An author, spoken word artist and drag-dance performer rolled into one, Kai Cheng Thom, AKA Lady Sin Trayda, will be the keynote speaker at this year’s edition of the Rebel Knowledge symposium.
The Guelph chapter of Ontario Public Interest Research Group (OPIRG) will host its annual Rebel Knowledge social and environmental justice symposium this weekend at University Centre and at the Common on Wilson Street.
This year’s symposium is themed ‘interlocking struggles’ and explore they ways in which the injustices the group says it fights against interact and depend on each other.
‘We’ll discuss the challenges, contradictions, and possibilities of building interconnected movements and strengthening resistance,’ said a press release by Guelph OPIRG.
Kai Cheng Thom will be the keynote speaker. She has been featured at the Vancouver Poetry Slam and the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word and was a finalist at the 2012 Verses International Poetry Festival.
The symposium will include workshops, presentations, panels, art displays and interactive discussions.
On Friday evening, a launch will be held at the The Common for Craig Fortier’s book Unsettling the Commons: Social Movements Within, Against, and Beyond Colonialism.
Topics of the symposium include climate change, capitalism, feminism, animal rights, social justice, Indigenous sovereignty, as well as antifascism and confronting the far-right.
For a list of workshops and panels, or for more information on the event, click here.
The Rebel Knowledge symposium combines academic and community research, activism and art.
OPIRG is a student-levied on-campus organization with chapters at universities across Ontario. It focuses on on issues of social, economic and environmental justice.
