Here We Will Be

Here We Will Be is a visual and written collection of stories, as part of a research project on queer stories, spaces and communities in Canada and across the world.

Through field research, visual documentation, crowdsourcing and creative writing, Here We Will Be aims to create an incomplete, subjective database about our communities, our spaces, and how powerful and life-changing queer joy and love, in all their forms, can be.

Here We Will Be is curated by Elio (Élo) Choquette (they/them), a white queer and trans writer and architect based in Montreal, Canada, with funding and support of the Canada Council for the Arts.

Here We Will Be was initiated on unceded lands, the traditional territory of the Kanien’kehá:ka. The Kanien’kehá:ka are known as the “Keepers of the Eastern Door” and the custodians of the lands and waters on which we gather and organize. They are one of the six founding nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.

The island we know today as Montreal is known to the Kanien’kehá:ka as Tiohtiá:ke, which has served as a meeting place for other Indigenous nations. Today, Tiohtiá:ke is home to a diverse population of Indigenous and other peoples. We respect the continued connections with the past, present and future in our ongoing relationships with Indigenous and other peoples within the Montreal community.

We are thankful that we get to be here in Tiohtiá:ke today, but we also recognize that a simple land acknowledgement without any action is merely performative and that there is still a lot of work to do to decolonize our spaces and communities. We encourage everyone to get informed on the ongoing oppression of Indigenous peoples today, to actively resist colonialism in whatever way you can, and to contribute to current day reparations.

If you are not currently located in Montreal and are not aware of the rightful keepers of the land on which you are located, you can learn more at www.native-land.ca.