2017 artists

Embodied Resistance

OCADU The Great Hall

The 2017 exhibition, titled Embodied Resistance, was motivated by FAC’s continuous desire to create a platform for engaging in the pivotal social conversations of our day. In response to an open call for intersectional feminist art, we received an abundance of works that activated the body as a site of resistance. In pouring through this diverse array of multidisciplinary submissions, it became clear that the body is on the mind.

A.K. Prince is a multi-dimensional artist creating poetry, video and dance. Her video trilogy Suicide Note premiered at Berlin’s People of Colour Trans and Queer Film Festival in 2011 and has been part of university curriculum. At present, she is working on a series of video shorts that bring to life the complexities of migrant temporalities and thought processes across multiple geographies. Sarron da Saag will be a first part of a set on food poetics. She has also released a photo project Line with A colour deep (2016) and first published in Q? Y Art?: Queer & Trans ‘South Asian’ Youth and Art (2013). Line features the many facets of line taking form in unique everyday patterns as a way of challenging institutionalized, gendered and racialized boundaries. Her stage performances in Toronto include Colour Me Dragg, Inside/Out Film Festival’s Transplanetarium Party, BrOWN//out stage at Pride Toronto, and Making a Stage for Our Stories.

Amanda Amour-Lynx is a First Nations multidisciplinary artist studying towards a Bachelor in Fine Arts at OCAD University in Drawing and Painting with a background in social service work. She is passionate about co-creation and activism through collaborative art projects. Her interests include sexual diversity, intersectionality, gender, women, indigeneity and mental health.

Her work originated with illustrative painting and fashion photography that examines feminine spirituality, the grotesque, difficult moments, and oft not discussed topics of humanity. Her work has recently focused on expressions in abstract painting, mixed media, manipulating photo and sound, video, performance art, zine making, and digital storytelling.

Poet, novelist and educator Andrea Thompson (MFA) has been a celebrated performer on the Canadian spoken word scene for over twenty years. In 2005, Thompson’s CD One was nominated for a Canadian Urban Music Award, and in 2009 she was awarded Poet of Honour by the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word. In 2008, Thompson toured her one-woman show, Mating Rituals of the Urban Cougar across the country, and in 2011, was host of the nationally broadcast television series, Heart of a Poet. Thompson’s writing has been featured in a variety of journals and anthologies, and she is the author of the collection, Eating the Seed (Ekstasis Editions, 2000), the co-editor of the anthology Other Tongues: Mixed Race Women Speak Out (Inanna Publications, 2005) and author of the novel, Over Our Heads (Inanna, 2014). Thompson currently teaches Spoken Word through the Ontario College of Art and Design University’s continuing studies department and Workman Arts in Toronto.

Rimshah Ahmed is a mother of two vibrant little boys. Her passion for all art forms comes as a genetic gift from her father and mother. It is only in the recent years that she began to seriously explore this very important facet of her character. She aspires to connect and educate the society through her art work which includes, drawing, painting, photography, writing and spoken-word poetry. In 2014 she was chosen with 7 others from over 80 applicants to speak at TEDxOntarioPublicService. In a well received event of over 100 in person audience and thousands watching at satellite locations; she spoke about her challenges when she began wearing a head scarf as a part of her religious identity. Just this year, she took the step to formally start her own Facebook and Instagram pages to share her art work. In less than 5 months, her Instagram account, @olivetreearts has over 1300 followers. She hopes to continually create and engage in meaningful art that brings awareness and positive social change.

Angela Aujla is an emerging artist working in the areas of line drawing, collage, and mixed media. She is also a professor of Sociology and Cultural Studies, and a mother. In much of her work, she seeks to emphasize the resilience and dignity of South Asian women, particularly as it is the women who have traditionally had the difficult task of being the keepers and transmitters of culture, language and tradition, a task made particularly challenging in diasporic contexts. In the words of Sikh poet, Amrita Pritam, there are many stories which “are not written on paper, but are written on the bodies and minds of women.” The specific story in Angela’s work is left ambiguous, as she hopes the viewer will see something of their own story reflected in her portraits.

The lines of Angela’s artwork are fluid and connected with elements that are out of place, out of proportion and fragmented, just as the self and identity are. By creating lines that are dynamic and have a lot of movement, Angela hopes her artistic style will reflect conceptions of culture, tradition and identity being in constant re-creation and flux, rather than static and timeless. Angela’s work has been part of a number of recent group exhibitions in Toronto, Berkely (CA), Barrie, Innisfil, Midland, Anten Mills, Brampton, and Orillia. She has sold her artwork both internationally and domestically to private collections in Amsterdam, New Jersey, Toronto, Vancouver, Victoria, Lake Cowichan, Port Credit, Barrie, Oro Station, Innisfil, and Midland.

