UNITED THROUGH HERITAGE: NOHA’S TRIBE

In collaboration with Selma Elkhazin and Heritage Toronto, ItsOk Studios, and A Different Booklist, Noha Collective produced an evening exploring African and Caribbean heritage through storytelling, music, mapping, history, and art. United by heritage, the Black community shapes new culture in Toronto creating place and making history.

Read more from Selma.

I’m Selma and I’m Sudanese. I’ve always been in love with Sudan and the history of my country, but in 2019 I studied an archaeology apprenticeship in Kerma, the commercial capital of Ancient Nubia in the northern region of Sudan. We all know Nubia as a powerful and beautiful symbol of Blackness, but to study the civilization, my ancestry, with my hands was a privilege I could not take for granted. I studied Urban Planning and History, but my heritage is what prompts me to pursue historical education and engage with Black histories in a way that I hope can empower us all, decolonizing spaces with every interaction, just being ourselves.

Noha Collective, to me, instantly stood out as an example of placemaking. Placemaking to me is radical, it’s creating a space in a system that has tried to tell us that we are not deserving of one due to who we are. It’s spearheaded by the community, and creates connections that help us work together toward decolonization through collective culture. To me, we’re engaging with placemaking when we engage with our histories, spread our cultures, and seek to empower our sense of identity.

I want readers to understand that sharing our stories, participating, and showing up in these spaces is an act of radical decolonization in its purest form. I grew up in Ottawa, and coming to Toronto, I’ve had the privilege of witnessing the Black community come together from across the diaspora to create culture in the city. This culture today will become the city’s heritage studied in the future. The Black culture in Toronto is a beautiful combination of diverse pasts and stories, and showing up in spaces that contribute to that is so important to our mission as a community. Thank you to NoHa for facilitating spaces that allow for us to create, share, and spread love.