We are thrilled to present the second iteration of the Art for Social Change Workshop Series, taking place June - August, 2026. This workshop series is led by artists, activists, and facilitators exploring the power of art to create inner and outer change. A huge thank you to OPIRG Guelph for supporting this series.
UPCOMING WORKSHOPS
Beyond the Stereotype: Creating Authentic Characters with Elly Pond
Sunday, July 26, 1 - 5 pm, 119 Wyndham St. N, Guelph ON
This 4-hour workshop invites participants to break the mold! Unlearn the flat, typecast characters absorbed from mainstream media and create layered, nuanced characters that reflect the complexity of ourselves and our communities.
Through a mix of physical exploration, writing, discussion, and play, this workshop examines how character creation can help unpack social constructs, hierarchies, and limited beliefs. Expect movement, writing, talking, (maybe even) laughter, and reflection. Participants will leave with a deeper sense of creative agency and a handful of characters rooted in honesty, care, and power.
Techniques include Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed, Laban Movement, status play, mime, and guided free writing. The work is physical and reflective, rigorous and joyful.
Elly Pond (she/they) is a performer, writer, and facilitator with foundations in both classical and experimental theatre. Originally from Guelph, Elly studied Acting for the Theatre at Concordia University and has since performed theatre and comedy in Montreal, Toronto, Vermont, New York City, and Singapore.
Their performance and production credits include collaborations with Imago Theatre, Guelph Comedy Festival, Bread & Puppet Theatre, National University of Singapore, and Repercussion Theatre. They currently produce comedy festivals with Bad Dog Theatre in Toronto. Elly also teaches acting at Concordia University and runs improv workshops for Queer youth in Montreal.
Elly’s creative focus lies in dark comedy, everyday magic, and ensemble-driven storytelling. Their current projects explore feminine rage, climate collapse, cult dynamics, and chosen family. Across mediums, they aim to craft stories that are witty, political, emotionally charged, and a little bit strange.
Plant Fibres and Interconnection with Dani Hagel
Saturday, August 1, 1 - 4 pm, 119 Wyndham St. N, Guelph ON
In this workshop, participants will be introduced to local plants whose fibres can be processed for a variety of applications in art and craft. We’ll meet hemp dogbane, nettle and basswood and discuss their ecological relationships, cultivation and ethical harvesting. Participants will learn how to process plant fibres into cordage (thread or rope) and explore different weaving and embroidery techniques with their materials.
Cording, spinning and weaving with plant fibres are all some of the earliest forms of human technology, and they are also juicy metaphors for interdependence, co-creation, and the webs of care and community we all belong to. Throughout the workshop, participants will be invited to consider and discuss how land-based practices can foster reciprocal relationships with each other and the more-than-human world in a time of converging social and environmental crises.
This workshop is for ages 15+.
Dani Hagel is a queer herbalist, artist and educator whose work weaves together the art and science of plant medicine, naturalist knowledge, and folk craft. Inspired by the everyday magic of of interspecies collaborations and wild plant stewardship, Dani believes land-based practices can help us guide us into right relationship with each other and the more-than-human world. These days, she’s obsessed with foraged fibres, homegrown plant pigments, and growing flax for linen. She cultivates a diverse landscape of medicinal, edible, ecological, and craft plants on her permaculture-inspired herb farm, Eramosa Herbals.
PAST WORKSHOPS
Embodied Artivism with Jothi Saldanha
In this workshop, Jothi guided participants through somatic practice, collective art-making,and a soothing sound bath meditation, exploring where sacred rage, grief, and emotional truths live within us. This experience invited participants to acknowledge and express feelings of anger, frustration, overwhelm, and loss. With gentle guidance, we held space for these powerful emotions—however uncomfortable they may be—and met them with empathy, curiosity, and compassion.
Jothi Saldanha is a multi-award winning Transformational Wellness Coach with over a decade of experience facilitating wellness sessions for community and within the workplace. Jothi works with both individuals and groups through intuitive guidance and caring energy. Jothi is trained in Integrative Somatic Trauma Therapy, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Quantum Healing, and Mindfulness Practices rooted in Buddhist Philosophy and Spirituality. Jothi's approach to healing and wellness always comes from cultural and decolonial lens. Jothi strongly believes in the intersectionality of our stories and experiences acknowledging that we come from lineages of pain and wisdom. Jothi's personal inner healing works alongside her work. She has been on this journey of becoming since the birth of her first child 19 years ago. Jothi is on a mission to create diverse and accessible spaces for all folks to feel seen, supported, and held through their unique journeys of emergence!
"Whose Streets? Our Streets!" Protest Printmaking with Pardis Pahlavanlu
In this skill-building and community-mobilizing workshop, participants engaged the relationship between art and social movements by making their own linocut protest media.
In a space prioritizing connection, solidarity, and knowledge sharing, participants designed and carved an image for their chosen social movement and printed their protest designs on placards. Folks swapped their carved designs with each other to use on their own media, as well as on a communal poster, with the slogan “Whose Streets? Our Streets!”.
Pardis Pahlavanlu is an artist and illustrator living as a guest between Tkaronto (Toronto) and unceded Coast Salish territories (Vancouver). While her academic studies have revolved around systems of power in contemporary colonial states, her artistic work has centred on the healing that is necessary in these contexts.
In her workshops, Pardis aims to make art-marking accessible to all, allowing room for imagination and play to take place. She meets people where they are at and offers various approaches for teaching printmaking, collaging and other mediums. Her goal is that participants walk away with pride in their learning capacities and an eagerness to learn more, whatever that may be.
"Ritualizing Resistance: A Zinemaking Playshop with Justine Abigail Yu
What does it mean to resist – not just in moments of urgency, but as a sustained practice, as sacred ritual? Ritualizing Resistance is a zine-making playshop that invited storytellers to explore resistance as something we return to, tend to, and transform through intentional acts. Through creative writing, arts-based prompts, and critically curious conversations, we spoke truth to power while envisioning equitable and just futures for all. Together, participants played with simple prompts to draw, doodle, and write to create our own zines.
Justine Abigail Yu (she/her) is the founder of Living Hyphen, a community that explores what it means to live in between cultures as a hyphenated Canadian – this is, anyone who calls Canada home but has roots elsewhere. She is an award-winning facilitator whose work has appeared in the Globe & Mail, Toronto Star, CTV National News, and CBC. Recognized as a “Changemaker” by the Toronto Star, Justine is a fierce advocate for equity, justice, and collective liberation. Her mission is to stir the conscience and spur social change.