Carol Mark is an artist activist that utilizes art as a means for creating social change and influencing human rights, with an emphasis on women and children. Carol believes Art can change the world with the voices of women. Carol established ACA Gallery (art, culture, aid) that “art can change the world” with proceeds of art sales to grassroots projects targeted for women and children. ACA Gallery was the first social enterprise art gallery in Toronto to raise awareness and funds, as well as bring awareness that art can create social change (This Magazine article).

ACA Gallery incorporated art, artists and purchasers in direct action to create change. ACA Gallery was an incubator where public school children created art that had a direct influence on where the funds from sales of their artwork at the gallery were donated. Exhibits included themes on women and violence, exhibits of art by homeless women and international support for Rebecca Lalossa, leader of a women’s only village in Nairobi Park, to help establish a children’s library. This village was originally established when abused women had nowhere to live after leaving an abusive domestic situation.

Carol has served on Toronto’s Committee on the Status of Women, was a member of a women’s only film collective SHE -TV. Her first short was in the UNESCO Women’s Conference in Beijing. As a supporter of women’s rights she supported Femaid based in France, and underground schools for girls in Afghanistan through RAWA, Revolutionary Afghanistan Women’s Association. Carol traveled to Afghanistan in secret in Oct 2002 with a commitment to aid local women by organizing a 15,000 lbs airline of aid and supplies for a girls’ library named after Malalai Joya, the first elected woman parliamentarian. (CITIZENshift media for social change)

Charlie Petch is a playwright, spoken word artist, haiku deathmaster, host and musical saw player for The Silverhearts. Petch’s new vaudeville play: “Mel Malarkey Gets The Bum’s Rush” has had sold out shows in Toronto and Peterborough. They have several handsome chapbooks and “Late Night Knife Fights” was published with LyricalMyrical Press. They have been published by Descant, The Toronto Quarterly and Joypuke journals. Petch is a member of The League of Canadian Poets and “The Dildettes” a queer spoken word/comedy troupe along with Regie Cabico and David Bateman. Petch was a member of both the 2011 and 2012 Toronto Poetry Slam Teams, was the coach of the 2015 team and is the creative director of “Hot Damn It’s A Queer Slam”. Petch is happiest onstage.

Christine D’Onofrio is a visual artist based in Vancouver, British Columbia. She attended York University in Toronto for her BFA, and completed her MFA at the University of British Columbia. She has shown extensively throughout Canada and currently teaches at the University of British Columbia.

Fluid lines

Mother earth speaks in rhythmic touches when I knit. Stranded thoughts fall on my lap as if they were begging me to stare back. There is casting-on in the knitting I do. The garment comes to me to continue it. Sometimes it comes uneven, sharp, smooth, highly twisted, in heavy chunks, shy, torn apart, hard as iron walls, but never in firm lines. I was not born a social justice educator; I inherited a legacy of colonialism that led to a civil war. That was my security blanket. And that is the attitude the yarn flows through my cinnamon skin. The elasticity weaves in every one of my arteries. The knitting is inwards. It crosses my heart in X-twists to remind me of all the categories I have to check to be considered a human with a bit of worth. The blood rapidly grips the yarn creating guerrilla embroidery. The kind that explodes like an atomic bomb when a woman is killed.

Like the women in Ciudad Juárez.
Like indigenous women in Canada.
Like Berta Cáceres in Honduras.

And then the uneven stitches jump of the edges holding on to the last breath of our sisters. That is the friction that stamps the filaments when someone asks in the name of “good intentions” what is behind my needlework. “Unlearn!” I demand.

Clementine Morrigan is a writer, artist, zinester, academic, organizer, and witch. They are a white settler living and working on Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, and Anishinabek land, known as Toronto. Their work explores trauma, queer temporalities, and more-than-human intimacies. They have a special affinity with plants.

Emma Rochester is a context-based interdisciplinary artist who uses her body as a channel to investigate the iconic power of nature – a terminal through which explorations of imagination, memory, and sensorial understandings of gendered landscapes are filtered and structured into multilayered works. Exploring ideas of the feminine as allegory for natural environs and the sacred she creates site-specific projects that comprise of fibre forms, drawings, textile design, sculpture, video art, and performance artefacts.

Her current PhD project in Visual Art at Griffith University (Australia) is an inquiry into the affirmative role that depicting and experiencing the divine as woman can be. Titled “The Embodied Artefact – a nomadic approach to gendered sites of reverence through an interdisciplinary art practice.” Rochester undertakes pilgrimages to scapes of prayer and petition for those who identify as female. Including but not limited to Black Madonna shrines, caves, springs, lakes, Neolithic fertility sites and Aphrodite Temples.

