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September-October 2020

Why the fight for inclusivity in fashion education is more important than ever

What schools could be doing differently to create more progress

Amanda Scriver

The fashion industry still has a lot of work to do when it comes to inclusivity. Often, when we discuss the lack of diversity—race, gender, body size, or disability—we think that the work of inclusivity has to start on the runways, in the boardrooms, or in editorial spreads. While it’s true that those changes need […] More »
July-August 2020

A letter to Audre Lorde

There's nothing wrong with being unoriginal

Hadiyyah Kuma

Dear Audre Lorde, My fingers ache. All I can do since this pandemic started locally is read and write. And not my assignments and essays; none of those thrill me. None get at what I really want to say; none encapsulate the expanse of human suffering we are seeing on our screens and streets. To […] More »
July-August 2020

Walter Scott, master of comics

The newest installment of Wendy is not to be missed

Emma Steen

Wendy is far too high. She’s discussing her next steps in life with a semi-nude couple in a club in Berlin. If all goes well, she says, she’ll be attending an MFA program that fall. And she does end up attending the program—though in true Wendy form, she’s hungover and late for class on her […] More »
May-June 2020

Not silent all these years

How '90s icon Tori Amos helped me through a troubling time

Adele Barclay

She dives for shells With her nautical nuns And thoughts you thought You’d never tell – “Pandora’s Aquarium,” Tori Amos I carried Tori Amos’s From the Choirgirl Hotel with me everywhere in eighth grade even though I didn’t have a Discman. I’d stick the album into the CD-ROM of my desktop during computer lab and […] More »
May-June 2020

The band van goes green

Touring musicians and sustainability

Rosie Long Decter

Tamara Lindeman, also known as Toronto singer-songwriter The Weather Station, doesn’t mince words when it comes to climate change. Asked whether she thinks the music industry is finally waking up to the global crisis, her answer is a swift no. “People talk about feeling guilty more,” she says. “This doesn’t mean anything is changing.” Lindeman […] More »
March-April 2020

Lacking representation

South Asian representation on screen is not as sparse as it once was; but what does representation mean if it isn’t any good?

Rachna Raj Kaur

In North America, many Hollywood stars of Indian descent are household names: Mindy Kaling, Priyanka Chopra, Kumail Nanjiani, Hasan Minhaj, and Scarborough native Lilly Singh. According to YouTubers Colin and Samir, Hollywood has realized that Indians—in North America and India—have the buying power to demand representation on screen. I think we’ve always known this, but […] More »
March-April 2020

Canada is failing its Deaf artists

What we can learn from other countries about reducing barriers and improving access

Adam Pottle

Clin D’Oeil Village hosts the Deaf Party every night until 3 a.m., the air vibrating with purple and green lights and pounding bass. Mechanical bulls, vintage arcade games, Deaf musicians and DJs, and food vendors surround the enormous dance floor at the village’s centre. On that dance floor, and all throughout the village, thousands of […] More »
January-February 2020

Dear She-Ra: an ode to activist organizing across generations

Megan Kinch

Dear She-Ra (Princess of Power), Glimmer, and Bow, Hi, She-Ra. I’m a long-time fan of your work, but this is my first time writing to you and the Best Friend Squad. There’s been a reboot on Netflix which seems laser-focused on my child-of-the-1980s demographic (the fact that I have a six-year-old daughter who also loves […] More »
January-February 2020

How horror helps us overcome our fears

And why it becomes popular during frightening times

Adam Pottle

Horror has always been a marginalized genre, a misunderstood, even reviled vehicle dismissed as a disgusting, juvenile playpen for amateur talents. When it does become popular—such as during the post-Hiroshima years, or Nixon’s tenure in the early seventies—it has a brief moment in the limelight before being relegated back to the shadows. So why has […] More »

Regina’s Queer City Cinema

Film festival turns lens away from the mainstream

Chris Stoodley

When you imagine international hubs for radical contemporary cinema and performance, Regina might not come to mind; but it should—and that’s thanks to Gary Varro. In 1995, Varro was an assistant curator at the Dunlop Art Gallery inside the Regina Public Library. Around that time, the space was displaying an exhibition on Indigenous representation in […] More »
November-December 2019

Spotlight on: Art Brat Comics

Halifax cartoonist Mollie Cronin makes no apologies

Jillian Morgan

With bare midriffs, tattoos, and mermaid tails—or no clothes at all—Mollie Cronin’s unapologetic characters ride alligators, eat pizza, swim, lounge on cheese, and raise their middle fingers. The Halifax cartoonist distills millennial dating woes, the perils and joys of East Coast living, and the complexities of gender and body politics in her honest and funny […] More »