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CreativeMornings Ottawa: May 2023

Jane Porter on acceptance and the importance of leading with love

Accepting reality is not always easy. From climate change to social injustice to the decline of democracy, the greatest challenges of our time can seem threatening, overwhelming, or just plain impossible to solve.

On the CreativeMornings Ottawa stage at Arts Court, Jane Porter invited us to feel the magnitude of these challenges, and to lead with love and compassion. Doing so starts with connection: with ourselves, our communities, and the land we call home.

Connection is something Jane has consciously cultivated throughout her life. This includes in her community work as co-founder of Impact Hub Ottawa and through convening stakeholders as a sustainability consultant. Today, as an integral facilitator and founder of Bridge Building Group, Jane brings people together to have tough conversations that spark meaningful change and heal divides.

The journey to acceptance and understanding can be uncomfortable. In her talk, Jane used a photography metaphor to break down her approach:

Zoom out to see the big picture and break free from your existing echo chambers.

Zoom in and reflect on who you really are and what motivates you.

Reframe why you do what you do. For example, Jane realized she pursued a career in sustainability because it gave her a sense of connection with others and to the land.

Focus and realize that two things can be true at the same time, depending on who you’re asking and what they’ve chosen to lock their viewfinder on.

Find a tripod to support your passions and purpose. When you feel like you’re on shaky ground, dig deeper into learning and your relationships to find the support you need.

Finally, Jane suggested it’s time we find a new lens. Western society is oriented around growth mindsets and economic success. There is much to learn from Indigenous worldviews that compel us to think of the next seven generations, and consider the well-being of all our relations, human and otherwise.

The challenges faced by the world are not going to solve themselves. To accept—and act— during this period of existential threats we must first ground ourselves by pausing, getting curious, and finding ways to respond thoughtfully and with compassion for ourselves, our communities, and the planet.

Thank you to Jane for sharing her personal journey and for providing such food for thought on a Friday morning. You can learn more about Jane’s professional facilitation work on her website or on LinkedIn. Watch Jane’s full talk here.

#creativemornings #creativemorningsottawa #ottawaiscreative #Ottawa #cmacceptance

CreativeMornings Ottawa: April 2023

Matt Pinder and the benefit of cycling cities

From childhood to fatherhood, cycling has been a lifelong source of joy and independence for Matt Pinder. It has also been a professional pursuit and a personal passion: today, Matt is a transportation engineer, community activist, and imagines the future of transportation on his blog, Beyond the Automobile.

From the CreativeMornings Ottawa stage at Bayview Yards, Matt drove home a key message: “When you build a city for cycling, everyone benefits.”

Matt started by taking us on an armchair journey to the world’s most famous cycling city, Amsterdam. Travelling there for a course called Planning the Cycling City, Matt was exhilarated to see people of all ages riding bikes, solo and in groups, in rain or shine. The abundance of well-connected bike paths were often faster than driving, brought about more serendipitous encounters, and reduced noise and traffic congestion. In other words, everyone was benefiting.

The course fuelled Matt’s professional raison d'être: to translate this idea of the cycling city from the Netherlands to Canada. He’s since gotten creative with engineering and drawn inspiration from other communities to innovate beyond existing city transportation policies—many of which favour cars.

Ottawa, Matt contends, is well positioned to become more of a cycling city. It can be easy to overlook our extensive network of National Capital Commission multi-use pathways. Or the fact that Ottawa is home to many firsts in Ontario, including the first Dutch-style protected intersection and first protected bike lane (along Laurier Avenue West).

The way we move around our city can change—and we all have a role and creative vision in making that happen. Matt ended his talk by urging us to support walkable developments, dare to reimagine our communities, and yes, to advocate for cycling improvements as a way to build a city that benefits everyone.

Thanks again to Matt for his insightful talk! To learn more about Matt’s work, follow him on Twitter and check out his blog, www.beyondtheautomobile.com. Watch his talk here.

#creativemornings #CMMovement #OttawaIsCreative #CMOttawa

CreativeMornings Ottawa: March 2023

Gaby el Ashkar and the link between corruption and creativity

For as long as Gaby el Ashkar has known corruption, he has known creativity.