Currently artist-in-residence at Ateliers Four Winds in Southern France her other international residencies include Leighton Artist’s Colony and BAIR both at The Banff Centre (Canada), Artscape Gibraltar Point (Canada), Temple University/CRANE Arts Philadelphia (USA), JiwarAIR (Spain), Camac Centre for the Arts, AIR Vallauris, Atelliers Four Winds (France) and the Cyprus College of Art.

Hadieh Afshani is an Iranian born, Australian citizen who recently moved to the U.S. Hadieh is an active fine artist who did her undergraduate study in Fine Arts (Painting) in her home town; Tehran and finished her M.A in Queensland College of Arts- Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia. In 2009, Hadieh began working as a Fine Arts lecturer and tutor in QCA. Hadieh Afshani has been a finalist and a winner of numerous national and international art awards and competitions inside and outside of Australia. Her latest solo exhibition “Self-Space Universe” takes place in Redland Art Gallery in Queensland on March 8th (International women’s day) till May 7th. Like many other artists, life experiences are the main motivations for Hadieh’s works and so immigration or moving from one space to another space, and its effects on an immigrant woman with an Eastern poetic view to all the experiences in that process. Therefore, the experience of immigration or the “double displacement” as she calls it, for Iranian immigrant women, and the sense of time, memory, hopes for coming future through intimate places, is what interests Hadieh and so her paintings for the past 10 years (since her immigration to Australia).

website

Co-collaborator, Shirley Siegal is an Israeli Artist, Archaeologist and Lecturer.Shirley’s work focuses on the life of a woman – her place in society and the family, as mother, daughter, career woman and artist. Her paintings convey everyday life, social status, dress code and the relationship of a woman with her surroundings. As an artist, she uses various mediums including oil on canvas or board, watercolour, acrylic on stone, charcoal, sepia and pencils.

Shirley has received several prominent awards. In 2016, Shirley was selected by Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to be an official representative in Macedonia, in INTERNATIONAL COLONY OF ART KICEVO. Shirley’s artworks are part of private and public collections around the world, including Israel, UK, Australia and New Zealand.

Hana is a mixed media artist and a therapist based in Hamilton, ON. Hana was born in Israel and immigrated to Canada in 2003. She graduated from the Industrial Design department of Bezalel Academy for Art and Design in Jerusalem. She worked in multimedia design, carpentry and mixed media conceptual art. Hana is an art therapist and registered social worker specialized in the area of trauma especially Sexual Abuse. Hana often uses art as a tool for social change. Guided by self-reflection and influenced by her role as a therapist, Hana explores the visualization of intrinsic notions. She uses diverse materials and art techniques such as thread molding, digital manipulated photos printed on transparencies and assemblage of natural materials such as branches and stones. Hana has exhibited in Hamilton, Edmonton and Israel and is a member of the O-MA-NOOT gallery founding committee.

HERstory Counts is a social justice movement focused on the out loud representation of those who are systematically (and systemically) left out of textbooks, left out of curriculums, left out of legislature…left out. HERstory Counts is a response to the silencing of female-identified womyn whose stories belong in the world. We are a company featuring true stories, performed by the creators themselves offering a space to challenge and push past the ideals of the status quo. We feature and celebrate female-identified womyn of all backgrounds, all ages, all races, all histories, all sizes, all sexual orientations, and all abilities.

Jennifer Neales, Founder and Co-Artistic Director and Producer, founded HERstory Counts in January of 2016. Neales has been acting all over the world for 20 years, and recently began producing. Some of her selected acting credits include: Jennie Malone in “Chapter Two”, touring in Japan; Roberta in “Love and Human Extinction” (Fringe Festival’s Best Actor 2009); Suzy in “’da Kink in My Hair” in the North American Tour. Jennifer is now and always writing her own one-womyn show “The Invisible Bride’s Maid”.

Evangelia Kambites, Co-Artistic Director and Producer, is a professional actor, singer, and dancer based in Toronto, Canada. Notable stage credits include the Sterling Award- winning production of Hairspray (Mayfield Theatre), Buddy–The Buddy Holly Story (Theatre North West), the Jessie Award-winning production of Avenue Q (Arts Club), The Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God (NAC/Centaur Theatre/BTW). She recently appeared on FOX’s Minority Report, and NBC’s Heroes Reborn. Evangelia is a graduate of the Randolph Academy for the Performing Arts, and holds a BAH in Music and Drama from Queen’s University.

Jenna Borsato, Technical Director and Assistant Producer of HERstory Counts, is a third year student in Ryerson Theatre School’s Performance Production Program. Theatre credits include: Production Intern- Canadian Stage, 2016; Stage Manager and Assistant Producer- HERstory Counts, 2016; Marketing & Social Media Manager, Ryerson Theatre School 2016 Season; Stage Manager- Clown, Ryerson Theatre School; Production Assistant- Spring Awakening & Hamelt, Ryerson Theatre School; Director- Waldeinsamkeit, Mayfield S.S.

