Faces of Antyx: Noor
Next up for our staff #FF is Noor! Noor is our ever-talented Administrator and Community Arts Facilitator. Her work continues to have such an amazing impact on the Calgary community and we’re always looking forward to see what she comes up with next!
Q: What has been your experience like working with Antyx?
A: It's been great! I feel very grateful and lucky to work in a place with creative, caring, like-minded, supportive people who also love being here. I've had the opportunity to be a part of some awesome events and projects, and met some really incredible young artists and young professionals. I've learned a lot from everyone around me and still learning new things every day.
Q: Is there a memory that stands out to you?
A: Yes! One that stands out was at Permission Slips which was a poetry and spoken word event that came at the end of a spring camp about consent/identity. During the performance, all our youth poets were in a big group hug backstage, and they were talking each other up because for some of them, it was the first time performing and they needed each other's support. It made the moment very real for me, and brought a tear to my eye to see how much of a tight knit group they had become over the months we worked with them. Those kids are amazing, they're way braver than I am.
Q: What is your favourite thing about your career?
A: Similar to last answer, seeing youth grow and change over time and find themselves and their voice through creating art and showing it to the world. Being a part of that process is so rewarding and I'm very grateful for it.
Q: How did you find your passions and how have you incorporated them into your art/work?
A: I think my main passions in life are the arts, social justice and helping others. I was always encouraged as a kid by my parents to consume and create art in all its forms, and it's always been a part of my life in one form or another. Social justice is self-explanatory, I'm a minority in many different ways, and I just want the world to be a better place for myself and everyone else. My interest in helping youth, especially immigrant youth, stems from personal experience and from wanting to create opportunities for both internal personal growth and community growth for those who would have little to no opportunities otherwise. All these passions kind of magically amalgamated into the work I do at Antyx.
As an artist, apart from work, I'm passionate about world cultures, history, languages, mythology, magic/fantasy, nature, and human bodies/minds/experiences both real and unreal, and I love incorporating those elements into my illustrations, paintings, poetry, writing or whatever else I'm making.
Q: What does your work/art aim to say?
A: I think because of my personal experiences as a young first generation immigrant and because of how little support I had when it came to settling in to Canada, I want to try offering the youth I work with some of the opportunities I didn't have access to, as well as hopefully create safe and brave spaces where they can feel free to be themselves and find themselves, no matter who they are or where they come from. Doing it with the arts is just the cherry on top!
My personal art practice is just pure escapism and overly complex internal explorations, and I don't aim to say or do anything specific with it. I dip my toes into social justice occasionally if I get mad enough but honestly, sometimes you just make things for the sake of it, or because the world is a hard place to be and creating art makes it far more bearable.
Q: What was the biggest opposing force that you encountered on your creative journey?
A: Is it too cheesy to say myself? I mean Canada's immigration system, the war back home, culture shock and social isolation were all big obstacles to say the least, but honestly a lot of my personal problems got solved when I learned to let go of the things I couldn't control and when I learned to be good to myself so that good things came my way. Everything I went through made me a very strong and resilient individual with a lot of confidence about my future and my abilities. It's almost like "If I went through that, I can go through anything and come out fine on the other side." I truly believe I can do anything if I put my mind to it. I also believe the same is true for everyone.
Q: If you could give your younger self some words of advice, what would they be?
A: I've learned a lot of hard lessons! I would say these are the most important:
Reach out to others when you're struggling, even if you don't get the exact reaction or reply you want, keep trying to reach out over and over till you find the help you need.
There's no magical place where you fit in, you have to carve out your place in the world yourself and the right people will find you along the way. Your people are important and they will keep you sane.
Be patient, kind and brutally honest with yourself always.
Always be grateful for what you have as opposed to focusing on what you don't or can't have.
Q: What are you currently working on?
A: I'm working on a giant mural about diversity and gender empowerment with our Youth Arts Action Team North group at Genesis Centre! I'm so excited to be doing this project with them, and it's the first large scale mural where I'm the lead artist. I can wait to see what we create together and to show everyone all the youths' hard work!