This campaign is a call for community investment in building I Dream Library in the real world, increasing our capacity for changemaking through creating jobs and place to research, teach, imagine, design and build the future that cares for us all.
I Dream Library is an award winning contemporary education platform creating access to diverse stories in schools, galleries and museums around the world. Founded in Vancouver, Canada in 2019 by Aisha Kiani and their son Rakim as a response to banned books, the organization’s first offering was a globally accessible digital archive and teaching resource for K-12 classrooms. We are a queer, trans, neurodivergent, disabled and BIPoC led organization that presents workshops, artwork, literary curation, anti-oppression education, and intersectional equity evaluation frameworks rooted in collaborative care, abolition, transformative justice and disability justice.
Building in public, with the public, shows the transformative power of libraries anywhere and everywhere. We believe the library is a cultural touchstone for liberation: a space where ideas are constantly being rediscovered, reimagined, and reinterpreted. In partnership with organizations and advocates, we amplify the role of libraries and archives in social justice movements, public education, and cultural (re)formation.
Recent library projects have been commissioned by, and exhibited in, the Vancouver Art Gallery, Museum of Vancouver, Arts Umbrella, Museum and Archives of North Vancouver, Richmond Art Gallery, Artspeak Gallery, Vancouver Public Library, CUPE BC, Bentall Gallery, and more.
With your support we can continue offering self-directed and collaborative opportunities for critical education, creative exchange and collective imagination.
What is the I Dream Library and Center for Education Design™️?
- An experimental education center that houses a research and reference library, archives, teaching studio, gallery, and place for community-building activations and initiatives.
Your Contribution Supports:
- EQUITABLY EMPLOYED TEAM tasked with business operations and research and development of: curriculum, evaluation frameworks, library curation, exhibits, and interdisciplinary design projects.
- TEACHING STUDIOS offering workshops, classes, and labs for students, educators and community. Studios to design, production and presentation of literary installations and artworks
- LIBRARY / ARCHIVE of text, objects, and artworks
- THEATER to showcase the arts and education
- GALLERY to showcase and teach the work of local and global artists
- BOOKSHOP that retails education tools, artworks, books and furnishings
- CAFE serving library goers and the general public
Your support allows us to continue the critical work of driving equity forward in times when many are tempted to choose silence as survival.
I DREAM Library and Center for Education Design™️ is planting seeds of change that will bloom for generations. Please share this campaign!
For those who donate larger amounts toward our goal, a tax receipt may be available. Please get in touch.
Organizer