Gaby grew up in Beirut, Lebanon in the throes of a civil war. While some see creativity as a calling, Gaby turned to it first as a coping mechanism. Art became a way for him to make sense of the world. Today, he is a multidisciplinary visual artist, interior architect, and award-winning designer.

Over the years, Gaby observed how the corruption in Lebanon was made possible by a devious creativity. Corrupt individuals relied on design principles such as scale, manipulation, placement of images, and repetition to distract and deceive. And it was working—like an inkblot creeping across the page, the tendrils of corruption extended from individuals to compromise society and systems.

As Gaby shared during his talk, this system-level corruption culminated in two significant events: a financial heist in which Lebanese citizens found their funds diverted and squandered by a state bank scheme. Overnight, people lost almost their entire life savings and were denied the ability to withdraw what was left. The second event was the deadly explosion at the Beirut port in 2020, the result of ammonium nitrate stored in a residential neighbourhood.

Gaby had experienced enough. Convinced that feeling exiled at home is worse than an exile that takes one away, he made the decision to move to Canada.

Through his art and his words, Gaby continues to speak out against corruption. From the stage at Bayview Yards, he implored us to use our creative outlets to shed light on the darkness of corruption. To counter indifference and unaccountability in pixels and clay, through lyrics and brushstrokes.

We’ll leave the last words with Gaby: “Don’t look the other way. Be the just creativity that counters the devious one in order to preserve the colours of the things you find beautiful and worth fighting for.”

Our deepest gratitude to Gaby for sharing his powerful, poignant story. To see Gaby’s multidisciplinary work, visit his website or follow him on Instagram, @gabyelashkar.

#cmottawa #cmcorruption #ottawaiscreative

CreativeMornings Ottawa: February 2023

Alisha Giroux on the Creative Fingerprint

Creative artificial intelligence is less a futuristic concept than a technology that’s already part of our daily lives.

So what does that mean for artists and creatives?

Alisha Giroux’s talk was as much a reassurance as it was a call to action for people to recognize the signature characteristics that make their work unique. To embrace the innate human-ness of the creative process.

The emergence of creative AI used to keep Alisha up at night. As an illustrator and designer, she observed as AI generated images quickly went from funny and freaky to something that resembled art made by a real person. It felt distressing, like a threat to the personal touch she infused into her work. An affront to her creative core.

One day, a friend helped shift her perspective. He was ambivalent about creative AI. The reason, he told Alisha: “A machine creating art feels like it’s defeating the purpose of creation.”

This was the message Alisha brought to the audience at Bayview Yards. That art is not exclusively about output, but also about the process that went into making it and the creator’s personal connection to their work.

Besides, Alisha noted, humans like gathering IRL to see stuff made by other humans. Despite being able to google pictures of the Mona Lisa, people still fly to Paris to see her in the Louvre. And no matter how popular Spotify gets, it can’t replace the scratchy sound of a vinyl record. People crave the analogue, and art that bears a distinctly human fingerprint.

Alisha ended by urging people to think about the personal touch they bring to their creative work—the style that can come only from the journey of creation and the human experience. Watch her full talk here!

Thank you again to Alisha for her insights, thoughtfulness, and adorable bird illustrations (!). See more of Alisha’s work for yourself on her design portfolio, online store, or by following her on Instagram, @_asmeesh.

#cmTouch #CMOttawa #ottawaiscreative

CreativeMornings Ottawa: January 2023

Jacqui Du Toit on Finding the Sanctuary Within

From the stage of The Gladstone Theatre in Ottawa, Jacqui Du Toit asked us to conjure and connect to new worlds—ones she created through her storytelling and those that are inside of ourselves.

Jacqui is a professional actress, storyteller, and dancer. She’s also a co-founder of The Origin Arts & Community Centre in Mechanicsville, a space where creators from all backgrounds and places can come together and feel at home. To find a sense of sanctuary.

