Who we are
Dias:stories is a community research group committed to the creation and sharing of stories about Southeast Asian diasporic experience.
Diaspora is a word loaded with meanings that are often contradictory and unfolding. In some instances, diaspora refers to a group of people settled away from their home of origin, while in other ways, diaspora can also capture being stuck within nation states due to conditions like undocumentation or asylum migrations.
Diaspora can both articulate and disarticulate movement. Through the utilization of emerging technologies and well-established digital forms, Dias:stories hopes to (explore models for) represent the complexity of diasporic life.
Diasporic Dialogues
Diasporic Dialogues is a speaker series that highlights the work of artists/makers working through a Southeast Asian diasporic lens. Speakers will share and reflect on their work in order to open broader conversations about the alliances, fissures, and discoveries that different creative practices can reveal when representing Southeast Asian diasporic experience.
Memories of Together, Together
It’s a new year, its winter, what better time to share stories of togetherness rooted in the South-East Asian Diaspora?!
South East Asia is a very culturally diverse region, but somewhere in one’s migrant story, there is some kind of shared togetherness. It could be for cultural reasons, it could be as a means for survival in a new place. What one of your early memories of togetherness? What is one of your meaningful photos from back in the day?
Was it your grandpa babysitting you amidst the foreign winter snow? Was it your downstairs neighbour selling homemade food from their apartment to the rest of the building? Was it your mom making unlikely friends at a new job? Was it your newly arrived auntie apple picking with the rest of the family for the first time?
Post an old photo depicting togetherness and tag @dia.stories.
Post-Colonial Hot Ones
Post-Colonial Hot-Ones is a panel series that is centered around sharing meals, ideas, and experiences by community members about liberation, transformation and resilience within arts education. These discussions were focused around communal knowledge sharing, tools for resistance, intergenerational healing methods, mobilization plans for marginalized voices, and recipes for dishes/sauces. Our first installment of this series included participation from Ryan Rice, Camille Turner, Casey Mecija, Patricio Dávila, Immony Mén, and audience members.