Tamil Archive Project
About
Tamil Archive Project (TAP) is a volunteer collective started in Scarborough and is active since 2016. We engage with our community through holding small events that center care and critical discussions on a wide range of topics.
We document our past using creative archiving methods when there are no histories on record.
We participate in shaping current representations of our communities by engaging in research and producing accessible knowledge by and for members of the affected community.
Initially,
we came together
out of frustration at the lack of recorded histories of racialized communities in the city archives, not having a sense of community belonging, and missing critically engaging spaces to speak courageously about pressing issues that were uniquely and broadly affecting racialized under resourced communities and intergenerational relationships.
We document
our past
using creative archiving methods when there are no histories on record & we celebrate the future of our communities through art.
We work with care and rigour
on building an archive of experiences. The sustainability of a collective depends on our wellbeing and as such we limit the amount of events we hold annually.
Meet the team
Vanessa Vigneswaramoorthy
Partnerships & Resource Development
Vanessa is a writer, researcher, and community organizer. She enjoys work that allows her to take action, tell stories and centre youth. She also serves as editor-in- chief of the arts magazine Tamil Futures. Outside of TAP, she is Program Lead at The Borough Ink, where she uses her creative writing skills as a tool to empower silenced voices in Scarborough, Ontario. Otherwise, she is somewhere writing poetry.
Nirali Patel
Community Fellow Coordinator
As a Gujarati woman, Nirali has extensively spoken and written about trauma, women's mental health, and solidarity through various forums such as conferences and arts events. Currently, she is completing a Master’s in Educational Leadership and Policy at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) where she is researching the intersection between community partnerships and place-making through art and storytelling. She is invested in decolonizing city spaces, exploring community engagement and agency, grounded activities addressing the impact of trauma, digital archiving, and all things Scarborough.
Pallavi Suresan
Program Co-Lead
As a working-class, queer, nonbinary writer Pallavi works to create safer, accessible spaces that centre marginlized voices and focus on community and healing. They have years of lived and professional experience working around issues of trauma, race, sexuality, gender, poverty and isolation.
Gurneet Dhami
Program Co-Lead and Communications
A plate of food, conversation and health inspired Gurneet to pursue a career in nutrition. She is keen to raise awareness about the links to trauma, food insecurity, and race in our community. Gurneet was brought up in a Sikh household in the suburbs of North Etobicoke (Rexdale). Ryerson University was the first stop, where she studied Nutrition and Food, Sociology, accompanied with a Certificate in Food Security. She is currently a Masters student in Applied Human Nutrition at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax with a strong interest in diversity research, community education, and planning projects beyond her thesis!
Brannavy Jeyasundaram
Community Connector
Brannavy is a writer, community activist, and bharatanatyam dancer. Her main interest lies in exploring movement traditions and memory formation through understanding histories of displacement. She holds a degree in Biology and French Studies from York University and works as the Operations Officer at People For Equality and Relief in Lanka (PEARL). Her writing can be found in The Dance Current, NOW Toronto, Huff Post, The Jacobin, and Tamil Guardian.
Zahra Rajabi
Creative Lead
Zahra is a Product Designer, creating a more just and equitable digital future. Zahra is committed to ensuring local communities have access to arts and cultural programming. On her time off, you can find Zahra working on side projects to improve the quality of life for everyone.
Mathura Karunanithy
Mentorship
Mathura leads policy development as the Senior Research Analyst at the Council of Agencies Serving South Asians (CASSA). Her goal is to increase the effectiveness of programming and policies for women’s empowerment. She is passionate about greater health equity for racialized communities.
Vasuki Shanmuganathan
Research and Evaluation
Vasuki is a researcher, creative archivist, and educator. She draws from diverse lived and work experiences with arts organizations, refugee advocacy agencies, women’s health, care networks, and youth collectives. She holds a PhD from the University of Toronto with a focus on race and colonialism. Vasuki is the founder of Tamil Archive Project (TAP). Her last exhibit entitled “Archiving Displacement” imagined a people’s archive in a defunct thrift store in Regent Park as a site of migration memories. When she is not busy eating delicious food in Scarborough, you can find her looking through old design and art books.
Gnanushan Krishnapillai
Research and Evaluation
Gnanu is attempting to change the stories about racialized masculinity and learn from racialized women and non-binary led organizational spaces.