The search for sanctuary has been a thread throughout Jacqui’s life. Growing up in apartheid-era South Africa, Jacqui faced racism and bullying in school because of the colour of her skin and her accent.

After one particularly difficult day, her father shared the story of Jabu, a young boy who lived by the motto “it is good.” Eventually, that story struck a chord. Jacqui realized that while she couldn’t control how people acted towards her, she could choose how she reacted. She took that lesson on a walk, wandering her school campus and talking to the trees. Soon, Jacqui started to create a safe haven of sanctuary within herself and with the earth around her.

When she immigrated from South Africa to Ottawa 12 years ago, her personal resilience and sense of self and belonging were again challenged. Experiencing rejection after rejection from theatre companies, Jacqui recalled the story of Jabu and his positive mindset.

She channelled those rejections into redirection, tapping into her own source of sanctuary and internal strength. She created an award-winning one-woman show and, through The Origin Arts & Community Centre, co-created a space for other Ottawa artists and creatives to express themselves freely and joyfully.

As Jacqui put it: “In the flow of creation is when you find your sanctuary.” You don’t want to miss Jacqui’s full talk! Watch it here.

A huge CreativeMornings thanks to Jacqui for her inspiring words in January 2023. Learn more about Jacqui’s storytelling and community work online: 8thGeneration Storytelling or The Origin Arts & Community Centre.

#cmsanctuary #CMOttawa #ottawaiscreative

“We believe in giving a damn.”

I think for me that’s what CreativeMornings Ottawa (CM Ottawa) has always been about. Caring about more than what was in our day-to-day, caring about our community, our city, the planet we live on, and the people we share it with.

This is certainly a bittersweet note for me to write, CreativeMornings has been part of my life since I attended my first event back in February of 2013, and now 10 years later I am trying to find the words to explain what it means to hand over the torch (or in my case, the sparkly shoes) to a new team.

10 years is quite literally the longest I’ve ever done anything.

As of January 2023, I will officially be stepping down as host. I always knew that hosting CreativeMornings should have an expiry date because I believe that in order for this chapter to stay healthy and continue to evolve it needs new perspectives, ideas, and creative fuel.

I am so excited to officially announce that Marwan, CM Ottawa Co-Host for the past 4 years will be taking over as Host and Lead Organizer. I truly could not imagine a better human to lead CM Ottawa into its next chapter. It wasn’t long after Marwan started volunteering that his passion for the community was evident. With a kind heart, mean speaker coaching skills, and a great eye for design there’s no better human for the role.

What I hope for the future of CM Ottawa is that we ‘continue to give a damn’, lead with ‘bravery and action’, and find space to learn from one another. At first, when the pandemic hit ‘we were all in this together.’ On this side of the pandemic, it feels like we’ve never been more divided. But I have hope that initiatives like CM Ottawa can help change that by ‘bringing together people who are driven by passion and purpose, confident that they will inspire one another, and inspire change in neighbourhoods and cities around the world.’

Thank you to everyone who ever attended an event and for allowing me to take on such a life-changing role, CM Ottawa will always hold a big place in my heart.

Take care of each other. 💜

Maxine

P.S. Ottawa IS creative!

Celebrating 10 years of CreativeMornings Ottawa

Join us on Friday, June 3 for an evening of live music, performances, and conversation in celebration of 10 years of CreativeMornings Ottawa! Buy your ticket HERE.

Now in its 10th year, CreativeMornings Ottawa wants to look back and celebrate how far we’ve come with a special evening event – Then to Now, a celebration of Ottawa’s creative community and its evolution over the last 10 years.

Join us on Friday, June 3 from 6:30 PM to 12:00 PM, for an evening of music, surprise performances, and conversation at the Ottawa Art Gallery (10 Daly Ave. entrance).

We’ll be doing a panel discussion hosted by CBC Ottawa's Giacomo Panico with past CreativeMornings Ottawa speakers and creative community members exploring the evolution of our city’s creative scene:

Pearly Pouponneau, Creative Director and Founder of Colours of Mama

Marc Adornato, Artist and Creative Consultant

Rachel Weldon, Executive Director at Debaser

Stacey Martin, CEO, Fashion Designer and Founder of Stacey Martin Lifestyle Inc.

