The Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia

The Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia (YIWU) Girls Group uses ceremony, culture and arts-based activism to combat gender-based and colonial violence.

Join us on November 24th to learn about their work, launch their newest book and participate in a series of hands-on interactive workshops!

All events are free, open to the community, and will take place in HNES 140 on York University’s Keele Campus!

Please register here: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/the-young-indigenous-womens-utopia-book-launch-and-workshops-tickets-465819698257

11 AM-1:30 PM  “Authorship and Storytelling: What does it mean to us?”  Reflect on the process of Indigenous storytelling and authorship through an interactive collage making workshop. (Includes lunch for attendees).

2:30-4:00 PM Book launch, reading and presentation of “KÎYÂNAW OCÊPIHK” Hear from Indigenous young women in Treaty 6 about what it means to challenge gender-based and colonial violence through culture, ceremony, storytelling, and the arts! (Includes refreshments).

4:15-5:00 Ribbon Skirts & Resistance Learn about ribbon skirt teachings and meanings. Make your own mini skirt to exhibit in zig zag gallery as a way to honor the power, resistance and resilience of Indigenous women and girls. All supplies provided.

Over the last seven years, the award-winning YIWU hailing from Treaty Six (traditional homeland of the Métis, also known as Saskatoon, SK)  has produced films and photographic essays (Altenberg et al. 2018), sewn red ribbon skirts as an act of resistance (Wuttunee, Altenberg, and Flicker 2019), self-published a book (Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia 2019), and gifted a mural to downtown Saskatoon (The Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia Girls Group et al. forthcoming). It has participated in multiple inter-provincial gatherings and conferences (Moccasin et al. 2021) and facilitated several community, university and classroom activities and conversations. Through YIWU, the girls have also learned about traditional cultural teachings and have had opportunities to smudge, pick berries, participate in new moon ceremonies, and learn from elders.

The event is sponsored by the Faculty of Environmental & Urban Change, LaMarsh Centre for Child and Youth Research, Centre for Indigenous Knowledges and Languages, and More than Words Research Project.