Seasonal Birds 0:00 *Clip of Seasonal Birds* Unknown Speaker 0:05 this is what's art. I'm Parker Theis. Today I will be speaking with two young artists in the Greater Toronto Area who have started an art collective focused on giving a platform to minority artists. I sat down with these women at cafes and Kensington Market to get a better idea of the work they've been doing. According to their website, Ruckus Women is a Toronto based art collective with the goal of facilitating the decolonization of creation. They aim to do so by creating a sense of community among marginalized artists. Maia 0:43 I'm Maya Taruc Pilling, and I'm the founder and a co director of Ruckus women. So in elementary school, I did choir every year, and toward the end of it elementary school, my music teacher, God bless her. And she was encouraging me to sing in front of people and and do solos in choir. And then I was starting to think like, Oh, I think I'm actually like good at this. Not only do I like it, but it's something that people enjoy hearing me do as well. So it's always been just kind of finding ways to be involved in music, even if it's not what I'm studying, I knew that there would always be a way to have it in my life. Parker 1:27 Maya is in the process of completing her major in critical studies in equity and solidarity at University of Toronto. She also minors in sexual diversity studies and Spanish. Maia 1:40 Creating by yourself, creation is not like creativity is not a one man thing or one woman thing. It's, it's, I believe it is meant to be shared with others, especially for like music that's meant to be listened to and to be performed. But especially within activism, as well, in, in my studies, at U of T, there's been a lot of emphasis on community, and the decolonial aspect of like, reaching out to your people and existing within a community because it's not just you, it's not just you and like one partner or you and one friend, it's you exist within the context of the world. And the more that we are united and exist within the same space and acknowledge each other in this space. I think the better we can treat each other and the better we can fight against the powers that actively try to put us down because there's no way you can do that. On your lonesome God takes a takes a village it was honestly an accident that like raucous woman happened. Because it originally started as a joke. It was literally a bit with my friend Sean, who I write music with. And I was explaining the concept behind this song just about like, women who make their voices heard. And Sean was like, it'd be really sick if we got a lot of female vocal harmonies, because it's like a lot of women's voices on the song. I was like, that's that's really sick. I was like, oh, it's about making a ruckus. And he's like, we know a lot of ruckus women, I was like ruckus women is so funny. That sounds like it sounds like a trio of singers singing for the troops like overseas like, give it up for the raucous woman boys will be home by Christmas. And on my private story on Instagram. I was like who wants to join ruckus woman, we're going to be an experimental group that subverts capitalism and colonialism as a joke, and then all of my friends because I've sick as friends, like so many of them were like, I want to be a part of that. And I was like, Wait, what if I actually made this thing? Parker 3:58 The next artist I spoke to was lamya Abraham. Lamya 4:02 My name Lamya Abraham, I'm an artist and I work with an art collective called Ruckus Women. The collective Ruckus Women. It existed before I knew about it. And I, I knew collectives were a thing. I've heard about them. But I met Maya who's the founder, and we were talking about it, and we wanted to do something together. And it's just like, made sense for me to join because I like agree with their causes. And what we want to see in the art scene, you know, we promote artists from like marginalized communities because a lot of the times the people that we see performing or showing their work are like, straight white people, and that's fine, but we want to represent more people who are not identifying with those terms and don't have as many opportunities Maia 5:00 Really its Lamya and I talking mainly back and forth. But we've got so much that we have more help than we need at our fingertips. And that's something I've learned within this process is like to ask for help is not a weakness. It's a strength. And it's tough to trust others with that, but people pull through so relinquishing that control for a bit and saying, You know what, if this is a collective, maybe you can do this part, and then I'll stay with that. And then it gets done twice as fast and even better than I could have ever done it. So it's been a learning process in that way. Parker 5:41 Together, Maya and lumea hosted ruckus, women's first live event, ruckus won the rise of ruckus. On September 10 2022. I asked them what they thought of the event Lamya 5:55 It was our first ticketed one that was like in a venue. So like our biggest one, but not our last. I've done some events before. So it wasn't my my first event. But it was also my like, largest event that I've ever, like, helped organize. And tickets are so much to think about. But other than that, it was honestly like, quite easy. We just like met every week and made a list of all the things that we had to do for that week, got them done. And we had an event in a couple months, we like fundraise for it too. So since it was like, we don't want to pay out of pocket since it was a community thing. And we're not trying to do a for profit. So we fundraise to have at an event. So like the community also came together in a way to make that event possible. Maia 6:47 So this was in the transac in the main hall. A really nice big stage right at the front. And along the sides. There were a vendors bar beside the door. But it was an all ages event. And we'd like to keep it all ages, we'll just do a little like a Id check or whatever. Or we've got like a way to designate who can do what exceeded all of my expectations that will go down as like hands down best night of 2022. The year is not even over yet. And I know that was the best night of the year, maybe even on my life, because it exceeded everything that I thought could have happened. We sold out our tickets, and then some. And everybody who was there made the the energy in this space just feel really honestly like community. I had never marched before, until I hosted an event where a mosh pit happened. And that was the safest I've ever felt to like actually Mosh and I wasn't worried about anything. I just enjoyed myself the whole time, there are these photos, when the mosh pit broke out and like I look horrible. The joy is like unmatched. Everybody was on the same wavelength that night. And my family came on and families of the artists who were there came out. So it was wonderful to just see everybody joined together to experience this art all in one space. That's really more about like talking with people and experiencing the art. So the space was really, there's a lot going on. There's a lot going on, but you can pick and choose where to be there are enough spaces in there to have an opportunity to Okay, I'm going to go up and look at the vendors now or you know what, I'm going to dance on the dance floor a little bit or I got to step out I'm going to go towards the back have a glass of water like there are options for ways to exist in the space which was really nice for me personally, so I can imagine that other people enjoyed that freedom to choose. January 14 is ruckus two the return of raucous thought Parker 9:11 thank you so much for talking to me today. Lamya 9:13 Thank you for talking to me. Maia 9:15 Thank you for having me. Parker 9:19 To find out more information on ruckus two or to connect with the collective contact them through Instagram at ruckus women, for what's art. This has been Parker Theis, thank you for listening. Seasonal Birds 9:34 *Clip of Seasonal Birds* Transcribed by https://otter.ai