We’ll also welcome local muscian, Nick Schofield on the City Seltzer Stage playing music from his Glass Gallery album, a special drag performance by Ottawa’s very own Devona Coe and DJ set by Akeem O to get the dance floor grooving.

🌈 Dress code: Monochromatic - come wearing your favourite colour of the rainbow!

Tickets are only $20 / $25 at the door capacity permitting and include one free drink from Dominion City Brewery (choice of beer or seltzer). You can purchase your ticket HERE.

*If you'd like to attend the event but are strapped for cash please email us ([email protected]) we'll be more than happy to comp your ticket.

Event Schedule:

6:30 PM doors open

7:00 PM Nick Schofield Performs feat. Orchidae

7:25 PM Welcome by CreativeMornings

7:35 PM Then and Now Panel conversation

8:25 PM Audience Q&A

8:40 PM Thank you + look into the evening by CreativeMornings

8:45 PM Networking break

9:30 PM DJ + Drag Performance

9:50 PM Programming ends DJ plays until close

11:30 PM Last call

12:00 PM Event end

We can’t wait to see you all in person to celebrate! Join us, and bring a friend!

It’s been 21 months since we shared a space together, and we think it’s about time we change that!

We’re beyond excited to announce that on Friday, November 26 we’ll be welcoming attendees back to the Ottawa Art Gallery (OAG) for an in-person (yup, read that again) CreativeMornings Ottawa event. If you’ve been attending our virtual events over the last two years, you’ll know what it means to finally be able to step foot in the Alma Duncan Salon again.

Because of current CreativeMornings protocol our in-person audience is limited to 50 people. Mask will be mandatory and proof of vaccination and ID must be showed before entering the Gallery.

That being said, we will continue to offer a virtual event option for those who cannot join us in person. Things may be a bit different, so we ask for your patience as we work out the logistic of offering hybrid events. But know that we will continue to deliver thought-provoking talks and toe-tapping performances by members of this wonderful creative community.

Thank you to the OAG for helping us make this happen, our amazing volunteer team, and especially you — our community who have been incredibly supportive and patient with us as we work out this transition. We look forward to continuing exploring more of Ottawa’s create canvas with all of you.

We can’t wait to see your smiling faces in person,

Maxine, Marwan & the CM team

P.S. With only 50 tickets, you’ll want to set an alarm for ticket release day (Friday, Nov 19 at 11AM).

“OUR HOME ON NATIVE LAND”

We know that with the arrival of this beautiful summer weather, we see a drop in attendance for our virtual events. Trust us, we get it. Zoom fatigue is real.

That being said, our July 23 event is one NOT TO BE MISSED and we mean that for a few different reasons.

For the next edition of CreativeMornings Ottawa we are exploring the global theme ‘home’, and with the recent recoveries of indigenous children across this nation, this theme has never been more relevant.

‘Home’ is embodied through family, traditions, food, language, and perhaps most importantly, ties to the land itself. For Indigenous people ‘Home’ is not just one specific location, it’s a relationship to land. But what happens when that is taken away?

To speak to this month’s theme, we’re welcoming new friends from the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg community near Maniwaki, QC, Anna Cote and Mike Diabo.

Anna is the founder and head chef at The Birch Bite. As a graduate of the Algonquin College culinary program and the Canadian School of Natural Nutrition, she’s fiercely dedicated to reconnecting people in her community with their traditional diet. Her dishes showcase food from the land, often harvested by her own hands.

Mike is a teacher in all senses of the word. He is a high school science instructor in Kitigan Zibi and an inspiring and knowledgeable guide.

Join us on July 23 at 8:30 AM EST to listen, learn and reflect on as we dive some uncomfortable realities about the place we all call ‘home’.

Tickets will go live here on Friday, July 9 (tomorrow) at 11:00 AM EST.

CreativeMornings Ottawa, June 2021: Matriarchy

Imagine a world run by women – one where the systems and structures were re-built to fit the vision for leadership that women have set out in the world.

