Dear friends and community,
What is “The Future”? In the spring of 2016, it was literally “you and me” — Kristin and Megan, two Asian Canadian women who had become friends through our love of the arts and community, trading stories and ideas over coffee. We both were driven to lift up the young women of colour that were coming up behind us.
Today, The Future is so much more than just the two of us. It’s the dozens of women and non-binary folks of colour who have engaged with our programming. It’s our community of supporters that extends around the world. It’s the network of artists and organizers who are alongside us in the work to dismantle oppressive structures in the Canadian cultural sector.
Megan and Kristin in front of Thai Son in Mount Pleasant in 2016. Photo credit: Jackie Wong, friend & facilitator.
In the last six years, we’ve accomplished so much and so much has changed — ourselves, the sector, and the world. A few months ago, we asked ourselves if it felt right to continue The Future, if our goals and capacities met the needs of the moment. While it took some time to get there, we realized that we were extremely proud and happy with what we have accomplished together, and it was time for us to close this chapter. As of April 2022, The Future is You and Me is no longer an active project.
To share a bit more about how far we’ve come: In 2016, most institutions and funders didn’t talk about intersectionality, decolonization, or even equity at that time. We both came up in spaces where we were “the only.” We saw how the same (white and male-led) organizations and artists were awarded the vast majority of funding and resources year after year, leaving so many stories untold and unseen. We regularly experienced isolation, discrimination, and micro-aggressions in our workplaces.
What we did was bold and unique. We dreamt up a community-based, peer-led, accessible mentorship program for young women of colour in the arts — something that we would have loved to have when our careers were starting. And we built it. First with a group of friends as mentors and a brave cohort of eight women who joined our experiment as mentees. It was the only program of its kind in Canada.
Over the last six years, we’ve accomplished so much more than our original goal of engaging young, creative women, and non-binary individuals to build leadership skills, community, and confidence.
We’ve also:
Run three cohorts of our signature workshop series for 30 mentees and more than 25 community mentors.
Supported numerous alumni to gain full-time employment in the arts, publishing, and music.
Offered an online workshop series for women and non-binary people in music, led by Future alumni Elysse Cloma and Sunny Chen.
Collaborated with organizers in Edmonton and Calgary to deliver Making Space, a visual-arts focused BIPOC peer mentorship collective.
Generated two publications: The Future Forum, a digital version of a creative symposium for and led by women of colour in the arts, and A Seat at the Table, a community research program about the experiences of women of colour in film led by Future alumnae Tanvi Bhati.
Sponsored alumni projects such as MAGES Interactive.
As we write this, intersectional arts, feminist movements, and cultural activism have taken the main stage. There are many local groups and collectives led by women and non-binary folks that put anti-racism, disability justice, decolonization and Indigenous resurgence at the centre of their work. We are hopeful and inspired by what the future of the cultural sector will look like if these folks are at the helm.
The Future will live on online. One of our values is knowledge-sharing, so we’ve gathered a set of tools and resources we’ve created that we hope will help folks in our community start their own projects. (Click the button below to view the library.)
What’s next for us? Kristin has stepped into the role of Executive Director of the Community Arts Council of Vancouver and is seeking new ways to engage this community. Megan is part of the fourth Community Capacity Building cohort at SFU and lending her communications, organizing, and strategy skills to various community organizations. We’re both enjoying more time for rest, self-care, travel, snacks, sleep, and dog walks.
As a final and very important note, we’d like to extend our deepest gratitude to artists, mentors, participants, speakers, writers, designers, funders, volunteers, friends, and others who were part of this journey. Thank you for supporting our vision and believe in our shared capacity to make space for women of colour in the arts. This has been some of the most rewarding and meaningful work of our lives.
In solidarity and love,
Megan & Kristin
April 2022
Written on the stolen and never surrendered traditional territories of the Musqueam (xʷməθkʷəy̓əm), Squamish (Sḵwx̱wú7mesh), and Tsleil-Waututh (səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ) peoples.