Hyein is an engineer turned an illustrator and motion graphics designer. She gave up her big fat paycheque to pursue her dream; she is poor now, but somehow a lot happier. Her work is often populated by lonesome, humble and friendly monsters which depict melancholy moments with cuddly-toy appeal.

Autobiographical in content, these intimate diary-like paintings are often a direct translation of the artist’s feeling. She was born in Korea and came to Canada when she was 14. She now lives in her favourite city, Toronto.

James Knott is an emerging, Toronto based artist, currently studying Integrated Media and Drawing/Painting at OCAD University. Their practice combines video, animation, performance, audio art, and theatre to create immersive experiences for the viewer. Common themes and motifs include synesthesia and the visualization of sound, anxiety and mental illness, suburbia, inner dialogues, multiple selves, queer issues, and identity. They’ve exhibited/performed in Xpace’s Intra- Action, OCAD’s Festival of the Body, Feminist Art Conference, and the AGO’s First Thursdays.

Janice Turner has worked in the arts since 1991. She has been writer, creator and performer as a storyteller, puppeteer, clown and more recently visual artist. Throughout Turner’s career the focus and underlying thread have been her feminist values, which informs the stories she tells in each of her chosen media. These ideals were instrumental in her creating “A Night in the Red Tent” that ran annually for seven years on International Women’s Day in Newmarket, Ontario. This was an evening of celebration by women, for women. It was an overwhelming success. Since 2010 Turner has been delving into the influence of her childhood religion and feminism. She is transforming discarded textiles, everyday found objects, human hair and barbed wire to create “The Motherhouse”.

Jay Smith has volunteered with the Feminist Art Conference since 2013 as a moderator, promoter, and in a variety of other supporting roles. In addition to being a proud feminist, Jay is a visual artist and musician. As transgender person who is biracial and living with a disability, Jay uses art to explore body and identity politics. Jay is also a youth worker who provides mental and sexual health care to marginalized communities.

Jennifer Feagler received a Bachelor’s degree in art from the University of Alaska Anchorage in 2010. Her artwork was in several local galleries from 2009 to 2012. In 2014, she curated an exhibition titled “Erotische Kunst” at the Project Gallery in Tucson, AZ. Jennifer received a Masters of Fine Arts degree in 2015 from the Southwest University of Visual Arts in Tucson, Arizona. She exhibited nationally several times from 2012 to 2016. In 2016, she attended the Feminist Art Conference Residency in Toronto, Canada.

Jennifer Long is a Toronto-based artist, curator and educator with a BAA from Ryerson University (1998) and a MFA from York University (2009). Long’s art practice draws inspiration from the quiet moments and rituals of everyday life to explore the complexities of interpersonal relationships, vulnerability, perceived ideals, and communication. Since 2009 her artwork has concentrated on mothering through the series Swallowing Ice (2009), Fold (2011-date), Imminent (2012-2014) and Nursing Mothers (in progress). Using constructed scenes with ambiguous narratives, these bodies of work explore women’s experiences, interweaving prominent themes of identity, isolation, ambivalence, and intimacy. Long’s artwork has been exhibited nationally and internationally at galleries including Arnica Artist Run Centre (BC), Harbourfront Centre (ON), La Centrale Galerie Powerhouse (QC), Galerie Poller (DE & NY) and Centre Culturel Calouste Gulbenkian (FR). Her photography has also been included in numerous Canadian and European publications, the most recent being Birth and its Meanings: Representations of Pregnancy, Childbirth and Parenting by Demeter Press (2015). In support of her practice, Long has been the recipient of grants from the Toronto Arts Council, Ontario Arts Council, and The Canada Council for The Arts. She is currently working at OCAD University as an Assistant Professor in the Photography Program and the Associate Chair of Cross-Disciplinary Art Practices.

Through much of my work, I take on issues of racism, sexism, misrepresentation, and underrepresentation– by any means necessary. My projects take the form of new media, performance, video, film, photography, printmaking, and craft. Screenings include Slamdance Film Festival, Park City; Slamdance on the Road with David Lynch, Los Angeles; Center For Asian American Media CAAMFest, San Francisco; San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival; San Francisco Documentary Film Festival; Brooklyn Film Festival; DUMBO Arts Festival, Brooklyn; and Maryland Film Festival. Exhibitions include A.I.R. Gallery, Brooklyn; White Box, New York City; Washington Project for the Arts, Washington, DC; Maryland Art Place; Creative Alliance, Baltimore; Princeton University; Rutgers University; and Washington University in Saint Louis. I am represented by A.I.R. Gallery, Brooklyn, and serve on The Creative Alliance’s Board of Trustees and the Maryland State Arts Council Grant Review Panel. I am a Rubys Art Grantee, Media Arts, for 2017.