This isn’t a purely theoretical question. Powerful women already lead societies, including Native and Indigenous communities, around the world.

This month’s CreativeMornings Ottawa talk aims to shine a light on all the leaders who are also women, from across the vast spectrum of identities and experiences of womanhood.

To do that, we’ll be hosting Ottawa artist Natalie Bruvels, who will trace her journey as a (single) mother and painter pursuing graduate studies to ask what strategies may we use to remember the foundational role that women need to play in our society.

Natalie is a multidisciplinary artist working primarily in paint. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Ottawa and is currently pursuing an MFA at the same institution. Her artistic research explores relational identity including representations of maternal figures and single motherhood in art through a matricentric, feminist lens. Her work can be found in the City of Ottawa art collection as well as many private collections. Natalie lives in Ottawa with her son.

Her talk will explore the valorization of mothers – think of the archetype of Madonna and Child – does little to empower them. The word matriarchy sounds glorious – a society where care is foundational infrastructure. The pandemic, however, has made it painfully clear how far we must still go in truly prioritizing care. Drawing from recent theories such as Julie Stevens’ post maternal which reveals anxieties around care perpetuated by an active forgetting.

CreativeMornings Ottawa, May 2021: Resilient

How did you celebrate YOUR ninth birthday?

Maybe there was a pony ride, bouncy castle or even – eep! – a clown.

We can’t promise the CreativeMornings Ottawa ninth birthday celebration will include all (or really, any) of these things. But what we can promise you is a slew of birthday surprises and a theme that’s appropriate for a chapter that’s stuck around for nine years: Resilient.

That’s right – CreativeMornings Ottawa will mark its ninth birthday in May 2021. So shine up those dancing shoes and prepare that confetti gun because we’ll all be coming together to celebrate (virtually) on May 28, 2021.

To mark the occasion, we’ll welcome Nigerian-Canadian visual artist Kosisochukwu Nnebe to the virtual stage so she can share her exploration of the concept of resiliency.

But that’s not all.

To mark the birthday occasion, the CreativeMornings team has planned nine special birthday surprises. Three of these surprises – a highlight of those contributing creative work under the #OttawaIsCreative hashtag, a special meditation session with registered social worker Jessica Lemieux, a special colouring contest and a Dominion City Brewing Co. sampling pack giveaway – have already been announced.

What’s next? You’ll need to stay tuned to the CreativeMornings Ottawa Instagram feed to see!

CreativeMornings Ottawa has its own relationship with the theme of resiliency, having stuck around Ottawa for so long after kicking off in 2012.

“To be resilient is to be adaptable. It’s a way of being that’s flexible and alive, bouncing with the stuff of survival: learning, evolving and intertwining our roots to share resources and to create a strong anchor of collective care. Like trees in a storm, it means swaying instead of snapping.”

So reads this month’s theme note from CreativeMornings HQ.

But it could just as easily apply to this month’s speaker, Kosisochukwu Nnebe.

Interrogating the common trope of resiliency so often associated with the resistance, success, or mere survival of marginalized groups against all odds, Kosisochukwu will unpack her own relationship with the word, from her recovery from burnout to the ways in which she has seen the term be used to not only hide but also perpetuate structural and systemic inequities. Drawing on her work as both a visual artist and a policy analyst, she will explore alternative readings of what it means to be resilient, including, potentially, moving towards a focus on that which is regenerative instead.

An economist by training and a policy analyst by profession, Kosisochukwu’s art practice aims to engage viewers on issues both personal and structural in ways that bring awareness to their own complicity. Through her interactive and installation-based pieces, audiences are made hyperaware of their positionality within the physical space of a room, as in society, and how this shapes what is seen and unseen, what is understood and what remains undecipherable.

Kosisochukwu’s work has been exhibited at AXENEO7, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Place des Arts, the Art Gallery of Guelph, the Nia Centre, Studio Sixty Six, Z-Art Space, Station 16, and the Mohr Gallery in Mountain View, California. She has given presentations on her artistic practice and research at universities across Quebec, including Laval, McGill and Concordia, and has facilitated workshops at the National Gallery of Canada, the Ottawa Art Gallery, and Redwood City High School in California. Registration is open now!

