Syzygy, at its core, is a community. And it's what we (two former 25-year-old roommates and friends) longed for ourselves as its founders. A union of opposites. A diverse network of womxn from across the city, joining together to connect, engage in dialogue, and support each other was our shared dream.
From 2017 to 2020, Syzygy hosted seasonal, screen-free, living-room-style events with hundreds of womxn across Toronto featuring incredible speakers and performers like Kenzie Brenna, Liz Lokre, and Sulafa Silim. In partnership with remarkable people and womxn-driven businesses like Ola Mazzuca, Katherine Kwan, and Studio67, we produced meaningful spaces that allowed us to delve deep into topics like mental health, sexuality, and race.
To date, Syzygy is one of our proudest accomplishments, and today, we announce that Syzygy, as we know it, has come to an end. This means that Syzygy will no longer host community events (although we still have free resources to help you facilitate your own). Our professional services will continue to be available to organizations on an on-demand basis, which will be led and managed by Syzygy Co-founder Marijke Large. Syzygy Co-founder Kailah Bharath has stepped back as an active member but will remain on the team as an advisor.
To honour this "season finale", we, Syzygy's co-founders, took some time to reflect and ask each other about the end of our shared passion project and what's next for us. You can check out our interview below. Finally, thank you. Thank you for believing in this community and joining us for the journey. We cherish all of it.
Interview by Marijke Large and Kailah Bharath, Syzygy Co-founders
How have you changed since founding Syzygy in 2017?
Marijke: We were twenty-five when we started Syzygy. Enough said! Kidding aside, today, I am more assured in who I am in the small, almost mundane moments of life.
How has COVID-19 and our current times impacted your vision of Syzygy's mission?
Kailah: COVID-10 forced me to see if we could translate the magic of our offline experiences into the digital space. We experimented with a couple of online events, which is very different from our original vision (screen-free, intimate, living-room-style events). Although there was positive feedback, it didn’t quite nail it for me. I still believe in our “union of opposites” philosophy, and I’m now more excited to see how I can put that framework into practice in my everyday life.
What does community mean to you now?
M: Everything (always has, though). To give context, over the past year I moved to Oakland, California. Although this was my third move in the past decade - from Ottawa, to Toronto, by way of Victoria - and, even outside of everything 2020 is, it felt different. This move showed to me that community is as much the gathering of dear people together, as it is the small I'm thinking of you texts to the unexpected phone calls to asking myself, can you have community in yourself? YES to that feeling of both loneliness and that you have an exceptional community...even if they are far away type of paradox - you know? With the fear of being cliche, this year helped me reimagine "community," for me.
What's one of the biggest lessons you’ve learned from working on Syzygy over the years?
M: Phew. Tough question! Evolve the outputs of your passions as you evolve your inner you. Second key learning: When you're doing something of the heart, it is OK to move slow and intentional in a world that prioritizes moving fast and producing, producing, producing...
*Both things I have learnt from Kailah BTW*
K: Ah, that’s so sweet and real. I’ve learned so much from you as well. In many ways, your constant encouragement is what’s helped me to become more confident and sure of myself over the years. It’s also been an incredible experience to learn how to trust someone else (aka you) with a shared project like this and I’m emerging from Syzygy with one incredibly unique and powerful friendship.
What is your hope for how other women-led community focused event companies can support the idea of "by women for women"?
K: I hope they start or continue to advocate for each other in every way (at work, politically, in your families, etc.) I also hope that more womxn-centered communities focus more strongly on racial justice and intersectional feminism. Too many womxn of colour have been let down or worse by communities that marketed themselves as being for everyone but in reality were not. That has to change. If we’re going to be “by womxn for womxn” that needs to encompass all womxn not just womxn who look like us, talk like us, dress like us, and have the same upbringings as us. This really goes back to the meaning of Syzygy (a union of opposites).
What is one of your proudest Syzygy memories?
M: One of my proudest Syzygy moments is authoring a free event guide detailing Syzygy's "secret sauce" so community members, wherever they are, could run their own impactful, well-organized gatherings. For me, this is how Syzygy - the community - can live on. The partnership with Kailah - our original union of opposites - is both my proudest moment, and what I cherish most about the journey, from idea to creation to now. That feeling for me is as much the moment we would share at the end of each event - codified with our secret partner handshake - as it was the countless hours shared ideating, evolving and growing ourselves and the business, together. With the community, for me, it was always the moments where we did activities to spark connection and mingling at gatherings. At the heart of Syzygy is the community, and the time spent talking, hearing stories, and learning from community members are lifetime worthy moments and memories.
Thank you for reading! X