The Alchemy Lecture

Torkwase Dyson will participate as one of four selected presenters for York University’s Fifth Annual Alchemy Lecture (ScALE), taking place on October 29, 2026, from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the Sandra Faire and Ivan Fecan Theatre.

Each year, the Alchemy Lecture brings together a constellation of internationally recognized scholars, artists and researchers from diverse disciplines and geographies to engage publicly with the most pressing questions of our time. A multi-vocal and multi-modal forum, the Alchemy Lecture creates space for collective reflection on the social, political and environmental challenges shaping our world. Each lecture culminates in the publication of a book in Alchemy by Knopf, the series headed by Dionne Brand, extending the ideas and conversations that emerge from the event.

Moderated by Christina Sharpe, writer, Professor, and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Black Studies for York University, ScALE will feature presentations from:

Torkwase Dyson (Artist) on the diagram, the gesture and the field of Black liberation.

Thandi Loewenson (Architectural Designer and Researcher) on land, air, indigenous cosmologies and the interconnected terrains through which struggles for sovereignty must be understood.

Lorenzo Pezzani (Architect and Researcher) on human and more-than-human im-mobilities and the project of liberation.

Audra Simpson (Anthropologist) on Indigeneity and measuring the scale of harm in Canada and the United States.

Parallel to this, Dyson also has her solo exhibition, The Distance Inside Us (Bird and Lava), on view at York University’s Goldfarb Gallery. Comprised of painting, sculpture, and installation, the exhibition explores the literal and conceptual spaces of liberation and confinement as a world-building exercise in a time of ecological crisis.