CreativeMornings Ottawa, April 2021: Procrastinate, with Dr. Tim Pychyl

Hands up: Who wants to procrastinate less?

We thought so. And for those who didn’t raise their hands, well – we know you were just putting it off.

Dr. Tim Pychyl has spent a career studying why people choose to put things off rather than get them done now.

But the conclusions he’s arrived at in explaining why we procrastinate are somewhat surprising. Turns out, the reasons we put things off is not because we collectively have a time management problem.

In the April 2021 talk for CreativeMornings Ottawa, taking place virtually on April 30 at 8:30 a.m., Dr. Tim Pychyl draws on decades of research to explain why we procrastinate and what we can do if we’d like to procrastinate less.

Tim is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Carleton University. He has garnered an international reputation for his research on the breakdown in volitional action commonly called procrastination.

In addition to his scholarly publications as well as books such as Solving the Procrastination Puzzle and Procrastination and Health and Well-Being (co-authored and edited with Fuschia Sirois), Tim has produced the iProcrastinate podcast and the Don’t Delay blog for Psychology Today.

April’s event is the Ottawa variation on the global CreativeMornings theme, which is examining the ways that procrastination works in our lives – as creatives and as human beings. The things that we perpetually push to tomorrow’s to-do list can become a mental weight. Even though we know the welcome relief that will wash over us when that thing we’re avoiding is complete, still, we delay, just a little while longer.

Procrastination can be a sort of art form: the art of deferred action. It’s a technique that’s got a bad reputation, one often tinged with shame. But it can also be a way to claim the ways you wish to spend your time. It harbors creative possibilities, too.

In that game of waiting-waiting-waiting until it’s almost too late but not quite, a coiled spring of potential energy hides, ready to leap into action at a moment's notice. Narrowing a timeline can be a fruitful creative constraint, an exercise in trusting the unknown. When a window of opportunity shrinks, improvisation and spontaneity might unfurl like a flower in a time-lapse video blooming at super speed, a confetti cannon of petals bursting in full color.

Registration for April’s event opens on Friday, April 23 at 11 a.m.

CreativeMornings Ottawa is excited to partner with CBC Ottawa and the National Arts Centre for a keynote talk and panel discussion on how transformative change can extend from the ripple of simple, small actions.

The event, taking place virtually on March 26, 2021 at 11:30 a.m., celebrates the CreativeMornings for the month: ripple.

The event will feature a keynote talk from Wendy Knight Agard, who will share insight into the less obvious ways we can have a profound ripple effect and understand the dance between intellect, emotions and igniting our personal power.

Then CBC Ottawa’s Robyn Bresnahan will lead a conversation with four women who are raising their voices as leaders in business, community and activism.

Guests Pearly Pouponneau, Veronica Roy, Sisi Akhigbe and Jace Meyer will share with us how they are each harnessing the power of their own ripple effect to shape a new way forward and create actionable solutions to drive meaningful progress for the next generation.

The event will also feature a musical performance from Angelique Francis, who is known for her eclectic mix of various musical genres including Blues, Soul, Folk, Jazz, Gospel and Rock.

(See below for more information on our speakers).

This event is part of CBC Ottawa’s In Her Words series that was launched on International Women’s Day 2021.

Why ripple?

Because everything you do has the power to create its own ripple effect. Like an object breaking the water’s surface, our actions can cause a series of ever-expanding waves of impact stretching far beyond our individual reach.

Whether we theorize it with dominos, snowballs, or butterflies – it’s about momentum, and as momentum builds, even the smallest actions can end up having a profound impact.

One voice can inspire a movement, a single act of kindness can save a life. No matter how minuscule it may seem in the moment, what you do matters.

This month, we invite you to pay attention to your personal ripple effect. To examine how your impact expands beyond your inner circle and find ways to pay positivity forward. If you’re feeling brave, this month can be a time to explore the depths of your world. Dare to plunge below the surface and invite deeper connection in.

