Listening Circles Toolkit

This Community Listening Circles toolkit was developed by Concordia University’s Art Hives Network to support the truth and reconciliation process. This emerging practice is applicable to the post-secondary institution context.

The Art Hives Network acknowledges the ongoing struggles of Indigenous people caused by colonization, and joins together to examine the role of non-Indigenous Canadians in the truth and reconciliation process to help establish and restore Indigenous people’s rights in Canada.

The Art Hives Network invites people in communities across Canada to come together to form small listening circles, sitting in a circle and listening to each other, and reflecting critically on personal and collective choices and experiences. Adding spontaneous and informal art-making about a topic that may be uncomfortable, uncertain and unclear helps to maintain an empathetic space. Community listening circles can generate the necessary dialogue to uncover and examine how our personal and collective story intersects with colonialism, and how we may reproduce it in our lives and cause harm to Indigenous peoples.

The Art Hives Network acknowledges that this toolkit is a work in progress initiated by a group of non-Indigenous Canadians. The Art Hives Network welcomes feedback and participation and evaluation data at network@arthives.org. Please see page 6 of the toolkit for suggested qualitative evaluation questions.