Global Village will take place in the first week of February, showcasing food, art, and discourse from many of the campus’ vibrant cultures
Photo via uvss.ca.
The Students of Colour Collective (SOCC) will be putting on their second annual Global Village event during the first week of February, transforming the Student Union Building (SUB) into a hub of cultural celebration, art, food, and discourse.
The five-day cultural exhibition runs from Feb. 2 to Feb. 6, and invites students to engage with themes of identity, home, and belonging through various events.
SOCC Coordinator Aafiya Bhayani said Global Village emerged from a recognition that, while UVic is home to students from diverse backgrounds, there are not many opportunities to acknowledge and celebrate the array of vibrant cultures on campus. Global Village is meant to rectify that.
“There’s people from all around the world,” Bhayani said, “[but] there’s no space for them to be loud.”
She explained that, when our campus ignores cultural differences, or treats students’ experiences as interchangeable, the vibrancy of cultures on campus go unnoticed.
Global Village aims to challenge that injustice, and create space for students to share their cultures — including their struggles, creative expressions, and understandings of home. The goal of the event is to give people a platform to express “what’s home, what’s belonging, [and] what their culture is,” Bhayani said.
The event is modelled on Global Village Dubai, a large multicultural festival park established in 1997, that brings together dozens of cultures through food, entertainment, and exhibitions. UVic’s Global Village adapts that concept to a campus scale, centring student voices and local community.
This year’s events kick off on Feb. 2 with Bollywood Karaoke Night at Felicita’s Campus Pub from 7:30 to 11 p.m. Bhayani said that the collective wanted to start the week with a cultural karaoke night at Felicita’s to extend the pub into a place where people could enjoy a variety of cultural music.
On Feb. 3, the SUB will host two daytime events. “Pavilions: Around the World” is a tabling fair held in the Michèle Pujol Room from 10 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. and will feature cultural ambassadors, community organizations, local vendors, and BIPOC-owned businesses.
Overlapping will be the “Global Kitchen,” a free food fair in the SUB Upper Lounge from 12 to 3 p.m., where student chefs will prepare dishes from their cultures and speak about the history and personal connection behind each meal.
“The idea is people have food, and then they walk around, and they experience the different cultures at UVic,” Bhayani said.
Educational programming has also expanded this year. On Feb. 4, “Between Places, Between Belonging” will bring together panellists from 2 to 4 p.m. to discuss topics of immigration, displacement, and the emotional complexities of calling multiple places home.
That evening, between 5 and 8 p.m., “Around the World Board Game Night” will offer a fun way to explore how cultures connect through play.
On Feb. 5, art will take centre stage with “Pulse,” a full-day exhibition from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the SUB Upper Lounge, showcasing visual art across mediums by members of the UVic community, including photography, painting, digital art, and installations.
The evening’s “Pulse: Showcase” at Vertigo in the SUB will feature live performances, including music and spoken word poetry. “Pulse” is the only ticketed event in Global Village, but the event is free and not age-restricted; tickets can be reserved on the Global Village website.
The week comes to an end on Feb. 6 with “More Than a Seat at the Table: Amplifying BIPOC Voices,” a panel focused on representation, tokenism, and meaningful inclusion in academic and institutional spaces. Bhayani said this panel will bring in student researchers and professionals.
A core question of the panel will be: “how do you get a seat at the table,” she said, “and how do you be a voice … that is heard and acknowledged and seen?”
By centering food, art, music, and discourse, the week-long exhibition invites students not only to experience different cultures, but to reflect on what belonging really looks like at UVic. More information about the events can be found on the collective’s Global Village website.
