1-2 nov 2025

two days of gathering an sharing for QTPBIPOC & CRIP collectives
co hosted by OBOL and the vagale nave

Our bodies Of love aims at creating space for stories of queer, trans, bipoc and marginalised people, regarding how we (also) received and carry love, from ourselves and from others, throughout our lives.  If we carry trauma, we’re here because we also carry love, in our flesh, in our soul, in our heart, in our somatic bodies. The project started as a mutual interview between Mikki Bradshaw and Goldjian Charlo. The intention is:: – to publish a book, or a podcast (or both) – to build a structure to host other stories, from other queer folks. This project wants to be an invitation to share how we also carry love in our body, how we had to love ourselves in the midst of adversities and hatred, and how we also received love, and how it is still palpable in our bodies, our souls, our embodied memories.

The intuition is : – that by allowing queer, trans, bipoc folks to tell there stories of love, it will give them opportunities to pause and feel, where love is still present in their bodies – that by making space for the diversity of our stories, we will recognize each other, but also grow our capacity for compassion, understanding and mutual learning.

By love, we refer to the multidimensional forms of interdependencies, that connect us to each other and to this planet, including, relations to friends, animal, plants, lovers, chosen family, elders, youngsters, teachers, shangas, guides, elements (…). And of course, we connect to all the many writers who wrote about love before us, among them:

• Alexis Pauline Gum, 2020 , ‘Love at a scale where we can survive’ Undrowned. Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals.
• Kai Cheng Thom, 2019, I Hope We Choose Love: A Trans Girl’s Notes from the End of the World
• Resmaa Menakem, 2017, My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies
• Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, 2013 , Islands of Decolonial Love, by 
• bell hooks. 2000, All about love
• Audre Lorde, 1984, The Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power”

The Vagale Nave is an artistic ship, drawing on somatic practices, sci-fi aesthetics, and  psychogeographies. With research on the vagus nerve to ground a sense of self in relation to collective bodies for artists with diverse neuro, psycho and nervous capacities.

Our intention is to organise in the fall a two day gathering of 8 to 12 French-speaking and English-speaking LGBTQI, BIPOC, Mad & Crip Montreal based collectives, around the sharing of somatic, ritualistic and cultural practices.

This transcultural event will gather around 30 participants around the question : How do we do ? Comment faisons- nous ? The question refers to four levels of organising: 

1. How do we love, care for and support each other, when we live at the margin, with diverse abilities and sensibilities? 
2. What are the ancestral, renewed and discovered practices that help us thrive, transform, rise?
3. In this time of rising fascism, ableism and transphobia, how do we do it, and with whom?
4. As communities, collectives and ships of different cultural, linguistic backgrounds, can we constellate, can we say we or oui? Can we make a we?

We call Ships families and collective of people, who share resources, support each other and sustain kinship together :

• In dialogue with other projects, community and constellation poets and makers (Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Shayda Kafai, Sulaiman Khan, Véro Leduc, Po B. K. Lomami, MAP…), we see ourselves, our individual and collective bodies, vision and mutual care. 
• Part of this ‘shiphood’ involves connecting with other mad/spice/crip (kin)ships, to constellate, learn from each other, feel stronger forms of belonging, to explore our intersection with ritualistic, somatic and artistic ways of contributing to our path to wellness, and see potential collective shapes and sense the power of constellations.
• Those groups have in common to share ‘’access intimacy’, what Mia Mingus refers to as ‘this elusive hard to describe feeling when someone else ‘gets’ your access needs…ground level, with no need for explanation’.

The gathering will take place around the end of October, when most cultures rejoice from the harvest of the season, communicate with their ancestors and prepare for the winter, in a space/venue that is both known and welcoming for diverse cultures and somatic needs. 

We imagine hosting activities such has:

• opening with indigenous land acknowledgement, gratitude, & practice to connect to the land and waters we live on 
• ancestor & spiritual dedications
• sound bath
• breath work 
• food sharing
• story telling
• collective haptic drawing
• dry herbs and seed sharing
• humming, voicing, instrumental and deaf music 
• somatic, dance and embodiment
• rituals, dream and manifestation practices.

For the accessibility of the week-end we will : 

• make sure the space is fully wheelchair accessible
• prepare for one or two rest and calmer zones close to the main space
• have a variety of locally prepared food, with vegetarian options (such as food prepared by the curry collective).
• hire 2 LSQ & 2 2 ASL interpreters
• hire 2 assistants for blind artists 
• plan and organise the event with 2 accessibility coordinators

1. How will this project impact the visibility of English-Language arts to the wider community or build bridges between communities. How will you measure the success of your project: (Max 300 words)

Our event is especially designed to build bridges between communities. We will process both with invitations and a call for application to groups who are in supportive and creative relations to each other.

We will organise the weekend with a format inspired by the Open Space Methodology, a particular process that is known to support community building. In particular, it allow participants: 

• to open the week-end with intentionality
• to map our needs and create guidelines for the week-end 

• to create a collective agenda together, based on what matters in the moment
• have multiple sessions happening at the same time, including somatic, creative and ritualistic ones
• document their integration on different formats such as large and smaller paper, blackboard and dedicated sound recorder…, allowing others to look or listen at what emerged
• choose the next steps and mode of continuation
• close with intentionality and dedication toward chosen steps for the future

Among the ships we are thinking of inviting are: 

D\C Art, A nos prothèses, Corpuscule Danse, The Cyberlove Hotel, Brique Par Brique, Chaire équité Culturelle, collective Rebozo,  Sankofa Coopérative, The Bipoc Giving Circle  (…) 

From our past experiences, we know that this type of gathering will build several forms of connection and camaraderie, facilitating mutual recognition, inspiration and dissemination. 

The practice of hosting and gathering constellations helps form more artistic bonds, as well as resilience and fortitude to continuing growth between the English, French and other marginalized artistic sectors amongst participants.

In order to honor the existing work and contribution of each collective member, our ideal would be to pay every participant as session facilitator, with rates recommended by the carfac-raav, as well as offering every participant free food, drink and access support.

To measure the success of this project we will: 

• invite all participants to a concluding session oriented toward action
• invite the sharing of oral and written testimonies (for video and photo documentation)
• propose a future gathering, in nature, toward the spring.
• explore potential collaborations, mutual support and collective creations, in future times and spaces.