I DREAM LIBRARY:
Archiving Institutional Erasure, Collective Resistance, and Memories that Keep us Growing
Curated by Iris Houngbo
April 2 - 30, 2025 | Britannia Art Gallery
5 artists exhibiting at the intersection of 3 public education spaces
A collection of works featuring Vancouver based artists, Aisha Kiani, Germain Ekra, Mathew Delorme-King, Rakim, and Shafira Vidyamaharani. I Dream Library: Archiving Institutional Erasure, Collective Resistance, and Memories that Keep us Growing is a story of complex representation, with themes of resistance, oppression, migration, community and collaboration. Reimagined archival materials alongside visual and mixed media works invite visitors to consider what it means to be learning, teaching, playing, dreaming, fighting erasure, and building community all in the same day. This exhibit is in conversation with current calls to action and the liberation of Indigenous people on Indigenous territories across the world.
How to use this page
A portal to equity learning, teaching prompts, and systems change inspiration
Click on the hyperlinks to learn more about each artist, designer, and storyteller.
Click on the book titles to learn more about the story, creators, art, equity topics, and languages used in each one.
Videos introduce the book’s themes and creators, to engage visual and auditory learners, and inspire equity conversations with students, colleagues friends and family
Mathew Delorme-King
PHOTOGRAPHY + BEADWORK + JEWELLERY
Mathew is Woodland Cree / Red River Métis and was born and raised in “Edmonton, Alberta” Treaty No.6 territory. Now residing in so-called “Vancouver”. He is a storyteller through his beadwork, photography, and modelling. Being a former youth in care, Mathew strongly advocates for youth empowerment through his work and art.
Photography
Photo of Victor Corpuz, 2022
Tiwa territory, North Domingo Baca Skatepark, New Mexico
B/W photo series, 2021
xwməθkwəy̓ əm, Skwxwú7mesh, & səlilwətaɬ shared territory, Vancouver, BC
1. Skate for Change
2 + 3 Dustin Henry & Rakim at Antisocial Skateboard Shop
AISHA KIANI
MIXED MEDIA + POSTER SERIES + LIBRARY
Aisha Kiani was born in Oslo, Norway and immigrated to Canada in 1985. They are the founder if I Dream Library, and work as an artist, writer, education designer, DEI consultant + strategist, presently based out of Vancouver, Canada.
Fishing Net is a library of text and textile created as an artwork in response to the Museum and Archives of North Vancouver (MONOVA) exhibit Agents of Change: Chief Dan George Legacy, and in connection with the installation Young Activist Reading Room: Speak With Me (YARR) from I Dream Library.
The net is braided using fabric that represents 6 cultures whose stories are shared in the YARR. These cultures converged on səl̓ilw̓ət (the Burrard Inlet). Patterns represent those who came from this shore, those who came to this shore, and how they lived and worked together over the last 100 years: Indigenous people in Canada, Japan, Northern India, Hawaii, West African descendants (African American, Caribbean, African Canadian), and European descendants.
CISTEMS WILL SYSTEM / FREEDOM TO TEACH
2025, Poster Series
This text-based series looks at the system of White supremacy and allyship performance that trump DEI commitments, claims, and policies in Canadian schools and libraries. The title comes from responses to acts of discrimination within institutions spaces locally and nationally:
Cistems will System is a nod to to the Vancouver School District 39's (VSB) antiracism and DEI specialist, Destine Lord, who apathetically responded, ”systems will system” when directly asked to use her power to end the racist, queerphobic, transphobic, and ableist ban on I Dream Library in the VSB. The district wide ban, which took effect September 2021, is still being enforced by VSB’s Diversity Department, which includes Pedro Da’Silva (Associate Superintendent of LIT & Educational Services), Destine Lord, and Hieu Pham-Fraser (District Principal – Equity, Antiracism and Oppression)
Freedom to Teach is a national campaign launched by I Dream Library in 2025 during Freedom to Read week in Canada (February 23 - March 1). The campaign seeks to give voice and understanding to how education bans function in Canada.
Cistems will System / Freedom to Teach references The Pan African Flag, Palestinian Flag, Pride Flag, and the artwork Forbidden Colors (1988), by Félix González-Torres.
STILL RESISTING
Multimedia + Library | 2025
In collaboration with Vancouver Public Library workers and community
Still Resisting is a collaborative artwork created by Aisha Kiani with objects contributed by Vancouver Public Library (VPL) workers and Vancouver community members. The artwork is titled in response to the June 2024 Britannia Art Gallery (BAG) exhibit, Still Here by Nora Stakaya Pape (Saanich and Snuneymuxw Nations). Nora’s artworks that depicted Indigenous and Palestinian solidarity enraged a Zionist community member, who filed an official complaint against the exhibit. This resulted in more VPL workers wearing keffiyehs and watermelon pins in defence of the artist, artwork, and the right to advocate for / represent solidarity with Palestinian liberation.
Following these actions VPL leadership made a quick decision to ban workers from wearing visible symbols of Palestinian solidarity. The ban worked, largely erasing visual representation of solidarity with Palestine across 21 VPL locations. In January, 2025, online publication The Mainlander, broke the story resulting in more publicity and tens of thousands protesting the bans, advocating for library workers' right to political action with job protection.
The ban is still in effect, and BAG artists who speak to Palestinian liberation in their artworks continue to be harassed by leadership of Vancouver public institutions including the VPL. Aisha used Still Resisting as an invitation for Vancouver library workers to anonymously and collectively take up space in the BAG / VPL for the first time in 9 months. Library workers were cautious, and some publicly shared their opinions against being part of the artwork, viewing it as an affront to “truer” representations of solidarity with Palestine.
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This artwork evolved through social media calls to for objects donated over the course of the exhibit. On April 23 2025, 3 hours before the Artist Talk, Aisha was informed that a series of 6 posters contributed by community member, a watermelon erasure, and a pink, blue and white pin that said ‘Protect Library Workers’ had been removed by the Executive Director of the Britannia Community Center days before, and were “lost”. Aisha was told by the exhibit curator that nothing more was allowed to be added to the artwork’s display case, including commissioned bookmarks, and this didactic.
BOOKLIST
Three titles that root the exhibit’s philosophy and values
RAKIM
MIXED MEDIA + GRAFFITI
Rakim was born in Vancouver, Canada and co-founded I Dream Library with his mom, Aisha Kiani, in 2019. With I Dream Library he curates booklists, works as an artistic director, exhibit’s his artwork and and mentors youth.
Practice
Rakim + Aisha Kiani, 2025
Practice is an art piece that is a way I can connect my love for graffiti art and basketball.
Germain Ekra
PAINTING + INK SKETCH
Germain Ekra was born in Bonoua, Ivory Coast in 1993. He immigrated with his family to Toronto, Canada in 2003, and is currently living, working, and creating in Vancouver, Canada.
Brothers Success
2024
Coming from any immigrant family, success is viewed through the academics which both my brothers have accomplished. In this piece, I am showing my chosen path forward, forming another type of success story.
Bonoua
2025
The story of my upbringing in Bonoua, the story of family, discovery but also resilience and overcoming.
Blame
2024
Taking and rejecting blame for a lot of things that are happening to us or around us. I took a lot of blame and I still do for the passing of a family member for not being there, for not helping quick enough.
SHAFIRA VIDYAMAHARANI
BOOKMARKS, 2025 + GRAPHIC DESIGN
Bookmarks as knowledge mobilization - presented by SFU School of Communication student Shafira Vidyamaharani, a graphic designer, photographer, videographer, painter, writer, and textile artist.
