It’s the last episode of our second season! Sedina Fiati and Catherine Hernandez join hosts Ty Sloane and Bear Bergman for an insightful conversation about equity, leadership, accountability, and change in cultural institutions and how we as individuals can hold space for conflict and difficult conversations. The discussion highlights a lot of organizations, programs, and resources – if you want to learn more, we’ve linked to some of them, below.
About our guests
Sedina Fiati is a Toronto based performer, producer, director, creator and activist for stage and screen. Proudly Black and queer, Sedina is deeply invested in artistic work that explores the intersection between art and activism, either in form or structure or ideally both. Sedina is the current Artist-Activist in Residence at Nightwood Theatre, Training Consultant with Generator for the Artist Producer Training Program and is a principal with BIPOC Executive Search. Upcoming projects: Switching Queen(s) (devised street performance), Last Dance (a web series).
photo by Robert Obumselu
Catherine Hernandez is an award-winning author. Her first novel, Scarborough, won the Jim Wong-Chu Award for the unpublished manuscript; was a finalist for the Toronto Book Awards, the Evergreen Forest of Reading Award, the Edmund White Award, and the Trillium Book Award; and was longlisted for Canada Reads. She has written the critically acclaimed plays Singkil, The Femme Playlist and Eating with Lola and the children’s books M Is for Mustache: A Pride ABC Book and I Promise. She recently wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation of Scarborough, which is currently in post-production by Compy Films with support from Telefilm Canada and Reel Asian Film Festival.
She is the creator of Audible Original’s audio sketch comedy series Imminent Disaster. Her second novel, Crosshairs, published simultaneously in Canada and the US and the UK this spring, made the CBC’s Best Canadian Fiction, NOW Magazine’s 10 Best Books, Indigo Best Book, Audible Best Audiobooks and NBC 20 Best LGBTQ Books list of 2020. Her third children’s book, Where Do Your Feelings Live? which is a guide for kids living through these scary times, has been commissioned by HarperCollins Canada and will be published in winter 2022.
photo by Marko Kovacevic
Further Reading
Here are links to some of the programs and organizations referred to in the episode.
- artEquity’s web series, Talking Back, featuring leaders in the U.S. theatre sector
- b current performing arts (plus, read Catherine’s note upon stepping down as artistic director)
- BIPOC Executive Search
- The Black Pledge
- Generator‘s Artist Producer Training Program
Listen, subscribe, and share!
Read the full episode transcript here (coming soon), and find the episode (and subscribe to the podcast) on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher.
Intro and outro by leZlie lee kam and Ty Sloane, featuring music by Jessie Tollefsen. Sound editing by Em Lubbers, with support from Maddie Bautista. Podcast logo by Paul Dotey.
The Youth/Elders Podcast features personal stories, lived histories, and candid conversations between queer youth, queer elders, and lots of folks in between – for more information and to sign up for podcast updates, visit the podcast’s homepage.
