Grief in the Open – A Community Panel and Workshop
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Venue
Presented by
Bella Luna Zúñiga is an Indigenous Chilean Canadian performance artist whose work explores loss, grief, and collective healing. For nearly eighteen years, she has created art and safe spaces where children facing trauma can find imagination and refuge. Her performances often weave ritual, memory, and storytelling to transform personal pain into communal connection. Guided by the belief that art can hold what language cannot, Luna continues to explore how grief, when shared, becomes a form of resistance and repair.
Joy Chadya is a twentieth century social historian whose interests are on Africa in general, but Southern Africa in particular. She is interested in transnational histories of liberation struggles, cross-border migration of labor in the Southern African region; women and urbanization; the shifting practices in the Zimbabwean deathscape since the inception of colonial rule and African diaspora experiences and linkages with the homeland.
Justin Monton (he/they/siya) is a queer, trans-nonbinary, first-generation immigrant, Filipino occupational therapist who carries a deep love for art and community. In their work within personal care homes and in their profession, they accompany people living with dementia and their networks, learning daily about connection, creativity, and the many ways care can take shape. Justin’s approach is shaped by evidence-informed, and a variety of ways of being and becoming, where rituals, art-making, and everyday acts of care become ways to honor life and sustain relationships. They see grief not only in endings, but also in the quiet transitions of aging and caregiving—moments where creativity and compassion help keep stories alive.
Gillian Crawford (she/they) is a self-described creative and grief walker of Métis and settler ancestry, living on Treaty One Territory. She is the creator of The Connection Desk, a small participatory public art installation in Winnipeg’s North End exploring grief and inviting meaningful engagement. Her eclectic work spans mediums, including poetry often deeply rooted in place, exploring identity and uncovering the sacred in everyday life. Since the death of her father in 2024, she has been working to transmute a grief larger than her physical form into art, connection, and community, meeting herself anew along the way and discovering what each evolving self has to offer the world.
In Partnership With
You want to create, you want to move ‘forward’, you want to be a a part of community, but you feel lost in grief. As though no one else can comprehend the weight of loss or remembrance. But we do. We just don’t talk about it. We have all experienced a seemingly immovable grief that we don’t realize can be a uniting force, a catalyst for change, for community healing, for creation, and connection.
We invite you to join our discussion on grief, where community members and experts will reflect on how our society expects us to carry sorrow in silence. Together, we will explore the power of grieving collectively, an ancient practice in many cultures, and invite you to bring your own grief into this shared space of remembrance.
Grief is not something you move on from, it is something you move with. Our hope is that you will leave this space feeling empowered, and refreshed with purpose and peace
We will have a quiet space available during the day for those who need time to reflect.
Format: Panel conversation + guided discussion + Q&A + collaborative art ritual. This workshop is FREE to attend but you must register in advance.
Schedule & Flow
2 – 2:15 PM * Arrival, Land Acknowledgment, Grounding, and Welcome
Create a safe, inclusive space. Light breathwork or grounding exercise. Set collective intentions.
2:15 – 3 PM * Panel Discussion: Rethinking Grief
Explore how grief is handled differently across cultures. Challenge Western ideals of silence and isolation. Highlight the importance of communal witnessing.
3 – 3:30 PM * Q&A with Panelists
Attendees ask questions, seek guidance, or share reflections. Health professionals address psychological aspects, while the artist explores creative responses to grief.
3:30 – 4:30 PM * Collaborative Art Ritual (30 min)
Participants engage in a shared creative act to externalize grief and transform it into something visible and communal.
4:30 – 4:45 PM * Closing Circle and Reflection
Collective moment to honour what was shared. Reflection on the meaning of the art piece and the power of shared grief.
Presented with the generous support of the Winnipeg Arts Council
Facilitated by Hee-Jung Serenity Joo
Hee-Jung Serenity Joo is a professor in the department of English, Theatre, Film & Media at the University of Manitoba. Her research and teaching interests include science fiction by writers of color, queer theory, and abolition. She has organized locally with Queer and Trans People of Color (QTPOC Winnipeg), Prairie Asian Organizers! (PAO!), and Prison Libraries Committee (PLC). She was born in South Korea and has deep ties to Louisiana.
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