Toronto Anarchist Fair takes place in 2013 on December 13th–15th.

Place

(several places, depending on what you wish to attend)

Toronto,

Canada

Events

December 13

18.00 — Harvest Noon Community Holiday Potluck

Note: This event is separately organized by Harvest Noon Café+Co-op, RSVP

Harvest Noon Café – 2nd floor, GSU Building (16 Bancroft Ave, University of Toronto; this is an inaccessible space) FREE! – Bring a dish to share

Come celebrate the holiday season and share vegan-friendly recipes with the Harvest Noon community! Please bring one vegan-friendly dish; It can be anything from a side dish, appetizer, main dish, bread, dessert etc. RSVP & let us know what you’re bringing: http://bit.ly/ImsGyD



20.00 — Toronto Queer Zine Fair’s Winter Survival Tour

Note: Check your fucked up behaviours at the door. Be aware of the space you’re taking and the language you’re using. There will be active listeners at this event.

Unit 2 (163 Sterling Rd; entrance and bathroom both accessible, bathroom lacks grab bars) $5/PWYC/No One Turned Away

Presenters:

geoff is a writer, community organizer and artist. his writings are open and not limited to his experiences with drugs, trauma, addiction, queerness, recovery, intimacy. he is a rad queer anarchist superstar. find more info about geoff here: livingnotexisting.org

Amrit Brar writes and illustrates Musterni – zines on the intersections of race, queerness and faith as a first generation Indo-Canadian, and navigating these spaces within Sikh families marked by genocidal displacement and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Maranda Elizabeth writes about mental health & illness, genderqueerosity, writing & creativity, self-care & support, and how to create a meaningful daily life.

Eric Levitt writes zines on the intersection of radical gayness, queerness, body fascism and radical politics.

Eddie O writes about supporting survivors and creating alternative structures of support and mutual aid with a focus on their own experience surviving abuse and recovering from trauma.



21.00 — anarkink! … a kinky queer play party in cahoots with the toronto anarchist fair!

Contact: All inquiries can be sent to: anarkinktoronto@gmail.com

studio ten (135 tecumseth st — down the alley & turn right) PWYC (suggested donation 10$ but no one turned away for lack of funds) Space is limited so please try to RSVP at anarkinktoronto@gmail.com

doors open at 9:00pm and doors will be closing at 10pm!!!!

22.00 — sex party etiquette and practices of consent

Note: This is a continuation of anarkink! that starts at 21.00.

to start the party off we’ll share guidelines for sex party etiquette and building consensual, safer spaces to explore kink. we acknowledge that consent is an on-going process and that all these things are good things to (re)learn: how to negotiate, ask permission, say no thanks, flirt, strengthen our boundaries, do the right thing, share safewords, articulate our turn-ons and turn-offs, check our privileges.

23.00–3.00 — play party!

Note: This is a continuation of anarkink! that starts at 21.00.

bring your diy toys and dollar store pervertibles, come with your co-conspirators and sexy collaborators, or just with your friend(s)! safer sex supplies will be provided (but feel free to bring your own too). there will be bdsm mentors offering their services for temperature play, rope bondage, fisting and impact play. more info on this at the party!

accessibility: the space is a ground floor, single-level studio with one step to the bathroom.

to support safer, consensual exchanges this is a sober space. there will be a chill-out space for non-sexual exchanges. letter writing for prisoners through the toronto anarchist black cross can happen in this space too.

December 14

10.00–12.00 — Performing Love Workshop

Link: For more info about the workshop, and about Natalie Amber: http://www.performinglove.com/

Videofag (187 Augusta Ave); ASL provided PWYC ($10 suggested)

Presented by Natalie Amber: Too often have I seen communities (queer, radical and otherwise) torn apart by poorly handled relationships, on all levels. I’ve seen good people trample each others hearts due to lack of knowledge, emotionally articulate language, and underdeveloped empathy. Though many of us are striving for non-normative relationship structures because they are considered more “radical”, there are very little roadmaps to guide us down these new paths, and the new roads we are creating seem more paved with selfishness and power grabbing than true, authentic, sustainable relationship structures.