Kalyan Oduri
Web Developer
Kalyan Oduri is a tech enthusiast. He has been working in the tech field since 2013 and holds a bachelor's degree in Information Technology (BIT). Web development and video editing are his forte.
Krish Dineshkumar
Researcher & Sound Production
Krish Dineshkumar is a cook and DJ with a passion for food and music, especially when they coincide to bring communities together. He co-hosts a podcast called HighTopFlipFlops that uses comedy-based storytelling to have candid conversations with marginalized artists and reflect on diasporic experiences rooted in suburbia.
Sayan Sivanesan
Writer, Archive
Sayan works with high-rise buildings to measure their waste output, as well as develop and implement custom waste reduction plans. When he’s not working on environmental advocacy and systems change, Sayan enjoys reading, creative writing, and spending time with family.
Luxvna Uthayakumar
Creative Lead, Tamil Futures Magazine
Luxvna is a Toronto-based designer and artist, who is constantly searching for new ways to expand her creativity. As a designer, a question that intrigues her is “how do we make connections between seemingly disconnected things?”
Laxana Paskaran
Writer and Editor, Tamil Futures Magazine
Laxana is a Toronto-based community organizer, writer, and artist. Currently, her personal projects aim to explore the intricacies of chronic pain and violence - physical, historical, epistemological - and how that pain falls on and manifests within members of Eelam Tamil diasporic communities.
Banusha Mahendren
Editor, Tamil Futures Magazine
With a background in International Development Studies, Banusha seeks to understand the intersecting factors that contribute to diverse social issues while exploring the role of art and recreation within such spaces.
Partners
Community Partner
South Asian Visual Arts Centre (SAVAC)
Scarborough Arts
Past + Present Collaborators
Women's College Hospital
University of Toronto
Alliance for South Asian Aids Prevention (ASAAP)
Law Union of Ontario
City of Toronto
Canadian Association of Muslim Women in Law (CAMWL)
Credits
Photo Credits
Hanusha Somasunderam, Silent Struggle, Saskia Fernando Gallery, 2016. (Hero image)
- Moises Saman, A woman waits for a ferry in the island of Nainativu, in the majority Tamil north of Sri Lanka, Copyright Magnum Photos with support from the Pulitzer Center, 2018.
Ron Bull, Communal Dinner: Two women dish out food for 77 refugees from El Salvador who; during February; were living in a former convent in Buffalo while waiting for word on their applications to enter Canada. Some of the 77 had travelled across the United States after entering through Mexico, Toronto Star Archive, 1987.
Seun George, The woman on the Bridge, undated.
Sri Raju, Contemporary Living Spaces, Image Copyright Arnav Rastogi / Project 365 PUBLIC Archives, 2014.
Traditional Land Acknowledgment
The Tamil Archive team is working on this project while on Turtle Island, and more specifically on the traditional territories of the Anishinabeg, the Haudenosaunee, the Chippewa, the Wendat, and the Mississaugas of the New Credit territory. We acknowledge that this land has been stolen from its traditional caretakers, and acknowledge our own role as settlers in continuing the legacy of colonial violence. We wish for this acknowledgment not to be simply a statement but one followed by actions that support Indigenous communities. As members of a displaced people, we know the pain caused by the violence of displacement. The continued use of frameworks founded in colonization and occupation reinforce this violence every day in both our homelands and the lands we settled on.
We call upon non-Indigenous racialized peoples to critically think about the impact of their actions on Indigenous communities of the lands they live on. We call upon you to consider how the co-opting of Indigenous movements, terms, and cultural icons continues the legacy of colonial violence. We call upon you to recognize the injustices faced by the Indigenous peoples of the lands you settled on. We call upon you to centre Indigenous voices and take direction from Indigenous communities. We call upon you to stand in solidarity and take action to bring justice for Indigenous peoples at home and globally.
And finally, we call upon our readers to give their monetary, physical, and/or spiritual support to the following organizations, which are engaged in work that actively dismantles oppression faced by Indigenous people of Turtle Island:
Indigenous Environmental Network
https://www.ienearth.org/
True North Aid
https://truenorthaid.ca/water/
Native Youth Sexual Health Network
https://www.nativeyouthsexualhealth.com/
Contact us
hello@tamilarchive.ca
© 2020 Tamil Archive Project