Tuesday, Sept 5
Webinar, 12:00 – 1:00 pm ET // Informal Q & A, 1 – 1:30 pm ET
With Julius Lindsay, Director, Sustainable Communities at the David Suzuki Foundation and co-founder of the Black Environmentalist Alliance, and Syrus Marcus Ware, Vanier Scholar, visual artist, activist, curator, and educator.
About the event
Understanding the connection between climate change, environmental racism, and social justice is crucial to finding equitable and sustained responses to the climate crisis. Join Julius and Syrus on Tuesday September 5th for a conversation on climate justice and its connection to the environmental movement, art practice, and BIPOC communities in c\a\n\a\d\a. Their discussion will touch on key climate justice topics such as disproportionate burdens, Afro and Indigenous futurisms, community engagement and examples from both Julius and Syrus’ practice.
Whether you’re new to the concept or seeking to deepen your knowledge, this session will anchor climate justice in both speakers’ work with the arts and community engagement.
This event will be held in English.
About the speakers
Julius Lindsay is a leader in the environmental field with 15 years of experience in the areas of sustainability, climate change, and leading policy and strategy development and implementation.
He is the Director of Sustainable Communities at the David Suzuki Foundation. He leads the Foundation’s work to accelerate and raise the ambition of climate action in cities across the place now known as Canada. He is also a co-founder of the Black Environmentalist Alliance, an organization that seeks to champion Black people in the environmental profession, provide a safe space for peer-to-peer engagement to have real conversations and share experiences, and to advocate for environmental justice for Black Canadians now and in the future.
Prior to these two roles, Julius has been the catalyst for and led the development of climate change plans, programs, and policies at two of the biggest cities, Mississauga and Richmond Hill, in Ontario, Canada’s Largest Province. Julius is also a 2022 Next generation Foresight Practitioner Fellow and received their Inaugural Existential Risk award and a 2023 Future of Canada Project Future Fellow to support the Prismatic Project. The Prismatic Project seeks to centre Indigenous and Black perspectives through the lens of Indigenous futurist and Afrofuturist art, community engagement and futures games to shift the conversation about and composition of climate action in Canada.
Dr. Syrus Marcus Ware is an Assistant Professor at the School of the Arts at McMaster University. A Vanier scholar, visual artist, activist, curator and educator, Ware uses painting, installation, and performance to explore social justice frameworks and black activist culture. His work has been shown widely across Canada in solo and group shows, and his performance works have been part of local and international festivals. He is part of the Performance Disability Art Collective and a cofounder of Black Lives Matter-Canada. Syrus is curator of the That’s So Gay show and a co-curator of Blackness Yes!/Blockorama. In addition to penning a variety of journals and articles, Syrus is the co-editor of the best-selling Until We Are Free: Reflections on Black Lives Matter in Canada (URP, 2020).