This workshop will help facilitate an in depth discussion about the influences of patriarchy, capitalism, neoliberalism and homonationalism that affects our concepts of desire, success and LOVE ITSELF. We’ll look at strategies for how to get more honest with yourself and your friends/partners/lovers, and for combatting many of the influences that prevent us from having more authentic connections with one another.

This workshop is for anyone interested in deeply engaging with themselves and their friends/partners in ways that look different from normative concepts of Love and Relationship structures. It is for everyone looking for new ways to articulate their desires and their needs, both to themselves and to others. Queer folks, radical folks, those interested in non-monogamy and those looking to get outside gender binaries will all find this workshop useful.



13.00–14.00 — GET ON THE BUS! TEAR DOWN THE FENCE! END IMMIGRATION DETENTION!

Link: For more information on the strike and detention of migrants in Canada, see www.endimmigrationdetention.com

Contact: nooneisillegal@riseup.net // migrantstrike@gmail.com

Central East Correctional Centre in (Lindsay)

Toronto bus leaves at 11am, returns 4:30pm; demo from 1pm-2pm

Get on the bus! Confirm your spot: www.endimmigrationdetention.com/2013/11/26/dec14/ (snacks available for people that aren’t fasting)

The fences that surround these detainees are dividing them from their communities, their families and their lives. It is time for these fences to come down.

UPDATE Call for 24hour solidarity fast with immigration detainees: In response to our call for a demonstration on the outside, immigration detainees in Lindsay will be initiating their own 24hr fast inside on December 14th, 2013. Because of this, we are now calling for a 24hr global solidarity fast to accompany the protest at Lindsay Jail.

Most countries in the world have a limit to how long they can hold someone in order to remove them, including the United States and the entire European Union. However, Canada is a rogue nation. Despite the United Nations directive stating that every country must have such a limit, Canada continues to hold migrants in jail for as long as ten years! Detainees are separated from their families, children and communities with no release in sight.

These people are serving time on administrative grounds, namely their removal. If they have convictions, they have served their time. Deporting people after they have done their time is double punishment. Unlike people being held until a criminal trial, or serving time once sentenced, these detainees do not know when they will be released and face a bail or release process where they have to prove that they should be released.

These detainees have said enough is enough. Release us after ninety days so we can return to our families, our jobs and communities. Many of the detainees stopped hunger striking (two remained on hunger strike for more than 60 days) after Canada Immigration placed strikers in the hole and removed organizers to other jails. However, the detainees remain defiant and plan further actions in the near future. They continue to demand that those in jail past 90 days be immediately removed, that they be moved to lower security facilities (at the CCEC they have a poor diet, little access to medical or legal or cultural specific services, little outdoor time and are on lockdown much of day) and that the entire adjudication process be overhauled. Over 2,000 people have signed a petition in support and multiple media reports detail abuse of the detainees.

Join us in a show of support and solidarity on Saturday December 14th. Bring your friends. Bring your families. Bring your voices.



13.00–15.00 — Sobriety as Accessibility: Interrogating Intoxication Panel Presentation & Discussion

Sally Horsfall Eaton Building (SHE), Room 560, Ryerson University (99 Gerrard St. E.) ASL interpretation booked; building is fully accessible with gender neutral accessible washrooms FREE – if you would like to make any financial contribution toward ASL, please email dreadhead.geoff@gmail.com

Alcoholism and addiction are primarily uncritically understood through the medical model. Intoxication culture is rarely interrogated for its role in producing the addict. Using a disability studies perspective and intersectional framework we will explore how people’s relationships to substances work to produce the addicted and non-addicted body. We will examine the construction of the addict as undesirable and disposable, the gendered construction of the addict and intoxication culture as a tool of colonization. Radical sobriety will be considered as a form of accessibility and resistance.

Most social events uncritically include alcohol consumption. Our work explores the construction of this intoxication culture and how it intersects with oppressive systems such as ableism, sexism and colonialism. We suggest that a dialogue about normative consumption, addiction and the intersections of intoxication culture and systems of oppression can strengthen our communities and aid in anarchist organizing.

