Please leave your feedback and feed forward for the With/out modernity congress subvention by clicking on “leave a reply” below.
Please leave your feedback and feed forward for the With/out modernity congress subvention by clicking on “leave a reply” below.
Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures 
Having a safeplace to undo was so amazing and rare. what i unlearned i will carry with me to other spaces in the university and beyond, through time and space. thank you!
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With/out modernity was an incredible experience for me. I was invited into a space that made me feel as though I could listen and speak both on my own terms. This collective brought together an incredible array of speakers and knowledge-holders whose inter-dialogue generated a meeting of ideas in a way that was accessible, yet exposed the complexities and entanglements of our time. Questions of colonialism and capitalism were brought in and spoken to with complex clarity that included a plurality of ways of knowing, that opened mine and my friends’ minds to our differences, similarities, and how all of those are partial pieces of plural truths. I enjoyed this conference side event so much that I attended all days but one, and even invited my father and brother to join. My brother came back the day after.
I will carry forward, in tandem with the teachings generously offered, the relationships that hold those teachings, as well. I feel opened and openings towards new relationships and hopefully new ways of relating that go deep into areas such as love, care, healing, resistance, education and pedagogy, as well as emotion and spirit.
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A truly embodied and generative experience of difficult decolonial topics and questions. I appreciate the diversity of Indigenous perspectives and wisdom that was offered throughout the 4 days I attended. I am still unpacking some of what I learned and will for some time… but I already am changing the ways that I approach my own work in my institution. For now it just looks like slowing down, but in taking that time I am questioning who is centred, and who is not, and what the relationship to our responsibility to the planet might be, for any given project . With gratitude to all the organizers, participants and people behind the scenes who supported this educational opportunity.
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With/out modernity made the impossible possible. An academic context serving as a space for a very diverse/intersectional group of participants to engage in intellectual, somatic and spiritual work. Where we were able to face and aknowledge the violences inherent to our construction as political subjects whilst attempting to also move beyond the fixture of identities into a space of inseparability; where healing and the nurturing of life could be attented to on a very personal/intimate and also wider metabolic level. Such spaces are so rare and extremely important in our current times. Thank you to everyone who contributed directly and indirectly in conceiving, supporting and participating in this deeply moving event. I truly hope we will meet again.
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With/out Modernity showed me that higher education can, indeed, be otherwise. I never thought it was possible to find a safe place where to reflect in the way the collective invited us within an institution such as UBC. I’m still thinking about everything I experimented in the congress, the conversations we held and the reflections these triggered on me. I expect all these reflections will significantly impact my teaching and art practices towards more sensitive ways of engaging with plurality. Thank you all With/out Modernity guests: your sharp thoughts, sensitiveness and great attitude taught me a lot; and thank you to the collective members for making this instance possible.
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I was very touched by the people who attended the gathering. I believe the topic is a beginning of a new era that is long over due; in my opinion, particularly for the Indigenous people of Canada; we are subjected to a lot of oppression and that oppression is still very much alive. I thank the International delegates for listening to the trauma we are subjected to from the current Canadian government.
Andrew Sheer the leader for the Conservative party has out righly denied the term genocide used on the final report of the Missing and Murdered Women and Girls; this occurs when Indigenous peole tell the truth.
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Such an amazing opportunity to be in consensual discomfort to build strength in vulnerability.
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I’m feeling truly grateful for having had the experience of feeling/thinking/being with folks who gathered for this. The difficulty and complexity of holding and experimenting with questions around what decolonial work is… was done with deep care, criticality and love.
This is the first time I’ve experienced a gathering around this topic, connected to the academy/institution, that honoured our whole selves – and made space for breathing, moving, sensing.. as WELL as intellectualizing and deep thinking. Hand on heart…
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“We cannot not be together”
Words trace contours around the immensity of what was shared within those four walls. A timeless call to listen within and without, to share for the bleeding heart of the collective, to practice, to heal- alone together. 
Asking the questions to gather around the metamorphosis of medicine, this event invited us to reimagine through more than just the mind (but of course not without it). Critical thought paired with its inseparable entanglements of the human experience, to open space.