Kara Stone is an artist and scholar interested in the affective, somatic, and gendered experiences of mental illness, wellness, and healing as it relates to art production, videogames, and traditional crafting. Her artwork has been featured in The Atlantic, Wired, and Vice. She holds an MA from York University in Communication and Culture and is currently a PhD student in Film and Digital Media with a designated emphasis in Feminist Studies at University of California at Santa Cruz.

Co-collaborators: Rekha Ramachadran, Julia Gingrich, and Kathleen McLeod

Born in England, Karen White is an emerging artist working primarily drawing and photography. She completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts at Laval University in 2014. During the last ten years, she has participated in exhibitions in Quebec. She has made several collaborative projects with other Quebec artists, especially during multidisciplinary and Performative events. She lives and works in Quebec.

Kat Pruss is a Toronto based, queer identifying artist. She studied Design at Seneca college and English and Visual Arts at the University of Toronto. Using liquid gel pens, ink, watercolour, acrylic and pencil crayon she creates highly detailed illustrations, sometimes compiling them into art-books. Pruss explores themes of self and sexuality through narrative structures. In 2014, a collection of images based on Kat’s relationship history called FREE AGENT was published by Steel Bananas, (Vancouver, Leeds), with funding from The Canada Council for the Arts.

Kayla Polan is a Canadian-Czech artist based in Toronto, Ontario. Kayla recently graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Drawing & Painting at the Ontario College of Art and Design University, and spent her third year of study abroad in Italy as part of OCADU’s Florence Off-Campus Studies program. Using humour, Kayla’s work aims to give visibility to sexual minorities. As a queer-identified sex-positive feminist, she hopes to remind the viewer that it is incorrect to assume a universal meaning of sexuality for all.

Kira McCarthy is an emerging Toronto artist. Her work expresses her passion for body politics, especially body image, body shame, body language, and self-acceptance. She fiercely explores women’s experiences of Eating Disorders, weight shaming, and the pathologizing of obesity. Kira has been a Special Education Teacher for 14 years. She brings her love of learning and joy for personal expression into her artwork. Kira began her activism at 9 years old when she organized boycotts against products from counties that did not have sanctions against that time period’s Apartheid in South Africa. After that she moved onto organizing Take Back the Night events in both Toronto and Peterborough, participating in numerous protests, and starting a 6 day sit-in. Social justice and an anti-oppression lens frame much of her work in both visual arts and teaching. Kira’s other passions include singing, writing, and researching.

Born and raised in Cobourg, Ontario, Lana Missen is a Toronto based visual artist working with photography to explore themes of the body, identity, and female representation. Through portraiture, she aims to create visibility and a space to share her own and others’ stories to a wider audience. A strong believer in the importance of collaboration and community, Missen’s practice is based on engaging with individuals and her viewers.

Her body of work “That F Word” was shown at OCAD University’s 100th Graduate Exhibition Spring 2015, and was part of the ‘Contact’ photo festival in Toronto in May. Her first solo show of “That F Word” was held at OISE through partnership with WIA projects in June 2015. In May 2016 she was one of the selected artists for the Feminist Art Conference Residency at Artscape Gibraltar Point. She has also displayed works in the juried CLIC Eastern Ontario Photo Show, where she won first place in 2012. She was part of the “Aperture” show at Moniker Gallery in downtown Toronto in 2014. She has an interest in art education and, outside of her fine art practice; Lana enjoys documenting performances of live theatre, dancers, and musicians. Lana Missen graduated in 2015 from OCAD University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts with distinction in Photography, and a minor in English. She returns to school for 2016/17 to pursue a post-graduate certificate in Arts Administration and Cultural Management at Humber College.

Lauren Fournier is a contemporary artist and writer who works across media. Born and raised in Saskatchewan, she holds a BA in Interdisciplinary Fine Arts from the University of Regina and a Masters in English from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. She is currently a PhD candidate at York University, where she focuses on contemporary feminist theory and art across media. In addition to her art practice and academic research, Lauren has worked as a gallery facilitator, zine producer, community mental health advocate, and harm reduction worker. Her art practice explores themes integral to the history of feminism: hysteria, witches, sexuality, and the female-identifying body in public space. Her performances on video often take a phrase that is wrapped up in feminist ambivalence — Is it bad to be a witch? or, You’re hysterical — and repeats it, causing its meaning and possible readings to shift over time. An artist who was raised in an Evangelical Christian household and now identifies as a sex-positive feminist artist with ongoing mental health struggles, Fournier’s practice is grounded in her lived experience. She strives toward an art practice that is intersectional, anti-racist, and trans-inclusive in its feminism, acknowledging the privileges that her whiteness affords her particularly in light of feminism’s histories. As a scholar, Lauren Fournier specializes in gender and sexuality studies, performance studies, contemporary literature, and critical theory. Her work has exhibited in galleries, artist-run centres, and alternative spaces in Canada, Texas, and Berlin. Her writing has been published in KAPSULA, Magenta, Canadian Art, Canadian Journal of Woman Studies, and West Coast Line.

