Jesse Del Fierro’s work focuses on centering the artist and valuing process over product and consent over consensus as a radical form of decolonizing their practice—acknowledging that this is a lifelong process that requires care, compassion, and radical empathy on every level of community.

Although Jesse is an artist, their work in the theatre community building anti-racist structures is what interests them most. For Jesse, the Vines Emerging Creatives Program represents the best of what interdisciplinary and inter-marginal work can be.

“In a world of complacency, the least we can do is try and make a little change.”

Vines called upon emerging creatives of all experiences and all artistic practices to join an exploration of relationships to community and the systems that hold us up and hold us back. This was an opportunity to steadily return to a physical society with sustainability, deep care, and gratitude for the land that has felt distant for so many of us. Participants gathered weekly in a collaborative, artist-facilitated space to create a performance/installation piece that was featured at the 7th Annual Vines Art Festival. This free, multi-week program included a variety of art practice workshops, a dedicated team of mentors, and an artist’s fee for completed projects.

Jesse Del Fierro is a queer, non-binary, Filipinx-Canadian actor, director, and theatre creator with the privilege to work in both Moh’kinstsis on Treaty 7 Territory and on the unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples, colloquially known as Calgary, Alberta and Vancouver, BC respectively. They hold a BFA in Theatre Performance from Simon Fraser University, and have collaborated on works presented at PuSh International Performance Art Festival, Vancouver Fringe, SummerWorks, Audain Gallery, and rEvolver Festival, among others.