Exploring Wellness: January 27th, 2025
01.27.2025 from 6pm to 8pm
Never Was Average
7422 Rue St-Hubert, Montréal, QC H2R 2N3
January Edition
Exploring Wellness is an interactive workshop that brought people together to reflect on Black wellness through conversation and art. Guided by facilitators Kristen Young and Zalikha Konaté, the session invited participants to consider how wellness lives in our bodies, how we talk about it, and how we practice it in our everyday lives.
Through open dialogue and shared reflection, participants explored what care and healing look like within their communities. Stories, insights, and personal practices were exchanged, creating space for connection and collective meaning-making.
This workshop is part of Community-Centered Knowledges: Fostering Black Wellness in Montreal, a SSHRC-funded project that centers Black experiences to better understand how wellness is defined, nurtured, and supported in community. The broader initiative brings together researchers, organizers, and community members to explore identity, the impacts of systemic racism, the role of Black-serving organizations, and the sharing of community-rooted approaches to wellness and healing.
Together, we’re working toward the creation of a virtual knowledge hub—a space to uplift and share Black-centered understandings of care, resistance, and well-being. At its core, the project asks: How do we foster Black wellness across our diverse communities?
January Reflections
Exploring Wellness in its first edition offered an intentional space for Black thinkers, Black caretakers, and Black people seeking to make more room for wellness in their lives. The workshop used arts-based participatory methods to gather ideas and understand what we all mean when we talk about wellness and taking care of each other.
Participants bonded on their need to release, and exchanged tips to do such a thing. From boxing to meditating, to finding community, the conversations quickly shifted toward healthy wellness practices to incorporate in daily life.