Looking to register for this event?

Free registration opened on Friday, March 19 at 11 a.m. Click here to get your free tickets!

Keynote speaker: Wendy Knight Agard

Wendy Knight Agard is an Everyday Genius and Doctor of Heilkunst Medicine who enjoys helping others develop as leaders from the inside out.

Panel moderator: Robyn Bresnahan

Robyn Bresnahan is the host of Ottawa’s most-listened to radio program, Ottawa Morning on CBC Radio One 91.5FM.

Panelist: Veronica Roy

Executive Director at House of PainT, festival coordinator at the Digi60 Filmmaker’s Festival, burlesque performer and storyteller, non-binary woman.

Panelist: Pearly Pouponneau

Pearly is host of the incredibly tenacious “The Diatribe Podcast”, a space carefully crafted by Pearly that is full of raw, unfiltered conversations. Pearly is also the founder of community resource “Colours of Mama”, a safe, inclusive space for BIPOC parents to connect and find local resources.

Panelist: Jace Meyer

Jace Meyer is a Métis mother, social entrepreneurship educator, speaker coach, and artist currently living on the territory of the Lekwungen speaking peoples.

Panelist: Sisi Akhigbe

Sisi Akhigbe is a passionate, young black woman, and the founder of Impact Black Global, a non-profit organization that works to connect Black youth to resources and support.

Performer: Angelique Francis

Angelique Francis is a versatile and exceptionally gifted musician with talent that is way beyond her years.

Creative Mornings Ottawa, February 2021: Divergent with Sarah Gelbard

Anarchist. Punk rocker. Architect?

If our February 2021 speaker has anything to say about it, some day all three of these subjects will be some day be analogous.

Sarah Gelbard is part anarchitect, part punk planner, and a Ph.D. candidate in Urban Planning at McGill University. Her research looks at community placemaking and place-based storytelling.

She studies conflicts between mainstream planning and the marginalized alternative urban groups who diverge from the normative public interests that shape city plans.

To speak to the global CreativeMornings theme of “Divergent,” Sarah will deliver a talk called “Divergent City” on February 26, 2021. It will examine how elite architects, inaccessible technocrats and profit-driven planning has . the cosmopolitan ideal of cities “bringing people together” is more myth than reality

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She’ll instead present a different vision for how we build (and build up) cities, one in which design is democratized, “punk bathrooms” and “impromptu playgrounds” are ever-present and cities are built for people – not cars.

Oh yeah, and one in which capitalism is destroyed.

More than anything, Sarah will present a vision for the future in which people are at the centre of how we build, create and connect.

Sarah is known for her Brutalist architecture walking tours, is the Ottawa editor of Spacing Magazine, and a former regular contributor to Centretown Buzz. Sarah is also the lead singer, songwriter, and bass player in local Ottawa punk band Bad Missionary.

Get to know Sarah better by checking out her content on Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.

Get your free tickets here!

CreativeMornings Ottawa, January 2021: Biophilia with Alexis Williams

The environments we live in are dotted with connections to nature. Even a tiny one-bedroom apartment in the most urban of downtowns can teem with life, from a plant growing in the corner to the mold sprouting inside the refrigerator.

As creatives, there are a few important lessons here: That nature – like our creativity – can bud anywhere. That living things can always break through, regardless of the environment they live in. That communing with nature can help us break through the day-to-day monotony and find new approaches to old problems.

Coined in the 1960s by Erich Fromm, “biophilia” refers to a beautiful idea: Whether it’s a human, an animal, a plant, or in the wild, humans have an innate desire and instinct to want to connect with nature and other living systems.

To speak to the theme of biophilia we’re excited to welcome Alexis Williams to the CreativeMornings Ottawa stage.

Alexis is an artist, writer, amateur mycologist and director of the Ayatana Artists’ Research Program.

To demonstrate this month’s theme biophilia, Alexis will be presenting work by contemporary artists made in affiliation with living non-human organisms and opportunities for you to connect with ambient wildlife.