As a representative of the youth in these uncertain times, I express thanks for the solid ground- the path is still joyfully treacherous, but finally solid ground and compassed understanding in these mad and pedantic structures. 
Thank you to all of the work (seen and unseen) that went and continues to go into the creation of such spaces. I am excited to continue to stand with the work of this collective.
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The folx gathered together for with/out modernity, reaching our collective minds and bodies into the cracks of the academy to find out just how wide those cracks really are.The growing together of generations of thought provided necessary context for me to understand that the work we are doing here is not new, it is not radical, it is not groundbreaking – it is only rendered so by the many borders and limitations of a way of thinking I have subscribed to for too long.
My experience throughout the week was frustrating at times – a busy work schedule meant that my involvement with the congress was limited to morning sessions, often embodied practice or workshops that I struggled to bring into the critical spaces provided by a fishbowl that I could not be a part of. This frustration, for me, points towards the necessity to work these ideas into the dough (apt metaphor?) of my full-time student engagement with UBC, to see my body (all bodies) as a source of knowledge that needs no translation, to resist placing any given body of work in a vacuum when so much could emerge through dialogue with whatever else I know, feel, experience, or practice.
With/out modernity (and all of the collective events surrounding it) gave me a sense of what I hold for myself, how that affects my body & mind, how I can share that in a way that builds community rather than knocking it down. Without modernity, the collective emerges as a support structure to house not only the death of ways of being long known to arc towards extraction, oppression (all the -pressions) and harm, but to prepare the soil for things that have long grown horizontally (intertwining, entangling) underground to break through the surface.
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I would like to take the time to thank the organizers, volunteers, facillitators, and attendees of this event who made all the special things that occurred during the congress possible. I am very thankful to everyone for holding up a space for so much learning and unlearning, for sharing, for being brave in sitting with the uncomfortable and being vulnerable, and for being open to feeling and imagining different futures together.
I think and feel that With/Out Modernity is critically needed in the academic and urban world because it creates a shelter where generative pedagogy, communal reflexibity, care-giving, and healing at emotional, psychological, physical, and many more levels can emerge. With/Out Modernity is unique in its process of knowledge-sharing and community formation carves a space for marginalized bodies to voice our own truths. I want to point at the visible presence of Indigenous folks, People of Color, self-identified women, and 2SLGBTQIA in this event which I think is very very important to highlight as this is a great gesture towards healing, compensation, and balancing.
I encourage this space to continue being supported, funded, and expanded so that it can continue weaving a space/world where many other worlds can live in.
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This conference and the work that was done here was unforgettable. My body only remembers deeper, and the words that were spoken here point me towards that remembering.
It was really an honor, but to share space with others within academia which is not dominated by the mind’s thinking, and with the caution and guidance of elders. This is something ubc as an institution and Canadian society needs more of. Although, I also would have truly appreciated more young people and younger voices bringing their contributions or even holding space.
I deeply feel that this work is nessecary for all ubc students, and it is very timely to relearn these ways of relating to one’s self, one’s relatives, and non humans. This is crucial for reconcilliation and for adjusting to and curbing future damages as a result of climate change. I am so grateful to the organizers, facilitators, and every human and nonhuman involved in this event, one notable mention; the plant we had the honor of tending to.
I will definitely be attending any future event put on by GTDF, and hope to become more involved myself as an undergraduate student to get this work to other undergrads, perhaps with a club or even advocating for the collective to design courses within an undergraduate faculty.
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This gathering brought worlds into conversation. It was revolutionary for the gathering to occur on a university campus linked to an academic conference. Decolonial Futures continues to inspire learning that engages all dimensions of being and interbeing. Countless academics argue that thinking alone can’t address the multiple crises/challenges of social, ecological, economic, and political violence (sociocide, ecocide, democide) but I can’t think of others that embody this work by centring Indigenous wisdom in process.
It has been a gift to the communities brought together whose value has yet to be fully perceived or even manifested. It’s working will continue and the Federation would be wise and fortunate to continue supporting and being inspired by this work. I can say the same for myself as an educator.
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