About the Event
How are geography and memory intertwined when we try to recount our stories?
Building on the success of "Black Talk: In Conversation with Hanif Abdurraqib and Antonio Michael Downing," Textile presents the first in a series of community activations. Exploring critical questions about the relationship between the arts and culture, space and place, and Black life in Waterloo Region, this session will facilitate guided reflection and small group discussions that centre local knowledge about Waterloo Region. Participants will engage in collaborative collage-making, capturing themes from their dialogue. These artistic works will be documented as a zine, with all participants receiving high-quality scans and contributor credits.
Presented in partnership with Textile.
Image Credit: Documentation of ephemera produced for “Black Talk: In Conversation with Hanif Abdurraqib and Antonio Michael Downing” (Fall 2024). Waterloo Park, Waterloo ON. 2025. Ephemera conceived by Textile and produced by Natalie Vuong. Photo by Dylan Prowse.
About Textile
Textile (formerly Textile Magazine) is a hyper-local arts collective supporting writers and artists with connections to Waterloo Region, Ontario, particularly those from historically excluded and marginalized groups.
Our scope of practice includes publishing, mentorship, curation, and residencies. We’re drawn to projects that are grounded in urgent questions animating our communities, and creative work that (re)imagines public memory.
About the Curators
Shalaka Jadhav is a writer, researcher, and independent curator who grew up between cities in India, in Dubai, and near Ontario’s largest mall. Now based on Block 2 of the Haldimand Tract and Treaty 1 territory, their work explores spatial positionality, grief geographies, public memory, and queer ecologies as evidenced in exhibitions curated in Halifax, Winnipeg, Kitchener, Guelph, and Toronto. Shalaka has held roles at OCAD University and The Blackwood, and co-directs Textile, a hyper-local arts collective in Waterloo Region. As a 2025 Musagetes Fellow, they are developing place-based curatorial projects that explore publication as form. Currently, they are one of the inaugural Visiting Curators at the University of Manitoba School of Art Gallery. Trained as an urban planner, Shalaka has contributed to social innovation and climate resilience projects nationally and internationally, and worked in audio journalism, planning departments, and on rooftop gardens and farms. They’ll likely point out the names of “weeds” as you walk together, and will always order dessert. Instagram: @shalaks_j
Fitsum Areguy is a writer, scholar-activist, and cultural worker based in Kitchener, Ontario on the Haldimand Tract. He is a 2025 Musagetes Fellow and member of the inaugural Nazar Research Cluster at Concordia University's Dark Opacities Lab. His critical and creative writing have appeared in Briarpatch Magazine, ByBlacks, Canadian Dimension, Breach Media, Toronto Star, and New Sociology, among others. His practice centres writing, editing, and publishing as political and artistic mediums—creating material spaces that foster intimate audiences, collaborative knowledge production, and community narratives. Drawing from Black radical traditions, his work with Textile, a hyper-local arts collective he co-founded and co-directs in Waterloo Region, uses publication as both method and social phenomenon to interrogate public memory and develop cultural infrastructure beyond institutional constraints. He serves on the board of directors for Multicultural Theatre (MT) Space and Thrive HIV Prevention & Support, and enjoys playing pick-up hoops and listening to dance music. Instagram: @fareguy
Photography Notice: Please note that photographs and videos may be taken at this event and may be broadcast, reproduced, and/or made available in print or online. For individual or small group photos, staff will make attendees aware of their presence and will ask permission before taking photos.
For larger public events, please note that by attending, you are consenting to the use of your appearance, image, and voice in print or digital productions created by the Waterloo Public Library for promotional use only. Please speak to library staff at the event if you’d like to be excluded from any photo/video.
Programmer: Charlie
