IGNITE!
Thursday, July 16th, 2026
Waterfront Theatre
1412 Cartwright St
Vancouver
BC V6H 3R7
Doors: 8:00pm
Show: 8:30pm
Accessibility Information:
For information about seating, parking, washrooms, and other accessibility
information see Waterfront
Accessibility Page.
IGNITE! weaves together a dynamic assemblage of five emerging artists for an inspiring Pecha Kucha–style evening. Lightning round presentations explore how memory, migration or resistance shape contemporary diasporic artistic practices. Uplifting us through the evening is Arthur Flowers, Memphis-born storyteller, novelist and musician, alongside celebrated community organizer Jorge Amigo as our emcee.
Look forward to presentations from:
Mahi Kaur, transdisciplinary artist and painter, who will speak about self portraiture/selfies and the weaponization of the phone camera
Cassandra Myers, poet, performer, dancer, illustrator, and counselor, who will present “BECOMING THE SOUTH ASIAN MERMAID YOU WANT TO SEE IN THE WORLD: A Pecha Kucha Poem”
Jenny Garcha, spoken word artist and cultural organizer who will discuss their journey as an emerging writer and their plans to launch and host a literary festival in New Westminster in 2027
Nhylar, curator and poet
Tawahum Bige, spoken word poet
Brandon Wint, spoken word artist
Across disciplines, artists meditate and riff on classical forms and fractured futures. IGNITE! invites audiences to share a glimpse of the next wave of BIPOC artists carving out brave new spaces of original artistic expression.
MAJOR PARTNER
about the artists
arthur flowers
Arthur Rickydoc Flowers, native of Memphis, is the author of novels, creative nonfictions, and graphic collaborations with Indian artists, including I See the Promised Land and Brer Rabbit Retold from Tara Books, Chennai. He has been Exec. Dir. of The Harlem Writers Guild and various nonprofits.
He is a professor, emeritus, Syracuse University, and a practitioner of Literary Hoodoo. The High Hoodoo of Memphis. A performance artist in the griotic school of African American literature – Welcome to the Traveling Medicine Show. Whatever ails you I will cure it for sure. If I can’t cure you, I will ease your troubled mind.
cassandra myers
Cassandra Myers (My’z) (they/she/he) is an award winning poet, performer, dancer, illustrator, and counselor from Tkaronto, Ontario. As a queer, non-binary, South-Asian-Italian, disabled survivor of sexual violence, Cassandra’s work has won multiple national literary and spoken word titles including the National Magazine GOLD Award in Poetry and Champion of the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word. Find them @cass.myers.poetry or at cassmyers.com
Brandon wint
Brandon Wint is an Ontario-born poet, spoken word artist, educator and filmmaker based in Vancouver. For more than a decade, Brandon has been a sought-after touring performance poet, having shared his work all over Canada, and internationally at festivals and showcases in the United States, Australia, Jamaica, Latvia and Lithuania. Brandon Wint's poems and essays have been published in The Ex Puritan, Event Magazine, Arc Poetry Magazine, and Black Writers Matter, among other places. Divine Animal (Write Bloody North, 2020) is his debut collection of poetry. In recent years, his films have screened at DOXA documentary film festival and Reelworld Film Festival and Vancouver International Film Festival Centre.
mahi kaur
Mahi Kaur is a Punjabi Canadian transdisciplinary artist from Vancouver, British Columbia and has been living in Halifax for three years while attending NSCAD University for her bachelors in fine art, majoring in interdisciplinary arts, with a core focus on visual arts through painting, photography, film, and screenprinting. Mahi is an immigrant from Punjab who moved to British Columbia in her early youth. Much of Mahi’s work threads from her experience as a fourth culture kid, having grown up in-between the realms of an immigrant and “first generation” Indo-Canadian. She wore a Sikh turban throughout her youth, and was more than often the only Sikh female wearing a turban amongst her peers, and this early exposure to androgyny led to her reclamation of queerness through her Punjabi and Sikh culture. Mahi’s work continuously seeks to make the paradoxes of her multiple radical identities meet. She enjoys playing with asymmetric compositions and bold colours, and the marrying of sharp angles and curves within repetition. Mahi’s art centres itself around women and the Earth.
jenny garcha
Jenny Garcha is a spoken word artist, poet, and writer based in British Columbia whose work moves between poetry, personal narrative, and short fiction. Drawn to live literary performance and community-based writing spaces, she regularly performs with Tri Cities Poetry and Death Rides A Unicorn Society. Her work has appeared in chapbooks, magazines, and local publications, and she has participated in the TD Emerging Writers Mentorship Program through the Federation of British Columbia Writers. Through both performance and community arts involvement, Jenny aims to create work that feels honest, human, and open to connection.
jorge amigo
Jorge Amigo grew up in Mexico City and has lived in Canada since 2007. He is Head of Cultural Programming for the Vancouver Public Library (since 2020). He previously worked at the Toronto Public Library and Canada’s National Observer. Jorge has served on the boards of the PuSh Festival and as a programming advisor for the Vancouver Latin American Cultural Centre. He is currently on the boards of Indian Summer Arts Society, Upstart & Crow, and Electric Theatre Company. Jorge also sits on the City of Vancouver’s Arts & Culture Advisory Committee.
NHYLAR
Nhylar (she/they/he) is a queer GNC (gender non-conforming) storyteller, media artist, poet, and healing community arts event producer born in India, and a recent settler on MST territories. Their creative energy is fueled by crafting media, poems, and events that liberate queer identities.
Nhylar has a rich history of producing numerous events that unite the Desi, Queer, and Desi Queer communities in Vancouver, LA, and beyond. Driven by a passion for building inclusive spaces for non-binary, femme, and QTBIPOC individuals, they have collaborated with organizations such as Queer Mango, Queer Arts Exchange, and the Transgender Expressions Haven. Currently, Nhylar serves as the Director of Marketing at the Vancouver Jazz Festival, while also leading marketing and community events for Alai Coffee — an Indian-origin specialty coffee brand — weaving their commitment to culture, community, and belonging into every space they touch.
At the Transgender Expressions Haven, Nhylar harnessed their creative talents to produce a virtual art gallery under the theme "Queer Digital Intimacy," showcasing trans artists from around the globe through media art. What began as a Tumblr page connecting poets worldwide in an exchange of queer ideas has blossomed into Nhylar's full-time passion: using language and visuals to explore the intersection of queer hardship, oppression, and the transcendence found in queer eroticism.
Inspired by the realization that a single piece of media or a genuinely inclusive 2SLGBTQ+ community gathering can transform core beliefs and offer new perspectives, Nhylar remains dedicated to curating impactful and transformative experiences.
tawahum bige
Tawahum is a Łutselkʼe Dene, Métis and Nehiyaw spoken word poet from unceded Musqueam, Squamish & Tsleil-Waututh Territory (CKA Vancouver). Queer as heck in obvious ways, they desire a world where acceptance rises while corruption collapses. With a BA in Creative Writing from KPU, Tawahum has performed poetry and hip-hop at countless festivals, their poems featured in numerous publications. His land protection work versus Trans Mountain pipeline expansion had him face incarceration in 2020. Cut to Fortress was published by Nightwood Editions in 2022 with their new collection, Stages of Tanning Words and Remembering Spells which arrived April 2025. Find them online @Tawahum on most social media platforms.