Community Makers with Access Alliance
Having agency towards our stories, making art from our memories
- Destinie Adélakun
In October 2023, we welcomed women from Access Alliance Multicultural Health and Community Services to join artist Destinie Adélakun for a series of workshops exploring themes of wellness by building confidence, engaging with community, and practicing self-love.
Destinie started off the first session outlining her own newcomer story, having been born in Lagos, Nigeria and raised in Nagpur, India before coming to Canada. The participants, all newcomers to Canada, shared their stories as well. Destinie introduced traditional Indian wood block printing inspired by her mother, and the women created their own block printed scarves by the end of the session. The next session focused on beading and embroidery techniques. During the last session, the women created quilt squares that are now part of the Square by Square Community Quilt that is an ongoing collaborative project for the duration of the exhibition, The Secret Codes.
Community Makers is supported by the Ruth Mandel WHOGives Fund, and PGF Directors Charity Fund.
Destinie Adélakun is an award-winning contemporary multi-disciplinary artist originally from the sun-kissed groves of West Africa and South India. Her work extends from photography to film, paintings, textiles and sculpture; which explore themes of pre-colonized West African and South-Asian history, mythology, and spirituality. Through researching her Yoruba ancestry Destinie analyses the connections between the Diasporic traditions and customs. In her work, Adélakun utilizes individuals as a personification of principles and ideas and re-illustrates African mythological tales. The New York Foundation for the Arts awarded Adélakun the Canadian Women Artist Award in 2020. Destinie Co-founded Behind the Arts collective – a not-for-profit organization formed to create mental-health awareness and arts programming within BIPOC and Immigrant communities.
Access Alliance provides services and advocates to improve health outcomes for immigrants, refugees, and their communities, which have been made vulnerable by systemic barriers and poverty. Access Alliance provides accessible, community-governed, inter-professional primary health care services, including health promotion, illness prevention and treatment, chronic disease management, and individual and community capacity building. Their goal is for all people who face barriers to good health to have access to high quality primary health care within an integrated system of care.
