ARTISTS FOR THE CLIMATE & MIGRANT JUSTICE AND INDIGENOUS SOVEREIGNTY (ACMJIS)

ACMJIS started on Mayday of 2019, when dozens of artist-activists gathered in downtown Toronto to build relationships & think through how they might use their art practices to fight for a liveable future.

We have remained a group that supports independent radical artists and collectives in Toronto to pursue transformative political projects. Some highlights from the last 7 years:

• One of our first projects was the building and operating of Piper the Pipeline Puppet, which was featured at many Climate Strikes, and climate-focused rallys over the years.

• In late 2019, we hosted #takebackTPL, an action featuring a live reading of poetry by trans artists outside the Palmerston branch of the Toronto Public Library to protest a book launch event that spotlighted transphobic speakers.

• During the COVID lockdowns of 2019, we partnered with Maggie’s Toronto to turn our own living rooms into life drawing workshops, with the series Stripper Life Drawing.

• In 2023, we hosted All Good Things Must Being, a climate cabaret, featuring short plays from Climate Change Action Theatre’s global festival of short plays focusing on visionary futures in the midst of the climate crisis.

• And in 2024, we put together the ACMJIS Summer School: Land Defence is the Best Offence, featuring three workshops over the summer that each paired a workshop learning about land defence with an artistic practice that responded to it.