To Be Continued: Troubling the Archive, a podcast by the Carleton University Art Gallery (CUAG) presenting LGBT+ and BIPOC artists, returned this January for its third season.
The podcast focuses on engaging with Ottawa-based LGBT+ and BIPOC artists and activists who have worked toward building a thriving and inclusive community, according to Anna Shah Hoque. Hoque is host of the podcast and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council doctoral candidate at the Institute of Feminist & Gender Studies at the University of Ottawa.
“This podcast series [has been created for listeners to] experience different forms of intimacy by hearing people tell their stories of how they found themselves and made connections with other people,” Hoque said.
Guest producer Keegan Prempeh said they were inspired to contribute to the podcast to help foster an inclusive community in Ottawa. Prempeh also works as the Trans and Non-Binary Inclusion Coordinator in the Department of Equity and Inclusive Communities at Carleton University.
“I really wanted to focus on talking about … Black queer transness in art because for so long I felt so apart … I felt super alienated, I didn’t see myself reflected in a lot of media.” Prempeh said.
Prempeh emphasized the importance of promoting artistic spaces so individuals can feel safe and accepted when coming to a new city.
“For me, it was also about taking that leap of faith [and] choosing to believe in the possibility of inclusion for myself. For so long I told myself I could never belong, but I had to switch up that thinking,” they said. “I will never know if I belong in [these] spaces unless I try, unless I reach out … and thankfully I was able to find good people.”
Another of the show’s guest producers Kole Peplinskie, an Indigiqueer activist and artist, said a podcast of this nature is important to many underrepresented voices.
“A lot of the time our stories aren’t being told by ourselves—they are being told through a lens of someone else seeing you and that can be hard when we are all internalized with this lens that sees Indigenous people through a colonial lens,” Peplinskie said. “Being able to be in control of telling your own story and being able to rewrite that narrative feels like taking back some of that power that has been taken away from us or held over us.”
To Be Continued: Troubling the Archive will release new episodes every second Monday on all podcast platforms.
In a previous version of this article, Keegan Prempeh was misgendered. The Charlatan regrets the error.
Featured graphic by Hunter Dewache.
