Queerborough Speaker Series: Artist Talk with Vijay Saravanamuthu

Event Description

The Queerborough Archival Project aims to document the past, present, and futures of queer Scarborough, an eastern suburb in the city of Toronto. This speaker series is part of a larger research project that seeks to develop a digital archive of queer Scarborough, affirming that queer people have been – and continue to be – present in Scarborough despite the common notion that queerness only exists in the downtown core. With a lack of existing archival material and formal documentation, we are looking to use creative practice to generate new artifacts that document and affirm our community’s continued presence and resilience.

Funded by the Queer and Trans Research Lab at the Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies, this speaker series seeks to both spotlight the works of local queer of colour artists and open up space for queer youth to gather, and creatively think through questions around space, memory, and queer futures/possibilities of Scarborough. Each invited artist will facilitate a series of two events - a virtual artist talk that contextualizes their artistic practice and how queerness + Scarborough informs their work, and a subsequent hands-on workshop where participants are invited to directly produce personal artistic works with guidance from the facilitator. We encourage those interested to attend both sessions of each artist.

Speaker Bio

Vijay Saravanamuthu (he/him/his) is a multi-talented community organizer with a passion for holistic wellness and the sensory art of food. A queer Tamil man living in Scarborough, he has been deeply engaged in equity-seeking work with racialized communities for over 20 years. Vijay works in community health in Toronto’s non-profit sector, focusing on capacity building, social determinants of health, and dismantling systemic barriers to equity.

Currently pursuing undergraduate studies in English and Health Policy at the University of Toronto Scarborough, Vijay brings creative, interdisciplinary approaches to exploring how place, space, and queerness intersect in everyday life. His work often bridges art, storytelling, and care—reimagining wellness not only through health systems but through food, memory, and shared experience.

Vijay’s current explorations center on culinary archiving as a form of queer world-making: recovering ancestral recipes, experimenting with Tamil and diasporic ingredients, and using communal cooking as a way to build belonging and preserve intergenerational knowledge. He sees the kitchen as a living archive—where history, identity, and pleasure meet.

An artist and aspiring health researcher, Vijay thrives in the sunshine, loves tending to his plants, and believes that nourishment—in all its forms—is an act of resistance and love.