tend, tender, tend to
A virtual artist talks series with artists-organizers-advocates in & beyond “Vancouver, BC”
February — March 2026
tend, tender, tend to is an artist talks series highlighting the work of "Vancouver, BC" artists who are jointly organizers and advocates in various local community initiatives. Their work is rooted in an ethics of community care and mutual aid, vocally fighting oppression in all its forms at home and away.
We honour the connective work that these artists do as caregivers in their families and communities, as well as caretakers of the lands, waters, and air all around us. Every crisis we are facing together is intimately connected and this project carves out space to share and learn about the intersections between artistic practices and the work of collective liberation and justice.
This series takes place on Zoom and is entirely virtual, in order to prioritize accessibility and health, and to help minimize barriers to participation. It is free and open to everyone, everywhere.
Artist talks will be recorded and available on this page at a future date.
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This project has been made possible by the Future Arts Network and the Government of Canada. Our gratitude to FAN for facilitating project funding and administrative support.
Guest Speakers:
✽ Gal Lee
Friday, February 6, 2026 | 7-8 pm
A recording of this talk will be shared soon.
✽ Jane Shi
Sunday, March 1, 2026 | 12-1 pm
✽ Whess Harman
Friday, March 13, 2026 | 7-8 pm
✽ Sarah Shamash
Sunday, March 15, 2026 | 12-1 pm
✽ Amal Ishaque
Saturday, March 1, 2026 | 12-1 pm
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Listed times are Pacific Standard Time for Vancouver, Canada.
If ASL interpretation is required, please contact Clare (unitedaunties@gmail.com) for support a minimum of 2 weeks in advance.
SPEAKER BIOS
Gal Lee
Gal 敏怡 (they/she) is a queer, fourth-generation Chinese settler living in so-called Vancouver, with deep familial roots in their local Chinatown. They are a visual artist, tattooer, and community organizer whose work centres art as a tool for advocacy, awareness-building, and mindful solidarity.
They are a co-founder of Chinatown Together, a non-profit organization dedicated to resisting gentrification through arts-based organizing, destigmatizing the neighbourhood, and practicing mutual aid. Gal’s work is grounded in a belief in diversity, autonomy, and collective care, and guided by the principle: “Come as you are, act with care, and we’ll learn our way through the rest.”
Photo credit: Rémi Landry Yuan
Jane Shi
Jane Shi is a poet, writer, and organizer living on the occupied, stolen, and unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səlil̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples. She is the author of the chapbook Leaving Chang’e on Read (Rahila’s Ghost Press, 2022) and the winner of The Capilano Review’s 2022 In(ter)ventions in the Archive Contest. Her essays and poems can also be found in Read This When Things Fall Apart (AK Press, 2025), We Are Each Other’s Liberation: Black and Asian Feminist Solidarities (Haymarket Books, 2025), Queer Little Nightmares: An Anthology of Monstrous Fiction and Poetry (Arsenal Pulp Press), the Disability Visibility Project blog, The Offing, and Seventh Wave, among others. Her debut poetry collection echolalia echolalia (Brick Books, 2024) was shortlisted for the Raymond Souster Award. She wants to live in a world where love is not a limited resource, land is not mined, hearts are not filched, and bodies are not violated.
Photo credit: Joy Gyamfi
Whess Harman
Whess Harman is a member of the Carrier Wit’at Nation, a nation amalgamated by the federal government under the Lake Babine Nation and currently resides on the traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh peoples. He doesn’t like cops and believes in land sovereignty for Indigenous peoples all across the globe, including Palestine. In his arts practice he works primarily in drawing, text and textiles. As an independent curator and occasional editor and contributor to a variety of small publication projects, he prioritizes emerging queer and BIPOC cultural workers and artists.
While working through many mediums, Whess is often working with ideas of resistance, and from the foundation of his identity as a queer, trans member of Carrier Wit’at nation living away from his territories. He considers his Indigeneity to be both a cultural and spiritual reality, as well as a political identity. He’s most interested in finding paths to liberated futures alongside the many who share rage and despair in the face of the seemingly unrelenting shit-storm of empire.
Sarah Shamash
Sarah Shamash is an artist, scholar, educator, and film programmer. Her artworks comprise the use of media in a wide variety of formats including film, installation, documentary, photography, sound, performance, and video. She is a member of the from the river to the sea collective, a collective of media artists who came together to hold screenings/discussions in solidarity with Palestine. Her work as an artist, researcher, educator, and programmer can be understood as interconnected and whole; they all revolve around a passion for cinema as a pluriversal art. She lives and parents on the stolen and ancestral territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil Waututh Nations.
Photo credit: Patryk Tom
Amal Ishaque
Amal Ishaque is a multidisciplinary artist, Pushcart nominated poet and award-winning educator living on unceded xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish), and səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) territories. Their writing has been published in various literary journals and anthologies including SWANA Dykes (Sinister Wisdom, forthcoming Fall 2026), Queer and Muslim: On Faith, Family and Healing (University of Regina Press), The World that Belongs to Us: An Anthology of Queer Poetry from South Asia (Random House India), Writing the Walls Down: A Convergence of LGBTQ Voices (Trans Genre Press), Completely Mixed Up: Mixed Heritage Asian North American Writing and Art (Rabbit Fool Press) and more.
Resistance art has been central in Amal’s organizing. Their art practice moves across disciplines, visioning liberatory collective futures. Recent projects include a three-year arts residency about housing justice and a large-scale public art piece highlighting racialized histories and interconnected futures.
Amal has been organizing at the intersecting frontlines of Palestine solidarity, disability justice and anti-pinkwashing resistance for over two decades, along with involvement in multiple other movements. They are a co-founder of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QUAIA) and Marpole Mutual Aid Network (MMAN).
tend, tender, tend
to look after; watch over and care for /
to be disposed or inclined in action to do something /
soft or delicate in substance or quality /
apply one’s attention