Future Diaporas
Take a look at a selection of our recent projects, crafted with care and designed to make an impact. Each one tells a story of creativity, collaboration, and results.
The stories disentangle the shifting challenges, needs, desires and future possibilities of cultural spaces in this unaffordable landscape. Two visions, each with three actionable recommendations, provide generative ideas for building supportive systems and making space for generations to come.
Overall, Future Diasporas calls for a cultural shift that is centered on understanding the past, building collective agency in the present, and re-imagining the future diasporas.
Future Diasporas is a bestseller at Issues Magazine Shop! You can find us at Art Metropole, the Spacing Store, Another Story Bookstore, or contact Alycia to purchase the issue. Fewer than 30 copies of 300 are left, and this issue will not be reprinted.
Future Diasporas: Culture, Art, Identity, Space
Author-Creator: Alycia Shanika Contributing Artists:
Bianca Weeko Martin
CC (Cat) Calica,
Hima Batavia,
Jana Ghalayini,
Miru Yogarajah,
Philip Leonard Ocampo,
Tamara “Solem” Al-Issa,
& Waard Ward
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“Future Diasporas was a four-year qualitative research project that began during my time at the MSc in Planning program at U of T. My thematic inspiration came from events I held in 2019 with collaborators based in Vancouver through our collective, ArtLink. And the work grew from the conversations I had with each of the contributing artists, who really informed every bit of how Future Diasporas took shape…
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An early 150-page unedited edition of Future Diasporas was first featured as part of Zine Shine at Issues Magazine Shop in Summer 2023 (shout out to Issues!) Copies sold out within the week, and the level of interest really prompted me to finalize the book.
So, what started as a zine was turned into a perfectly-bound body of work, part magazine, part academic research, part art-book, part practical community-rooted resource.
As I worked towards the official release, support and interest grew more, and we ended up printing 300 copies, which have been gradually released since November 2024. Now there’s only a box left.
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In fall 2024, the community-based visions and policy recommendations I developed from conversations and interviews with the 8 contributing artists were shared with staff at the City of Toronto and Monumental as input to inform the 10-year Culture Action Plan. (We actually had a real impact on policy…how cool is that?!)
The Nov 2024 book release doubled as an exhibition-performance-gathering for the community around this work. I am grateful to everyone who made this work what it is and blessed to have received such positive interest from the community.
Alycia Shanika’s publication, Future Diasporas: Culture, Art, Identity, Space & Toronto’s Unaffordable Urban Landscape, celebrates the stories of racialized diasporic artists as they reconcile with their past, negotiate the present amid Tkaronto/ Toronto’s unaffordable urban landscape, and make space for just and flourishing futures.
Featuring conversations and artwork by eight racialized diasporic artists, Future Diasporas shares artists' stories about their diasporic identities, ancestral histories, commemorative art practices, migratory patterns, and displacement.
The artists also share stories about their experiences in Toronto—from facing institutional racism and tokenism, to precarious gigs, and displacement from community cultural spaces such as 888 Dupont, 187 Augusta, and Hearth.