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BLACK SPACES SUMMIT & SYMPOSIUM 2026
Afro Van Connect Society invites you to join us for the Black Spaces Summit & Symposium 2026, a two-part gathering bringing together community leaders, artists, educators, organizers, cultural workers, and changemakers to explore how we build, protect, remember, and imagine Black spaces.
This year’s symposium creates space for conversations about leadership, belonging, racial equity, community power, cultural memory, placemaking, and the future of Black-led spaces and institutions.
THIS FRIDAY — OCTOBER 2
Location: The Annex – 823 Seymour Street, Vancouver
Date: Friday, October 2, 2026
Time: 5:30 PM – 9:00 PM
The evening will feature two important conversations:
PANEL ONE — Authentic Leadership & Centring Humanity in How We Build Communities
In collaboration with RADIUS SFU, this conversation will explore values-driven leadership, dignity, care, access, belonging, and what it means to centre humanity while building stronger communities.
PANEL TWO — Beyond Representation: Building Black Power, Policy & Community Futures
This conversation moves beyond visibility alone to explore Black leadership, civic engagement, grassroots power, policy, ownership, institution-building, creative and economic empowerment, and what meaningful participation can look like for our communities.
THE CONVERSATION CONTINUES — OCTOBER 17
Location: The Cultch – Culture Lab
Date: Saturday, October 17, 2026
Time: 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Black Spaces: History, Memory & the Making of Future Legacies
Our second gathering will explore the relationship between Black history, cultural memory, storytelling, archives, architecture, placemaking and spatial justice — while asking what it takes to create spaces that future generations can inherit, shape and call their own.
Black spaces are more than physical places.
They are places where we gather, create, organize, remember, heal, imagine and build.
The Black Spaces Summit & Symposium is an invitation to come together across generations and sectors to have meaningful conversations about where we’ve been, where we are, and what we want to build next.
Register for October 2:
https://www.universe.com/
October 17 at The Cultch:
https://thecultch.com/event/
Presented by Afro Van Connect Society
Creating space. Building community. Imagining Black futures.