On today’s episode, we are joined by an amaz­ing trio of artists — Has­saan Ashraf, Ally Gon­za­lo, & Chuk­wudubem Ukaig­we — as they share their insights and expe­ri­ences with pric­ing them­selves as artists and valu­ing their worth.

Treaty 1 based, mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary artist Has­saan Ashraf has been focus­ing on their skills as a painter and cal­lig­ra­phy artist for the last cou­ple of years. Orig­i­nal­ly a lens based artist, Has­saan has tried to fol­low the spi­ral of change in their prac­tice as they have focused on explor­ing a mul­ti­tude of medi­ums through­out their art life. Their prac­tice flour­ish­es the most while col­lab­o­rat­ing with artist friends who share sim­i­lar val­ues and polit­i­cal stand­ing. They hope to con­tin­ue their prac­tice once the pan­dem­ic is a thing of the past and nour­ish­ment through com­mu­ni­ty and friends becomes a pos­si­bil­i­ty again. Cur­rent­ly, their focus is work­ing as an artist, cura­tor and admin per­son at Take­Home BIPOC Artshouse, an artist run cen­tre and com­mu­ni­ty nour­ish­ment stu­dio space they opened with Annie Beach, Bren­den Gali and Sapp­fyre Mcleod in Oct 2021 for and by BIPOC folks exclusively.

Ally Gon­za­lo is a queer, first-gen­er­a­tion Fil­ip­inx man who set­tled in Treaty 1 Ter­ri­to­ry back in 2016. Adept in social media and mar­ket­ing coor­di­na­tion, Ally uses his skills to fos­ter com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment at the grass­roots level.⠀Additionally, he has over 7 years of expe­ri­ence in pho­tog­ra­phy and spe­cial­izes in hon­est, inti­mate por­traits. He is for­mal­ly trained in the field of pho­tog­ra­phy and has received edu­ca­tion in His­to­ry and Polit­i­cal Sci­ence from his moth­er­land as well.

Chuk­wudubem Ukaig­we is a Niger­ian-born song, dis­persed by a tran­sient Atlantic breeze, cur­rent­ly pass­ing through Treaty 1 Ter­ri­to­ry, so called Cana­da. He con­scious­ly uses a vari­ety of medi­ums to relay a plu­ral­i­ty of ideas at any giv­en time. He views his art prac­tice as a con­ver­sa­tion or a por­tal into one, and, in some instances, as an inter­pre­ta­tion of this ongo­ing exchange. Chuk­wudubem weighs an occur­rence, feel­ing, or idea on a scale and then cre­ates a nar­ra­tive in his own lan­guage. He oper­ates as an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary artist, cura­tor, writer, and cul­tur­al work­er, and is the founder of Pat­terns Col­lec­tive. He is also the cur­rent edi­tor of Plug In ICA Edi­tions Online.

The mod­er­a­tor for our event, our own Stu­dio 393 Assis­tant Man­ag­er, Annie Beach, a visu­al artist, born and based in Win­nipeg, Man­i­to­ba, Treaty One Ter­ri­to­ry. Beach is Cree/​Saulteaux/​Ukrainian, with rela­tions from Peguis First Nation.

Today we speak with Des­tiny Sey­mour, founder of Indi­go Arrows, a home décor brand that is inspired by local Indige­nous pot­tery pat­terns. All prod­ucts are hand­craft­ed in Win­nipeg, Man­i­to­ba in small batch­es using 100% linen and eco-friend­ly inks. In Sey­mour’s own words ​“For thou­sands of years, Indige­nous peo­ples in Man­i­to­ba, includ­ing my Anishi­naabe ances­tors, cre­at­ed beau­ti­ful pat­terns to adorn their pot­tery col­lec­tions and host of bone tools. Most of the sur­viv­ing pieces are held by muse­ums now, but I think the world needs more than exhi­bi­tion- we need these pat­terns in our homes pro­vok­ing thought; we need them­bridg­ing gaps; and, we need them inspir­ing our loved ones. The Indi­go Arrows line picks up where my ances­tors left off.”

