Arts & Culture

An interview with grunge, moccasingaze band Status/Non-Status: Big changes on the horizon

Étienne Lavallée documents London’s current art scene with The Honey Dip Archives, a series of interviews with bands that performed at Honey Dip’s one year anniversary celebration. Here, he meets Adam Sturgeon, Matt Wewell, and Derek Durant of Status/ Non-Status. *** Status/ Non-Status audio interview: Étienne Lavallée: How would you folks describe your sound? South Ontario Grunge? Deadly Grunge? Sludge? Sturge: I usually say we’re like a grunge band these days, but we dabble in Moccassingaze, some of the cultural work that lives in two worlds.  Étienne Lavallée: You’re all real fearless about wading into tough conversations about settler colonialism.…

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An interview with band Willow Switch: “Folklore is a living breathing thing”

Étienne Lavallée documents London’s current art scene with The Honey Dip Archives, a series of interviews with bands that performed at Honey Dip’s one year anniversary celebration. Here, he meets Andra Zlatescu and guest singer Tim of Willow Switch; Robin Henry, their third member, was unable to attend the interview. *** Willow Switch audio interview: Étienne Lavallée: Your music has been described as “the crossroads between Appalachian and Black Sabbath.” How do you balance the traditional roots of banjo and folk with heavy, atmospheric drone elements? Andra: I feel like it’s not very hard to balance because in traditional, old-time…

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An interview with dreampop band Closeout: “To feel energized, to feel excited, to feel welcomed”

Étienne Lavallée documents London’s current art scene with The Honey Dip Archives, a series of interviews with bands that performed at Honey Dip’s one year anniversary celebration. Here, he meets Daryan (vocals), Andrew (guitar), Beck (bass guitar), and Oliver (drums) of “Closeout”, a London Ontario-based dreampop/ shoe gaze/ dreamo band.  *** Closeout audio interview: Étienne Lavallée: How does this thriving but localized Southern Ontario underground scene, especially between London Hamilton and the GTA, shape the grit and dreamo atmospheric tones in your music? Daryan: For me, when I first moved here because I’m from Saint Thomas originally, I started coming…

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An interview with revolutionary hip hop collective RHYMETHiNK: Building radical communities

Étienne Lavallée documents London’s current art scene with The Honey Dip Archives, a series of interviews with bands that performed at Honey Dip’s one year anniversary celebration. Here, he meets Lee Reed (MC/ vocals/ lyrics), Tarek Funk (MC Multi-instrumentalist Hip Hop Funk Afrobeat artist), and C. Reality (MC/ Producer/ DJ), of “RHYMTHiNK” from Toronto, a collective that describes itself as anti-colonial, anti-capitalist, anti-fascist, and anti-authoritarian.  *** RHYMETHiNK audio interview: Étienne Lavallée: You’re described as a revolutionary hip hop collective. Revolutionary art historically faces the threat of commodification, it often risks being watered down to a trend by corporations. How do…

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A video still from John Greyson's film 'Sorry.' On the left, a woman stands on a stage with clasped arms and closed eyes, surrounded by stage lights. On the right, a young woman practices the violin.

PERSPECTIVES – Experiencing 2026 “Queer Cinema for Palestine: No Pride in Genocide”

On June 27, film festival “Queer Cinema for Palestine: No Pride in Genocide” screened at the London Public Library, hosted by Embassy Cultural House in partnership with People for Peace London, Independent Jewish Voices London, and Antler River Media Co-op, and organized by member of Embassy Cultural House’s advisory circle Ira Kazi. The 2026 program screened across 59 countries in a record-breaking 300 locations. It featured six short films: A Message by Mama Gannush (Palestine, 2026), Ceasefire by Teodor Vladar (Slovakia/ Hungary, 2025), The 5-year Plan for Financial Independence by Dua Omari (Palestine, 2025), Until We Return by Huss AC…

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Image of a poster advertising the Queer Cinema for Palestine: No Pride in Genocide" film series on June 27, 2026 at London Public Library in London, Ontario, sponsored by Embassy Cultural House, Antler River Media Co-Op, People for Peace London, and Independent Jewish Voices. The poster features artwork by Incé Husain in red and green tones, portraying a fish jumping over a wave formed from a keffiyeh.

Remembering 2025 “Queer Cinema for Palestine: No Pride in Genocide”, as 2026 program to screen in London this June 

“Queer Cinema for Palestine is about exposing and fighting Israel’s pinkwashing agenda, which uses all queer and trans identities to create a pink smokescreen attempting to hide Israel’s violent oppression of Palestinians. When an Israeli soldier committing genocide in Gaza poses for a photoshoot among the devastation while holding a pride flag with the words ‘in the name of love’, this is a textbook example of pinkwashing,” says activist Ghadir Shafie in her recorded introduction to Queer Cinema for Palestine’s 2025 program.  “Queer Cinema for Palestine is about creating an ethical space for the hundreds of filmmakers who have withdrawn…

Read MoreRemembering 2025 “Queer Cinema for Palestine: No Pride in Genocide”, as 2026 program to screen in London this June 

“Earth’s Greatest Enemy” screening reveals the global cost of militarization—and how we fight back

Two months ago, as the US-Israeli war of aggression on Iran and Lebanon continued to heat up, another thermometer was quietly ticking higher in the background. Largely unnoticed outside the areas it affected, in March the southwest US (and interior of BC) experienced an unprecedented heat wave, with multiple states smashing all-time single-day and -month temperature records. This was no one-day flash in the pan: the unseasonal temperatures lingered for nearly two weeks, causing alpine snowpack volume to melt down almost to nothing at a time when it should have been on its way to a typical mid-April peak. The…

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Insights from animate blankets: Artist Andrew Maize’s ‘fan dancers’ spin in McIntosh Gallery 

“There’s this animacy that you get from the wind. The wind fills the sails, livens a tree. I think it’s that sense of animacy we get from these blankets which otherwise are just inert material. It’s seeing that surprise on people’s faces when they first get up. It’s so exciting. There’s a sense of wonder,” says artist Andrew Maize, whose exhibit *(s)twerH is open to the public in Western University’s McIntosh Gallery until May 16.  A key feature of the windowless exhibit is a collection of gleaming silver and gold emergency blankets draped over hangers. First created in 1964 by…

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“Prime Minister Carney: No War. Period.” — A letter from 70+ Canadian artists and cultural producers

The following is an open letter from 70+ Canadian arts and cultural producers addressed to the Canadian government about the US-Israel attacks on Iran that began on February 28, 2026. It was provided to the Antler River Media Co-op by Iranian artist Gita Hashemi.  We, the undersigned arts and cultural producers, strongly and unequivocally condemn the US-Israel attacks on Iran. We condemn the targeting of Iran’s schools, hospitals, factories and other civilian infrastructures. We demand an unconditional end to the war that has been devastating the entire region. We firmly support the people of Iran in their courageous movements for…

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“You Will Not Kill Our Imagination”: Palestinian writer Saeed Teebi’s book launch at Western University 

“The greatest battleground in any war is always that of story,” reads Palestinian writer Saeed Teebi from his memoir You Will Not Kill Our Imagination at his book launch at Western University’s Conron Hall on November 10th. “In my view, Israel’s greatest accomplishment is that, even decades after its colonial inception, its story has remained in the foreground, while the stories of the Palestinian natives to the land continue to exist in relative obscurity. Of course, the obscurity of the Palestinian story is a manufactured one, a whole cloth tailored to fit snug over the minds of Western audiences. It…

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