Welcome to The Hub Nanaimo, your weekly insider guide to the best of community arts and culture. Did a friend forward this email to you? Subscribe to this newsletter.

The 2025 design for the City of Nanaimo’s street banners has been released and it is stunning.

The abstract design of a fragmented butterfly by local artist Aiym Samay-Sampson was selected to represent the theme of metamorphosis and change.

Nanaimo itself is a rapidly changing city that is going through its own transformation from a small city with historical roots in resource extraction to one of the fastest growing cities in Canada.

I spoke with her about the banner design, moving to Vancouver Island and her job as a tattoo artist.

You can read the full story on our website. 

Thank you for reading,

Mick Sweetman

‘Harmonious’ and ‘challenging’: Nanaimo artist celebrates metamorphosis in new street banner design

Aiym Samay-Sampson hopes to encourage youth to ‘embrace their creativity’ after fragmented butterfly chosen by city.

🖊️ What you said ⌨️

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“Consistent excellence.”

— From our newsletter survey

🔎 Watch for🔎

Wednesday, March 5, 6:30 p.m.: The VIU Muslim Women’s Club presents a screening of Yintah, a documentary that follows the resistance to the construction of the Coastal Gaslink Pipeline through Wet’suwet’en territory. Free admission, popcorn and drinks are $5. Photo courtesy of Amber Bracken / Eye Steel Film Distribution.

Got the inside scoop of an event you think should be shared? 

Let us know by sending Mick an email.

🎵 Listen 🎤

Tuesday, March 4, 7 p.m.: Wolf Parade and the New Age Dolls will play an all ages show at The Globe Live Studio. Tickets cost $25. 

Wednesday, March 5, 7 p.m.: Nanaimo poet laureate Neil Surkan will host a drop-in poetry workshop to read, reflect and write with other poets in the Harbourfront Library’s meeting room.

Wednesday, March 5, 8 p.m.: Colin James will play at The Port Theatre. Tickets cost $75. 

Thursday, March 6, 9 p.m.: A night of haunted banjos and outsider folk with Bereaved and Journey and Jade at The Vault Cafe. Tickets cost $10. 

Friday March 7, 6:30 p.m.: The Barsby School Of Rock will play all ages show at The Globe Live Studio. Tickets cost $10. 

Friday March 7, 6:30 p.m.: Ashleigh Ball will play at The Lighthouse Bistro. Tickets cost $30. 

Friday March 7, 9 p.m.: David P. Smith, The Hex and Caedmon's Dream will play twisted accordion, noir grunge-driven, pre-war Appalachian and sonic dreamscapes from the 15th century at The Vault Cafe. Tickets cost $15. 

Saturday, March 8, 6:30 p.m.: The Vancouver Island Symphony is delighted to bring audiences Favourite Composers: Episode 2, an evening of timeless masterpieces and brilliant performances. Maestra Cosette Justo Valdés returns to lead a program featuring some of the most beloved composers in classical music at The Port Theatre. Tickets cost $39.50 or $28.50 for students.

Saturday, March 8, 7 p.m.: Vancouver’s Autonomous Apes will play an all ages show with The Shindigs, Red Lenses, and Juice at The Globe Live Studio. Tickets cost $15. 

Saturday, March 8, 9 p.m.: A Man Named Sue will sing the songs of Johnny Cash at The Terminal. Tickets cost $10. 

Saturday, March 8, 9 p.m.: Brianna McCrimmona and Teighan Couch will sing duets inspired by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong at The Vault Cafe. Tickets cost $15. 

Saturday, March 8, 6:30 p.m.: Chris Griffin will headline a comedy show hosted by Peter Hudson at The Queen’s. Tickets cost $25.

Sunday, March 9, 7:30 p.m.: New York City's The Ben Rosenblum Sextet will play at Simonholt Restaurant. Tickets cost $25. 

Tuesday, March 11, 7:30 p.m.: Part confession, part documentary, part open conversation, Yes Yes Yes is a theatre show created for youth that explores the knotty and necessary topics of healthy relationships, consent and desire at The Port Theatre. Tickets cost $30 or $19 for students.

🎭 View 🖼️

Wednesday, March 5, 6:30 p.m.: The VIU Muslim Women’s Club presents a screening of Yintah, a documentary that follows the resistance to the construction of the Coastal Gaslink Pipeline through Wet’suwet’en territory. Free admission, popcorn and drinks are $5. 

Wednesday, March 5, 7:30 p.m.: Dads! The Musical continues its run at the Bailey Studio until March 8. Tickets cost $26. 

Thursday, March 6 to 15, 7:30 p.m.: VIU’s theatre department presents Shakespere’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Malaspina Theatre. Tickets cost $10. 

Friday, March 7, 7 p.m.: The Nanaimo Art Gallery’s Making Waves speaker series will ask “how can we play together?” Answering this question will be the Murmer Arts Collective (Mitch Miyagawa and Myriam Verzat), Sophia Maher, James Darin Corbiere and Danielle Enblom. Tickets cost $15.

⛹️ Meet 🎲

Friday, March. 7, 7 p.m.: The Nanaimo Clippers will play the Surrey Eagles at Frank Crane Arena. Tickets cost $20. 

Friday, March. 7, 7 p.m.: The Nanaimo Fiddle Society will present a barn dance at Cedar Community Hall. Tickets cost $15. 

Friday, March. 7, 10 a.m.: VIU english professor Paul Watkins will be giving the final colloquium talk that will combine sound (including a live DJ mix), images and material from a new website to support his book Soundin’ Canaan at Vancouver Island University in the Malaspina Theatre. 

Friday, March. 7, 10 a.m.: VIU faculty Collette Jones (Studies in Women and Gender), Imogene Lim (Anthropology and Global Studies), Finn Meyer Cook (Social Work) and Sarah Lovegrove (Nursing) will mark International Women’s Day with a panel discussion about “feminist organizing in fascist times” in the Royal Arbutus Room in Building 300 at Vancouver Island University.

Sunday, March 9, noon: Lions free skate at Frank Crane Arena.

Featured

Saturday, March 8, 2:30 p.m.: Longtime readers of The Discourse will know that International Women's Day (IWD) is an extra special time of year for our small team. As a women-led and founded independent news outlet, we've tried to mark each IWD with special reporting and solutions-oriented community events.

This year, we organized a special action-focused panel discussion co-hosted by The Discourse and IWD Cowichan Valley this Saturday, 2:30 p.m. at the Craig St. Brew Pub, traditional and unceded Quw'utsun' territory.

A series of stellar local panelists will join Island editor Shalu Mehta to discuss the question: What supports are needed to help women make empowered and informed decisions, whatever those decisions are?

Confirmed panelists are:

Debra Toporowski (Qwulti’stunaat), Cowichan Valley NDP MLA and Provincial Secretary for Rural Health.

Beverly Suderman, executive director of the Cowichan Women’s Health Collective, community planner and educator.

Laura Interlandi, manager of Lelum ‘u tu S’tsa –ehl teyt-en, House of Honourable Mothers, a House of Friendship program and transition home with a mandate to reduce child apprehensions locally by offering supports to mothers and kids.

Dr. Emily Stuart, medical doctor with the Vancouver Island Women’s Clinic in Victoria, which offers a range of services related to reproductive health for individuals with a uterus. 

Register here to secure your spot!

Tickets for the in-person event are pay what you can afford, $20-$30, with all proceeds going to support The Discourse's independent news service and House of Honourable Mothers.

Can't make it in person? Register for the virtual event to get your free Zoom link. 

We will also Livestream to our YouTube.

See you around town,

— Mick and The Discourse team

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