Abstract: The Construction of the Addict As Undesirable and Disposable by geoff

A person’s relationship with a particular substance, in conjunction with their identity markers and social location work to govern how this person is treated and how they treat others. Within this relationship, the drug hierarchy and intoxication culture work to produce different constructions of the addict. In addition to this relationship, it is not just the substance the person uses that affects how they are perceived but also if they use this substance in a normal or abnormal way. The abnormal addicted body is undesired and considered to be a life not worth living.

Abstract: The Gendered Construction of Addiction by clementine morrigan

I am interested in exploring the gendered construction of addiction and alcoholism. I will consider how the intersections of sex and addiction as well as other positions such as race and class, work to construct particular people in particular ways. Female addicts and alcoholics are constructed in ways that differ from our/their male counterparts and these constructions have violent consequences in our/their lives. Some of the narratives attached to the female alcoholic/addict body that I will consider are: the perpetual sexual availability of the female alcoholic/addict’s body (she is asking for it), the female alcoholic/addict’s body as a place of inherent victimization (she is the kind of person that violence happens to) and the drunk/high woman as a transgressor of gendered boundaries (she is acting like a man). I will draw upon my own experience as a woman and an alcoholic/addict as well as critically analyzing the social construction of the female alcoholic/addict.

Abstract: Sobriety as Resistance-Colonialism and Conquest In Substance Use and Abuse by Amy Saunders

I wish to explore the utilization of drugs and alcohol as a tool of colonization within a widely normalized culture of intoxication. Furthermore, my interests lie in interrogating the temporal and spatial productions of addiction in order to reposition the inherent violence of settler colonialism. The idea of Radical Sobriety as resistance to intoxication culture, as well as a form of accessibility are expanded on through this segment and the panel discussion.

Biographies:

geoff is a rad queer anarchist that believes in creating communities of love and still dreams of smashing the state. he identifies as an addict in recovery. he wishes to politicize his experiences with substance use and sobriety while unravelling the limited representation of the addicted body. more of his work can be found at livingnotexisting.org

clementine morrigan is a writer, poet, essayist and multidisciplinary artist. after publishing zines for more than ten years, her first book, rupture, came out in 2012. her work frequently explores the experiences and intersections of alcoholism and addiction, gendered violence, trauma, madness, queer-feminist femme-genderfluid sexuality, healing and hope. she is passionate about queerness, feminism, do-it-yrself culture, skill sharing, subversion, spirituality, recovery and radical sobriety. more of her work can be found at clementinemorrigan.com

Amy Saunders is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, organizer and poet. Her work investigates multidimensional relationships between sex, sexuality, gender, colonialism, addiction, familial relations, feminism and public spaces. She has a blog that consists of selfies in public spaces. She aims to investigate, deconstruct and make uncomfortable the topics with which she works. Amy has an honours bachelor of Critical Sexualities and hopes to never return to the post secondary educational institution. She is currently writing for a Toronto based women’s website for which she is a journalist of the sexual variety. She is current working on a fictional piece entitled “Meet Me At The Waverly” which explores lineages of trauma and addiction. Her selfies can be found at akingdomofself.tumblr.com



18.00 — Book Launch for Who’s Afraid of the Black Blocs? + AFTERPARTY

Another Story Bookshop (315 Roncesvalles Ave); mainspace wheelchair accessible, washroom in basement but relationship with Alternative Grounds (333 Roncesvalles) for use of their accessible washroom FREE

Another Story Bookshop, Between the Lines Press and The Toronto Anarchist Fair Present: Toronto Book Launch for Who’s Afraid of the Black Blocs? Anarchy in Action Around the World by Francis Dupuis-Déri

Faces masked, dressed in black, and forcefully attacking the symbols of capitalism, Black Blocs have been transformed into an anti-globalization media spectacle. But the popular image of the window-smashing thug hides a complex reality.

Francis Dupuis-Déri outlines the origin of this phenomenon, its dynamics, and its goals, arguing that the use of violence always takes place in an ethical and strategic context.

Translated into English for the first time and completely revised and updated to include the most recent Black Bloc actions at protests in Brazil, Greece, Germany, Canada, and England, and the Bloc’s role in the Occupy movement and the Quebec student strike, Who’s Afraid of the Black Blocs? lays out a comprehensive view of the Black Bloc tactic and locates it within the anarchist tradition of direct action.

