The Queer History Panel
The Queer History Panel was created in 2020 as a way of gathering our communities' stories and lived experiences. As we move with this project we hope to continue the conversation with a new panel of activists, storytellers, community members, and change makers every year!
WATCH THE 2023 QUEER HISTORY PANEL
Sponsored by:
Our Panel
Carmel Tanaka (she/her) is the founder and executive director of JQT Vancouver, the curator of the BC Jewish Queer & Trans Oral History Project and the Jewpanese Project.
Carmel is a creator of written and video media content, and a dynamic speaker and panelist regular. She holds a Masters in Public Health, specializing in Emergency & Disaster Management from Tel Aviv University, and a Bachelor of Arts, specializing in Asian Language & Culture from the University of British Columbia.
Harmony Bongat (she/her) is a queer, pansexual, poly, sober, disabled, Filipino woman . Through LETS (Live Educate Transform Society), formerly Creating Accessible Neighbourhoods (CAN), Bongat began her current work as a disability justice advocate and educator, co-facilitating workshops on disability justice (the activism movement to combat ableism).
Harmony is also a researcher and co-facilitator of workshops on the Queer and Trans History of BC and Canada, including a newly developed Queer and Trans History Trivia Game, and has co-created two new workshops on Neurodiversity. She works in harm reduction as a Sober Buddy at drag and dance parties, providing safe sex and safe drug supplies and helping to ensure the spaces we occupy are safer for our queer and trans community.
Bongat was awarded the title of Beacon by our currently reigning Emprex Karmella Barr, for her allyship work within community spaces.
Nancy Lee (they/she) is a Taiwanese-Canadian interdisciplinary media artist, curator, DJ and cultural producer. Their work stimulates and enlivens space, making a provocative statement about how inescapably interconnected we are with our surroundings. This notion of choreography is a constant in Nancy’s work and underpins their projects, from their early work as a filmmaker, through their conception of live events, and into the realms of XR, new media performance and installation, where their art practice continues to coalesce and evolve.
Nancy co-founded CURRENT, an intersectional and multidisciplinary initiative featuring artistic and educational programming. Nancy’s interdisciplinary works have been presented at Cannes Film Festival, SXSW, MUTEK, Centre Phi, VIFF, Berlin International Film Festival, Vancouver International Jazz Festival, and more.
They are an XR instructor at IM4 Media Lab and artistic mentor at Festival of Recorded Movement. They also run a DIY studio in Vancouver Chinatown hosting cross-genre shows, workshops and residencies. As a Sundance Institute New Frontier Alumni, Nancy is participating in the Satosphere dome theatre residency at Society of Arts and Technology in Montreal with Kiran Bhumber for their speculative sci-fi project “UNION”.
Originally from Montreal, Vanessa Colantonio (she/her) has lived in Vancouver since 1995. A librarian for over 25 years as well as a writer, she is a trans woman of both Caribbean and Italian ancestry.
Outside of her career, Vanessa has, over the years, volunteered with CiTR Radio at UBC, a community garden society in East Vancouver and (currently) with Vancouver Black Library.
Our Moderator
fanny kearse (they/them) in an act of rebellion, fanny walked away from nearly a decade as a social worker and headed west to pursue lifelong dreams. fanny fuses their experience as a social worker and lived experiences as a marginalized human to express their artivism through means of poetry, storytelling and community advocacy.
In 2021 fanny won the Harold Green theatre monologue competition. They sit on the Curtain Razors arts board and facilitate literary arts workshops with students across lower mainland B.C. Their first book, umi's prayer was released June 2023. fanny is a Black, Sapphic, Jewish settler working towards land & relational justice.
Past Events
Watch previous years’ conversations with different groups of panelists sharing their stories