Saturday, April 14, 1pm
In Conversation with Silent Citizen
Olga Leonova, Danahe Karina Palacios, Manuela Valle-Castro
Join Olga Leonova, Danahe Palacios, and Manuela Valle-Castro as they share their personal experiences of immigrating to Canada. This event is held in conjunction with AKA’s current exhibition Silent Citizen, a participatory sound and video installation that addresses Immigration Canada’s language test. Refreshments will be provided.
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Olga Leonova, originally from Russia, came to Canada 8 years ago. Canada is the fifth place she has moved to and lived in over the last two decades. She has lived in four other countries (Germany, Sweden, USA, Italy), and has learned four languages. Quite an adventure for someone who had little interest in leaving her country and learning new languages 20 years ago. She would have said “I would never leave my country, and I had no talent in learning languages”, while now, a couple of beautiful quotes “Never say never” and ‘The sky is not the limit’ would apply to her today.
Danahe Palacios was born in Caracas, Venezuela on August 9. She grew up and lived most of her life in the same city of Caracas that one loves and hates with the same intensity. Art came natural to her and she has always searched for the freedom to do what she wanted above all. Studying art has been a struggle for her and continues to be despite the economic and professional circumstances. She came to Canada in 2015. Her immigration process was quite fast and she had been studying English on her own until she was able to join the LINC Program, a federal government program for newcomers. She is constantly studying different topics such as History and Canadian Geography.
Manuela Valle-Castro is a feminist organizer and academic from Chile. For the past ten years Manuela has been teaching intersectional feminist theories, Latin American culture and politics, gender and popular culture and other social justice related courses, incorporating community engagement as a form of critical pedagogy. She holds a PhD in Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice from the University of British Columbia, where her doctoral dissertation documented the political potential of performance as activism in the context of pronounced neoliberalism in Chile. She relocated from Vancouver, B.C. to Riversdale two years ago, where she lives with her daughters Ramona and Guadalupe, their dog Frida and their cats Sasquatch and Tom.