Lynx Sainte-Marie is a disabled/chronically ill, non-binary/genderfluid, Afro+Goth Poet of the Jamaican diaspora with ancestral roots indigenous to Africa and the British Isles, living on stolen Anishinaabek, Haudenosaunee and Huron-Wendat land (Greater Toronto Area). Lynx is also the creator of #BlackSpoonieSpeak, a creative writing workshop series for Black disabled/chronically ill youth on the margins. Lynx has traveled throughout Canada performing poetry, developing and facilitating workshops, presenting on panels and lecturing at colleges, universities, conferences and various other spaces where it is welcome to interrogate structural oppression. Lynx has had the opportunity to train and educate a plethora of individuals – from social service providers, sex educators, high school and post-secondary students to university faculty and administration – on intersectionality, anti-oppression, queer and trans communities, accessibility, creative arts and allyship. Lynx has also consulted for a number social service organizations and sits on various committees, seeking to challenge mainstream narratives around art creation.

Mahlikah Awe:ri Enml’ga’t Saqama’sgw (The Woman Who Walks In The Light) Mahlikah Awe:ri is a (Haudenosaunee Mohawk/Mi’kmaw) drum talk poetic rapologist; poet, musician, hip-hop MC, arts educator, radio host, curator, Deputy Executive Director for the TD Centre of Learning Regent Park, and founding member of Red Slam Collective, an Indigenous hip hop movement nominated for the TD Diversity Award in 2013. Awe:ri a KM Hunter OAC Literary Arts Award nominee released the spoken spokenword EP Serpent’s Skin in 2011, and is currently published in 5 literary anthologies. Mahlikah Awe:ri is an indigenous arts educator for the Ontario Arts Council; The Aboriginal Education Centre, and the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Recent projects include: The Symposium of the Americas on Cultural Based Innovation at the Banff Cultural Centre in Alberta; Panelist and Facilitator for the First Annual Naked Heart LGBTQ Festival of Words; Presenter Emergence Symposium | Arts & Equity : Leading Social Change; Workshop Facilitator and Performer for the First Nations Metis Inuit Storytelling and Poetry Symposium in Windsor, Ontario. Recent performing arts accomplishments for 2016 include: Long Dragon House Artist Residency ~Song Dong’s Communal Courtyard at the AGO; UNITY Festival Curator for the Graffiti~Visual Arts Gallery and Headline Performer; Emcee for the 4th Annual Indigenous Arts Festival at Indigenous HipHop Showcase featuring Drezus and Supaman at Fort York; Intent City performer and artistic director, Summer Works 2016.

mia susan amir is a community-embedded writer, interdisciplinary performer, curator, and educator. Born in Israel/Occupied Palestine, mia is an anti-Zionist Jew of Sephardic and Ashkenazi descent. She has lived most of her life in Vancouver, BC, unceded and occupied territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and Tsleil-Waututh. For 17 years, mia has used creative practice in grassroots efforts towards environmental and social justice. mia is the Creative Director of The Story We Be (SWB), a Vancouver-based, community writing institute offering intensives in storytelling across genre for political transformation, and collective healing. She teaches creative writing, and creative-political praxis through SWB, and at Langara College, Vancouver. She is also a co-convening member of The Dreaming Wakefulness Collective based in Oakland, CA, which offers creative writing workshops and intensives mobilizing embodied creative practice to strengthen generative political imagination, interdependence, and healing. mia was a Coordinator of the Creative Coping and Grieving Arts Practice Space for the 2016 Allied Media Conference. In 2015 she was a Distinguished Visiting Writer-Activist at Oregon State University, and an Artist in Residence at the Grin City Collective, Grinnell Iowa.

Michelle Gauthier is a 24 year old artist and graduate from the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCADU) with a bachelor of fine arts in Criticism & Curatorial Practices. She has also completed a graduate certificate in Culture & Heritage Site Management from Centennial College. It is her goal to work as a curator or collections manager, but she swears to never give up her artistic practice. Gauthier started out as a painter at 13 years old, but has since moved on to work mainly in embroidery. It is because of this change in mediums that she feels very passionately about challenging the notion that works of the ‘fine art’ are more valuable than those of ‘craft’. Gauthier is also a firm believer in embracing sexuality, gender, and the body as a whole. She feels very strongly about fighting against trans-phobia and racism, and about protecting reproductive rights. She creates feminist and reproductive-themed works in order to promote self-love, to embrace individuality, and to show that there is no cause for shame when it comes to what is natural. She uses cross stitch and embroidery (which have been thought of in the past as conservative feminine crafts) to depict expressive and opinionated themes. Gauthier attempts to create a strong juxtaposition between form and content, and enables the viewer to question society’s opinions and norms about these subjects. Just like every person and body, none of her works are exactly alike.