On today’s episode we’re joined by Kim­mor­tal, a queer non-bina­ry fil­ip­inx mul­ti-dis­ci­pli­nary artist and activist born a fire sign in the year of the earth drag­on. Their ances­try is Ilo­cano and Visayan from Pan­gasi­nan and Negros Occi­den­tal. A musi­cian (rap­per, singer) with a back­ground in art and the­atre, Kim­mor­tal’s hon­est word­play and visu­als tell sto­ries of reclaim­ing one’shealing and con­fronting social issues fac­ing their generation.

393 got to chat with writer/​poet Natasha Ramoutar about her Bit­ter­sweet Anthol­o­gy. She describes it as a col­lage, lov­ing to cre­ate, ​“that feel­ing of uncer­tain­ty and A dream like state.” 

“Natasha Ramoutar is an Indo-Guyanese writer by way of Scar­bor­ough (Ganat­sek­wyagon) at the east side of Toron­to. She is the Social Media Assis­tant at the Fes­ti­val of Lit­er­ary Diver­si­ty. Her poet­ry col­lec­tion, Bit­ter­sweet, was pub­lished by Mawen­zi House in 2020. She is the fic­tion edi­tor of Feel Ways, an anthol­o­gy of Scar­bor­ough writ­ing, pub­lished in 2021. She lives in Scar­bor­ough, Ontario.” — From Mawen­zi House publishing.

Today we speak with Leanne Betasamosake Simp­son about her lat­est album The­o­ry Of Ice. In addi­tion to being a fan­tas­tic musi­cians, Leanne is one of the most com­pelling and impor­tant Indige­nous voic­es of her gen­er­a­tion, and is the renowned author of Noop­im­ing: The Cure for White Ladies (named a best book of the year by the Globe and Mail); This Acci­dent of Being Lost (win­ner of the MacE­wan Uni­ver­si­ty Book of the Year; final­ist for the Rogers Writ­ers’ Trust Fic­tion Prize and the Tril­li­um Book Award; named a best book of the year by the Globe and Mail, the Nation­al Post, and Quill & Quire); and As We Have Always Done: Indige­nous Free­dom Through Rad­i­cal Resis­tance (award­ed Best Sub­se­quent Book by the Native Amer­i­can and Indige­nous Stud­ies Asso­ci­a­tion).

The­o­ry Of Ice is Lean­ne’s sec­ond album of music, and the fol­low-up to 2016’s f(l)ight.

Our guest is Sapp­fyre McLeod, Poet and Coor­di­na­tor for Take­Home BIPOC Arts House locat­ed in the heart of the Exchange dis­trict. Take­Home BIPOC Arts House is an artist run cen­tre and com­mu­nal art stu­dio with the focus of pro­vid­ing space, sup­port and nour­ish­ment to BIPOC artists on Treaty 1 Ter­ri­to­ry, to show and cre­ate art, in any discipline.

Our guest is Andy East­man, co-founder of Syn­o­mym Arts Con­sul­ta­tion, the Wall-to-Wall Mur­al and Cul­ture Fes­ti­val and now the new Gorge Queer Arts & Drag Festival. 

GORGE is a two-day drag fes­ti­val, that will be record­ed on and broad­cast­ed from Treaty 1 Ter­ri­to­ry, in Win­nipeg, Man­i­to­ba. This series of online events will fea­ture the best of Winnipeg’s unique drag and per­for­mance com­mu­ni­ties. GORGE is found­ed by Syn­onym Art Con­sul­ta­tion, Co-Curat­ed by Sun­shine House Inc., Co-Pre­sent­ed by Théâtre Cer­cle Molière And part of Safe At Home MB​’s 2021 Program.

A Beat Mak­er’s pan­el fea­tur­ing Skratch Bastid, Crab­skull, David Hodges and Mal­colm Jay.

We’re joined by @studio_393 alum @caidjones who sits in with par­tic­i­pants of 393 for an inter­view on his philoso­phies, process­es, inspi­ra­tion and com­mu­ni­ty work. Get up on an artist on the ground floor of the Win­nipeg next wave of rap. A very proud tra­di­tion of sto­ry­tellers. Be sure to check his lat­est sin­gle ​“Stay Woke” on the many stream­ing platforms.