledge, she landed on Gaia in Honolulu & has traveled the planet in space and time. Valérie holds a degree in EECS from UC-Berkeley and her MFA from NSCAD University.

Valérie’s artwork explores enviro-positive natural dyeing & printing, fibre-based responsive installations, tactile virtual spaces, solar-powered circuits, story-telling, epigenetic memories, environmentally healing studio processes, craft-based techniques, digitalia & imagining, programming, sensoriality, and Afro-Futurism.

The Masc and Femme We Wear—A night of readings from QTBIPOC writers

Virtual event: Sat, Mar 26, 3 – 5pm

Queer BIPOC writers and poets convene for The Masc and Femme We Wear: The Queer Bodypolitic of Ethnicity, taking place via Zoom on Mar 26 at 3pm PST. Participating writers will perform written works centred around the intersections of queerness, ethnicity, gender representation and body image for a night of readings and performance curated by award-winning writer and activist Berend McKenzie. Join our performers as their work explores and begs the following questions: What are the costs of masking or revealing one’s inner self under the glaring stage lights of colonialist supremacy? How do the expectations of a salacious white gaze fit, chafe, bind, or even unravel the BIPOC queer body and spirit? How is the BIPOC queer body eroticized and fetishized?

ABOUT BEREND MCKENZIE

Berend McKenzie (he/she/they interchangeably) is an award-winning playwright, actor, producer, screenwriter, and published author living on Treaty 6 land otherwise known as Edmonton, Alberta. Berend is best known for his ground-breaking, Jessie Richardson Award nominated one-person show NGGRFG. He has worked with Oscar-winning actresses Halle Berry and Angelina Jolie. Berend is currently writing his first auto-fiction novel, Adopted. In October 2021, Berend’s short story Hockey Night in Canada was published in the anthology Between Certain Death and A Possible Future: Queer Writing in Growing up with the AIDS Crisis (Arsenal Pulp Press) and has just completed writing their first TV pilot under option with Warner Media.

+ readings from artists C.E.  Gatchalian, Tia Kushniruk, Serena Bhandar, Lili Robinson, Kyle Shaughnessy!

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Archives of Lesbian Oral Testimony (ALOT) presents They are a Lesbian

with Jane Byers and Cicely-Belle Blain

March 15, 2018 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm

Jane Byers

Nelson, B.C. poet, Jane Byers, “came out” with her 2nd poetry collection, Acquired Community, in October 2016 (Caitlin Press-Dagger Editions). It is a 2017 Golden Crown Literary Society Award Winner for Poetry and is featured on All Lit Up’s Top Ten Social Justice publications in Canada. Her debut poetry collection, Steeling Effects is published by Caitlin Press (March, 2014). Jane has recently published a chapbook, It Hurt That’s All I know (NIB Press, 2017). Jane has had poems and essays published in various literary journals in Canada, the U.S. and England, including Best Canadian Poetry 2014. She is delighted to have her poem, Nothing To Forgive, currently on Poetry in Transit. She is the 2017-18 Writer-In-Residence for the Archives of Lesbian Oral Testimony at Simon Fraser University.

Connection to ALOT: “After an initial meeting with Elise in Nelson, where she was undertaking some research, I again met Elise in Vancouver at a reading/launch of Acquired Community, which is a collection of lesbian and gay history poems. Dr. Elise Chenier asked me if I would be interested in becoming ALOT’s first writer in residence. I was honoured to accept this opportunity. I am in the midst of reviewing oral testimonies and writing poems in response. These are the poems I will be reading from as well as some relevant poems from Acquired Community. I am also interviewing Daphne Marlatt for ALOT, after having spent a week with her papers in Special Collections.”

Cicely-Belle Blain

Cicely Blain is a writer, facilitator and activist originally from London, UK, now living on coast Salish lands. They run a consulting agency and are a founder of Black Lives Matter, Vancouver as well as a columnist for several publications including Daily Xtra and the Body is Not an Apology. They are also a sub-editor at Beyond the Binary, UK-based magazine for trans and non-binary people. Cicely is the 2017 winner of the Canadian Power of Youth Leadership Awards in Social Movement Building for their contributions to LGBTQ rights and the Black liberation movement. They love instagram, red wine, dinosaurs and painting.

This event is free and open to the public. 

The address is 268 Keefer St., between Main St. and Gore Ave. The SUM gallery is located on the 4th floor, suite 425.