Nadia Chaney works as an arts empowerment facilitator. She is an accomplished poet, writer, performer, visual artist and dedicated extreme manicurist. She is a first generation Indo-Canadian born in Saskatoon, grown up in Ottawa, matured in Vancouver currently in Montreal all of which she recognizes as the traditional territories of Indigenous peoples who are its rightful stewards.

Nargis Dhirani is a Filipino-Tanzanian interdisciplinary artist from Dubai, U.A.E., currently based in Vancouver, Canada. Her mother is Catholic and her father Shia, and she has lived between the Islamic and Western world. Her work addresses cultural and female identity, and self- representation. She works in digital collage, soft sculpture, installation, video, painting and photography. Nargis has an interest in kinetic sculpture and installations that are interactive with the public. She has won the Sheikha Manal Young Artist’s Award for People’s Choice in 2012. She now works in community programming to promote creativity and wellness through Yoga and Art.

Niloo graduated from OCAD University in 2015 with a bachelor of fine arts. Her artistic practice focuses on human relations and examines how they are defined through identity, emotions, and varieties of human impressions. Since graduation, Niloo has participated in several group shows and art fairs in Toronto. She currently lives and works in Toronto, Canada.

Pam Patterson (PhD) is a curator, writer, researcher, educator, and artist. Patterson taught in Education, Art Gallery on Ontario for over 10 years, currently teaches for OCAD University, and is Senior Associate for the Centre for Women’s Studies in Education at OISE/UT. Her curatorial projects include: A Celebration of Women in the Arts, The Banff Centre; Body as (ready to be re-) made, Propeller Centre for the Visual Arts; gender/Troubling, XPACE, Toronto; and various WIAprojects exhibitions and events. She is Founder and Director for the interdisciplinary arts-informed feminist presentation, educational, and research programWIAprojects at the University of Toronto and Director of Research for the Canadian Society for Education through Art. Patterson was on the founding board for FADO Performance Inc. and performs internationally. Her work deals with the body-in-extremis as a pedagogical and political site. Recent performance events include: Visualeyze, Edmonton andPerformance DOM, Dominican Republic.

Rosemary Meza-DesPlas is a Mexican-American artist who creates art in the form of hand-sewn human hair, watercolor and drawing installations. She received her Master of Fine Arts Degree in Painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art (Hoffberger School of Painting) and a BFA from the University of North Texas.

Rosemary Meza-DesPlas has exhibited nationally and internationally in such galleries and museums as Espacio Gallery in London, UK; Hoxton Arches Gallery in London, UK; Yorck Studios, Berlin,Germany; Shenyang, China, LuXun Academy of Fine Arts Art; Red Head Gallery, Toronto, Canada; Espace Kiron in Paris, France; A.I.R. Gallery, NYC, NY; ARC Gallery, Chicago, IL and New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, NM. Rosemary Meza-DesPlas is a poet and writer. She has presented academic papers about the visual arts at conferences: “Doing the Body in the 21st Century”, Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies Program, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA; Latino Art Now! Re-Imaging Global Intersections, Inter-University Program for Latino Research, University of Illinois at Chicago & the Smithsonian Latino Center, Chicago, IL; 5th Symposium on Love, Lust, Longing: Rethinking Intimacy at the International Network for Alternative Academia, Barcelona, Spain; International Conference on the Image, Freie Universitat Berlin, Berlin, Germany and Mod Art’13 on Beauty & Ugliness, Modern Art Conference in Istanbul, Turkey.

Samaa Ahmed is a diasporic visual artist. She specializes in using paint, charcoal, oil, laser cutting, and 3D printing to create mixed media works that are vibrant and textural. Her works are inspired by South Asian mythology and folklore, and traditional Pakistani patterns and handicrafts. Her recent work has explored themes of reclamation: reclaiming narratives, reclaiming painting styles (celebrating Pakistani truck art), representations (particularly in the way that women have been portrayed in Pakistani media through billboard illustrations and movie posters). She contrasts “high” and “low” art through combining complex subject matter and stories reminiscent of Mughal miniatures with commercial­style images, colours, and reproductions.

She creates reprints of her works to enhance these images with beads, rhinestones, mirrors, ribbons, etc. to blur the distinction between preserving a historical art form and making it more accessible to contemporary society. Her pieces have been featured at local and international exhibitions, including an ongoing exhibit at the University of Toronto iSchool where she was commissioned to create two indoor murals. She is a Master’s candidate at OCAD University, a board member of the Feminist Art Conference, a researcher at Mural Routes, and the founder of ARTBOX Toronto ­ a monthly subscription service that promotes emerging local artists.