December 15

10.00–19.0 — Toronto Anarchist Fair’s Bookfair + Workshops

Link: http://torontoanarchistfair.noblogs.org/workshop2013/ Workshop descriptions Link: http://torontoanarchistfair.noblogs.org/tablers2013/ Tablers list

Ryerson Student Centre (55 Gould St)

FREE + FREE Vegan Lunch Provided; space is barrier free with accessible washrooms Workshop descriptions (+times) + Tablers list

10.00–19.00 — Mutual Aid Space for Caregivers + Child & Baby Drop-In Care + Workshops

Ryerson Student Centre (55 Gould St)

10.00–19.00 — Really Really Free Market

Ryerson Student Centre (55 Gould St)

A market where everything is free.

Bring stuff, and/or take stuff.

No money, no trade.

13.00 — Flash Mob Meditation

Meeting at the Water Fountain, Toronto Eaton Centre (Yonge/Dundas)

Tis the season for buying things we don’t really need in the hopes to find happiness. Lets bring stillness to the high church of consumerism, the Eaton center, and make this an annual tradition!

21.00 — Anarchist Fair AfterParty

Detour Bar (193 Baldwin St)

$5-10 or by donation

In association with unnamed badasses…

In partnership with general fucking-shit-uppery…

In alliance with the ‘whose streets’ soldiers worlwide..

And with the utmost love & respect for this stolen land…

R H Y M E T H i N K . P R O U D L Y . P R E S E N T S:

Featuring some of the region’s boomin’est beats, finest truth talking & dissident mic murking.

LEE REED

UNKNOWN MIZERY

L.S.

MOTHER TAREKA

ROSINA (LAL) Special Guests Big boom Bass/Dub AFTER-after-partAy

mixes by DJ KAOS & RUDEBOY BASS

Dancing gear & riot gear style code in effect!

LEE REED is a Hamilton O.G. and a veteran of the Kanadian Indie music scene. For nearly 20 years Reed has been stomping stages and studios, spewing his unique brand of fiery, anarcho-commie, anti-establishment rant hop. In the spirit of the genre’s pioneers, Reed writes rap that says stuff. Conscious. Political. Dissident. Bat shit radical. Hip Hop that pulls back the curtain and pisses on the power supply; a poetic rendering of our bloated mother earth eating culture and its rapid freefall into the gaping mouth of hell… and stuff like that. http://www.leereed.ca/

UNKNOWN MIZERY is a fire-breathing beast of an MC.. and bona fide Kanadian underground HipHop royalty. A founding member of the legendary Babylon Warchild crew, Stolen From Africa and the Empty Handed Warriors.. Miz has been in the game more years than you & your crew’s elders. His skill with the mic is rivalled only by his hustle with the pen & passion for the culture. With a catalogue of solo & collaboration work that stacks taller than an old oak… he has toured the globe, inspiring fists to lift and heads to nod… building connections with culture-defenders on every continent. All in. On beat. On point. On time. http://www.babylonwarchild.com/

L.S. is a conscious Hip Hop artist that has been actively involved musically, socially and environmentally for over a decade in various communities. Based out of Unity Market in Barrie he continues to initiate change in the community by means of music programs with at risk youth, community clean ups and numerous events creating social awareness. He has 2 solo albums touching on world issues, collaboration recordings and his 3rd studio album “I.M.U.N.U.M.I” will be released in early 2014. L.S. is also the curator of Unity Market, which is a recording studio, organic café, art gallery, and home of Back To Basics Social Developments. Unity Market is a hub in the community for music, arts, social and environmental initiatives and positive engagement. http://lshiphop.com/

MOTHER TAREKA builds Queer-Positive Radical Hip-Hop Freedom Music made for the anti-racism anti-homophobia anti-transphobia anti-sexism anarchist, and environmentalist movements. A soundtrack to the resistance! Based out of Hamilton, Turtle Island, you can catch the homie solo or performing with his 8-piece Radical Funk Soul Afrobeat influenced Hip-Hop band called Mother Tareka & The Greezy Steez http://mothertareka.bandcamp.com/