Tag: language of love

Looking at Intersections in the Creation of our Logo

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Love Intersections
In releasing our new logo, we also thought it would be a good idea to share the story behind the logo – because there is great story behind it!

When we came up with the idea to do a blog about race, one of the things that was really important to us, was language and writing.  The brush stroke style typography is an ode to our Chinese and Taiwanese ancestry – and the journey that we have gone through in our own lives in engaging with our racial identities.

For me, when I was growing up in South Vancouver, I remember trying to be “more white”…because there was pressure from the community around me to not “behave like an immigrant”.  It wasn’t until later on when I was in university where I had this desire to know my background, and eventually I really embraced my Chinese heritage – including, learning to do calligraphy.

One night a few months ago, over a bottle of wine, Jen and I were looking at some of the calligraphy I had been working on, and realized that the Chinese character for “heart” (心), has elements of the letter “L”, which would add a beautiful and relevant symbol to the logo – an intersection of language and culture, rooted in our hearts.

So there you have it: a logo that is an intersection of an intersection, of intersections! 🙂

In love and solidarity,

David Ng

Love Intersections: The Philosophy, The Love!

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Check out our new trailer!

Jen, one of the co-founders of Love Intersections talks about the philosophy behind Love Intersections – the project itself, an intersection of art, activism, and love.

Love Intersections: Art as an Expression of Our Activism from David Ng on Vimeo.

Reaching Across

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One of the reasons we decided to put together this blog was to embark on a journey to discover ways that we can “do” transformation, with the idea that social change happens best through solidarity, building community, and sharing stories. Making efforts to do our work through a language of love and solidarity, has allowed me to consider ways I can texturize and nuance the approach to the anti-oppression work that I hope to do.

The past year has shifted my lens in the work that I do – especially coming from a place where, as an activist, I felt I was doing transformative work, solely through “calling out” oppression, and organizing against ‘oppressive systems’.  A few months ago, I started working for a theatre company, that uses the ‘language’ of theatre to dialogue with community  about social issues.  One of the approaches that we have is to truly honour people’s stories – including those who we believe are ‘being oppressive’ – and to acknowledge that we are all members of communities.

While my “anti-O” training gave me a lens to critique and analyze power and oppression, often times I find it is easy to use the tools of “critique” to make quick categorizations, and to “Other” people who I believe are in opposition to me – especially people who exercise oppressive power.

One of the things that has been a great learning for me in my new job is this idea of “humanizing” people that I may construct in my head as “the opposition” or “the enemy”.  While I may not intentionally “dehumanize” people, it’s easy to make judgements and categorize people who we view as “the problem”, because it’s easier for us to process them in our understanding of how “the system” works.  For example, when someone is homophobic towards me, it’s easier to categorize them as an ignorant, patriarchal, homophobic asshole – than it is to actually look at them as people from my community.

Even though I may disagree with homophobic people, when I begin to see them not just as two dimensional “homophobic persons”, but rather, when I begin to see them as brothers, as fathers, as cousins, as sisters – as people with struggles – it allows space for us to have a moment of understanding, and perhaps an opportunity for dialogue.

I’m learning that you can’t change peoples actions by proving them wrong – but by honouring their stories, we demonstrate our own willingness to affect social change through building solidarity.  And, of course, smothering them with love 🙂

In love and solidarity,

David Ng