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Before I begin I'd like to acknowledge 
that we are gathered here

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on the unceded territories of the Squamish, 
Tsleil-Watuth and Musqueam people.

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I do this with the utmost 
respect and gratitude,

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especially as I'm here to talk about 
community and the politics of space.

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I spend a lot of time thinking about 
the role that physical spaces play

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in building and sustaining social movements,

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and I've become convinced over time

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that the way that we create and hold space 
for each other profoundly shapes our sense

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of who we are, what we value, and what 
we are capable of together.

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Six years ago my partner Vinetta 
and I created Rhizome

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in the Mount Pleasant 
neighborhood of Vancouver.

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Rhizome is a place where people come every day
to drink coffee eat sandwiches and curry and soup;

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but that's only part of the story 
and I want to tell you the other part;

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but in order to do that I need to tell you first 
a little bit about where I come from.

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In 2004, I moved here from San Francisco

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where I had worked for a decade 
as a migrant rights organizer.

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I left behind a vibrant community of struggle
and a city that's good at telling its own story.

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Doing that work in San Francisco, 
I was always reminded

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that I was part of something 
bigger than myself.

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I think that that sense of belonging had a lot 
to do with the kind of work that I was doing,

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but it was also definitely fed by my surroundings.

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Every day I would walk to work past murals

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that silently told me that nothing is 
ever won without a struggle,

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and that collective liberation is possible.

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The amazing thing about these murals is that

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thousands of other people walked 
by them every day as well,

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and we all received that same education.

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Those murals tell stories of indigenous resistance,

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of migrant rights organizing
and of revolutionary struggles

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for racial and economic justice.

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They taught us that we are all 
products of a shared history.

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So with these murals as my guide I felt 
a deep sense of connection and possibility,

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but I don't think that I fully appreciated

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the power of this very public and 
very shared political education

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until after I left that city and moved 
to a place where I had no roots.

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When I came to Vancouver 
I felt a deep sense of loss.

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The forces of erasure here 
felt so powerful and so violent.

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The more I talked to people here 
the more I came to understand

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how this history and the constant 
rebuilding of this city

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make it very difficult for us 
to connect with each other.

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I wondered how many stories 
had been erased here.

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My partner and I had always had 
a dream of being able to create a space

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that would welcome people 
from diverse backgrounds;

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where people would be able 
to be truly seen and recognized;

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and where we would be able 
to help us connect with each other.

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We wanted to create 
a living room for all of us,

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and especially for those who 
had been pushed out of other spaces,

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and made to feel invisible.

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We wanted to use space to show that 
our communities face similar challenges,

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and that we can envision solutions together.

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So when we first walked into the space 
that would eventually become Rhizome,

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we knew that we were 
in the right place.

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Our new landlord showed us around 
and he showed us the place on the floor

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where he had laid the floorboards 
one summer back in the 1950's

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as a teenager during his 
summer break from high school.

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He pointed out the 
100 year old tin ceiling,

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and he told us fantastic stories

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of things that may or may not 
have happened

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in that very room over the years.

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For us, all of those stories 
were seeds of possibility.

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As soon as we opened in 2006, 
people started coming

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from all walks of life 
and from diverse communities,

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and it turned out that our personal 
need to create a shared living room

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was a need that many other
people felt as well.

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And since then we've hosted 
over 1,000 events

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in collaboration with 
hundreds of community groups.

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Many different communities 
really do now consider this space their home

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and have brought pieces 
of themselves to it.

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For example every year we host a traditional 
latin-american Day of the Dead celebration,

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and every year I watch 
as people meet each other

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while placing photos 
of their ancestors on the altar.

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Over the years in this space 
we've done all of the things

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that build community.

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We've been able to share our stories, 
we've learned about critical issues together

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through panel discussions 
and film screenings,

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we've argued and debated 
and planned together,

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we've celebrated our victories, 
and we've done all this in a space

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that's intentionally multi-generational, 
multi-lingual and multi-racial.

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Recently we've started hosting 
courses on community organizing

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to help grassroots groups 
become more focused and strategic.

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We've created space for all of us 
to be able to imagine a better future,

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and now to strategize 
around how to get there.

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Over time this really has 
become a shared project

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and it's way bigger than anything that 
Vinetta or I could ever have imagined.

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It's fully supported 
by the people who use it.

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We've been able to experiment with 
different economic models on a small scale.

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We created systems so that 
everyone can eat here

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regardless of how much 
money they have,

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and so that hundreds of people 
can contribute what they have,

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to be able to help maintain this 
as a shared resource.

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Most importantly Rhizome has allowed 
for connections between different groups

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that rarely come into meaningful contact
elsewhere in this city.

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What we do at Rhizome 
is explicitly anti-profit,

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it's about re-claiming cooperative values 
in a commodified culture.

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Continuing to hold this space

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has started to feel absolutely vital.

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Every day we're reminded that the world

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around us is driven by market values,

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and that what we do at Rhizome

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is fundamentally different.

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We've come to see that our work is part

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of a broader struggle to define the 
very soul of this ever-changing city.

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But this struggle only 
points out to me again

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what all of those murals in San Francisco 
were telling me all along:

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it takes a community working together to
create something that's worth fighting for,

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and then it takes a shared commitment 
to hold on to that thing.

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So we have our own mural 
now on the wall,

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and it reminds us every day 
of what brings us together.

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It reminds us that space like ours 
can create cracks in the system,

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and that those cracks can give us all 
a transformative sense of possibility.