The CUPE Alberta Women’s Monthly celebrates Black History month this February.
This month, we are proud to highlight Peace Akintade-Oluwagbeye.
Peace (she/her) is an African-Canadian Interdisciplinary Poet, Public Speaker, Chorus-Poem Playwright, and Thespian residing in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Organically from Yorubaland Nigeria, Peace explores the intersectionality of the artist community from an explorer’s perspective, dipping her honey-stained fingers into poetry, dance, performance art, critical research, and the theatre world.
Peace has been involved in the poetry community in various ways, including co-coordinating Write Out Loud, a Saskatoon-based youth poetry community and facilitating classroom poetry workshops in classrooms across the province with a number of different community organizations.
Her work knits together folklore, current events, and vivid imagery to create bridges. She is the author of “Earth Skin”, a poetry collection retelling the joys and woes of human connection. In 2021, her play “Madness with Rocks” was chosen for the 21 Black Future Project with Obsidian Theatre and CBC Gem. Her play “Painted Elephant” was shortlisted for the IBPOC 2021 Persephone Theatre Commission and debuted with the Black Theatre Workshop in Montreal. Recipient of the 2022 RBC SaskArts Emerging Artist Award and the 2023 Platinum Jubilee Queen’s Medal. 2020-2021 Saskatchewan Youth Poet Laurate, 2022 and 2023 READSaskatoon Poet Laurate, Poet-in-Residence with the Remai Modern Gallery for their Here and Now: Live Arts Initiative, and currently finishing her Artist-in-residency with BamSaskatoon, which includes a 46-hour performance art of continuous writing.