Shaista Latif

Shaista Latif is a Queer Afghan-Canadian multidisciplinary artist, consultant and facilitator. Her works and collaborations have been presented by Koffler Gallery, Ontario Scene Festival, SummerWorks, Why Not Theatre, Blackwood Gallery, Mercer Union, the AGO, Halifax Queer Acts Festival, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre and recently the Undercurrents Festival. She is a published playwright (Playwrights Canada Press) and voiced the character Soraya in the Oscar-nominated film The Breadwinner. In 2020, Latif will be touring her critically acclaimed show The Archivist around Ontario. Her latest work Learning the Language of My Enemies was recently presented in conjunction with Nevet Yitzhak: WarCraft at the Koffler Gallery. Twitter: @shaista_latif Instagram: shaistalatifmakes How I Learned to Serve Tea A participatory workshop on the politics of capacity and resource sharing, How I Learned to Serve Tea explores dynamics of power through acts of hospitality with artist-facilitator Shaista Latif. “Assessing the language of invitation and hosting, and how it translates into action is how I learned to serve tea. A hyphenated existence, my life is my work, my work is my life. Some people can categorize and separate but those of us who are marginalized can’t afford to do so. Sometimes I wonder if our work has had to evolve into critical interrogation out of necessity? If we lived in a decolonized world what would we be making? Who would we be serving? I think we are all capable and deserving of knowing and living ourselves into these answers. This workshop invites participants to reflect and confront on who gets to have a seat at the table.” – Shaista Latif Tickets: http://progressfestival.org/programming/how-i-learned-to-serve-tea