The virtual event will take place on Friday, January 29, 2021 starting at 8:20 a.m. It will also feature a musical performance from Aspects.

The January event kicks off our 2021 schedule and will feature a celebration of our amazing CreativeMornings Ottawa community for sticking with us through the first year of virtual events.

We’re looking forward to continuing to be creative together in 2021 as we wait for a time when we can return to in-person meetups!

Every day, we have the opportunity to grow into relentless stewards and protectors of our living environments, and not just lovers and beneficiaries of it all.

Together, we exist.

Free tickets to January’s event will be available on Friday, January 22 right here!

CreativeMornings Ottawa November 2020: Radical, with Waubgeshig Rice

Any number of words can spring to mind when you hear the word radical.

Radical politics. Radical thinking. Radical candor.

What you don’t hear very often, though? Radical creativity.

But that’s what the speaker for CreativeMornings Ottawa’s November 2020 event embodies – a radical way of thinking about how we combine ideas, disciplines and cultures.

Waubgeshig Rice is a journalist and novelist from Wasauksing First Nation on Georgian Bay. He has written three fiction titles, and his short stories and essays have been published in numerous anthologies.

In his talk for CreativeMornings Waubgeshig will discuss an idea that, for 2020, seems pretty radical: How to quiet your mind and think about a few areas you’re willing to shake things up.

In the process, he’ll also introduce a few more phrases into our vocabulary – like radically kind, radically welcoming and radically profound.

Waubgeshig will pull a few key themes from his most recent novel to illustrate his talk. Moon of the Crusted Snow, a post-apocalyptic novel about a small northern Anishinaabe community.

Waubgeshig graduated from Ryerson University’s journalism program in 2002, and spent most of his journalism career with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as a video journalist, web writer, producer, and radio host. He left CBC in 2020 to focus on his literary career. He lives in Sudbury, Ontario with his wife and two sons.

The event takes place November 20, 2020 starting at 8:30 a.m.

Tickets for the virtual event are available here on Friday, November 13, 2020.

CreativeMornings Ottawa September 2020: Spectrum, with Tara Connolly and Christine Jenkins

Creativity is all about facing down the unknown – surveying the jumble of experiences we experience on a daily basis for previously unexplored pathways to problem-solving, entertainment and enlightenment.

There is much to be learned, then, from embracing the full spectrum of ways to do, act and think. By examining (and championing) the diverse realities from which others view the world, we not only make ourselves more creative – we make the world a better place.

In September 2020 CreativeMornings Ottawa will use the lens of neurodiversity, including both neurodivergent and neurotypial thinkers, to look at the way the energy of creativity can be leveraged to increase accessibility, connection and capacity in our community.

Tara Connolly and Christine Jenkins, each of whom have personal experiences with neurodiverse thinking, will explore with the audience how neurodiverse people crack open unseen spaces to tackle creative challenges and see the previously unseen.

The talk is designed, in part, to be a challenge to neurotypical thinkers to push out of their comfort zones to embrace other ways of thinking. How can we examine the unwritten social rules that exist around us and to begin a creative engagement with neurodiverse friendly spaces and interactions?

Tara (she/her), M.A., RP, is a Transitions Specialist with over 20 years experience consulting on the use of inclusive practices to support accessibility in a variety of settings. Currently an Assistant Director with the READ Initiative (Research Education Accessibility Design) at Carleton University, Tara is involved with a number of projects that seek to improve accessibility in workplace settings.

Christine (she/her) is a very late-diagnosed autistic woman from Ottawa. She has written extensively and presented often in the decade since her assessment at age 48.

The event will take place online on Friday, September 25, 2020 with tickets going on sale here on September 18 at 11 a.m.

The Ottawa talk is part of a global CreativeMornings series on the theme of “spectrum”.

“As individuals committed to artfully living, we can paint refreshing possibilities that are not just for ourselves but also for others,” reads the September 2020 theme note from CreativeMornings.

“Assemble your tools: Listen, look within, embrace the weird, and take the prism and flip it on its head — you’ll likely find a breathtaking blend of opportunities to make a difference.”

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