Sandra Haar is a Toronto-based artist and printmaker, who works in installation, bookwork and flat formats. Her artistic practice focusses on subjectivity and representation, addressing erotics, the body, social location and translation, among other concerns. Sandra’s art has been exhibited locally and nationally, including Gallery 44 (Toronto), Forest City Gallery (London) and La Centrale (Montréal), published in several periodicals and anthologies, including The Girl Wants to: Women’s Representations of Sex and the Body (Coach House Press), and sold through Librairie Formats (Montréal), Printed Matter (New York), and Art Metropole (Toronto), among other venues. Recent exhibitions include Eyelevel Reshelving Initiative 7 (Dalhousie Art Gallery, Halifax), DRAWING 2016 (John B. Aird Gallery, Toronto) and Paper Thin (Gallery 101, Ottawa). Reviews and articles on her art have appeared in a variety of arts and general publications, including the collection Textura : l’artiste écrivant / the artist writing. Sandra’s occasional writing on Jewish themes has appeared in Bridges, Canadian Woman Studies / les cahiers de la femme and Tessera. Her works are held in private collections. Sandra is a graduate of the Ontario College of Art. She is a member of Open Studio (Toronto).

Sarah Carlson, b. 1987, Bitburg Germany, is a contemporary Canadian artist working mainly in paint and installation practices. She received her BFAH (2009) from the Faculty of Fine Arts at York University. Her work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions throughout North America and can be found in private collections worldwide. She has been featured in Idea Couture’s MISC Magazine, interviewed by Feminist Art Conference Toronto, and reviewed by Artoronto online art magazine. Sarah was the spring 2016 artist in residence at Algonquin Provincial Park and has attended thematic residencies at Artscape Gibraltar Point, and Can Serrat International Art Centre in Barcelona, Spain. Her work combines representation with abstraction by way of an explorative approach. From time-based media, weathered walls and studio prepared canvas and wood, Sarah embraces a variety of materials and a play between the organic and man-made. Thematically, for Sarah, the wilderness is more than something to be mapped and defined, it is an opportunity for questioning and a site for (re)imagining symbiotic relationships between humans and nature. Her compositions are regularly rooted in plein air studies and field research completed in both remote and urban-rural fringe spaces critical in the field of conservation. Her research examines myth-making with regards to wild spaces and female identity as presented through various media. Sarah utilizes video, installation, performance and paint to address themes of environmental disconnect and to facilitate alternative interpretations of identity in relationship to place.

Sarah Taavola was born in Hartland, Wisconsin in 1986. She works predominantly in sculpture and installations, but includes photography as an important part of her art practice. Taavola completed a BFA focused in photography and sculpture at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2011. She co-founded the Milwaukee Photographic Coalition in 2011 and acted as the public relations officer until 2014. She is currently pursuing her MFA in fine art studio at Rochester Institute of Technology. Taavola has been shown multiple times in the Kinsey Institute International Juried Show since 2009. She is also represented in the contemporary photography collection of the Kinsey Institute.

Sel Ghebrehiwot is a director, videographer, and editor based in Toronto, Canada. She is an emerging experimental filmmaker and video artist whose interests lie in surrealist work and psychological behavior study. She also runs a freelance business; creating digital brand video content and advertising for the fashion retail and lifestyle industries as well as working as an editor and animator on the popular YouTube Channel AsapSCIENCE. Ghebrehiwot’s experimental film I Inhabit This Body was recently selected for screening in International ArtExpo’s OXYGEN ROME 2016 festival.

Sheryl A. Keen is an artist and author. It has been this way since she could first hold pencil and paper. She is interested in bringing contemplative and interpretive works to the viewers’ experience. Sheryl is a self-taught artist who works mainly with acrylics and mixed media. Her works have been included in solo and group exhibitions. She has been featured at the Pickering Canadian Caribbean Cultural Association Dinner, at CIBC Black History Month Events, at several of Toronto Public Library and at private showings. Her most recent exhibitions include a group exhibition at the Print Gallery, Ben Navaee Gallery, the Queen Street Art Crawl, Kingston Road Art Walk, Queen/Saulter Public Library, and the Political Candy Group show with the Pendulum Project. Her works can also be found at the Cultural Expressions Gallery in Pickering, Tribal Eye in Kensington Market and Artists to Artists Foundation. Sheryl’s recent solo exhibition took place at Richview Library 2016 and Pape and Danforth Library 2016. She has also participated in the “Together we Rise” group exhibitions at the Areej Gallery and at Artists to Artists Foundation in 2016. She is a member of Artists to Artist Foundation.

I am currently doing my Ph.D. study at the University of Melbourne. I earned a Bachelor of Arts in Design from Tsinghua University in China and started my Feminism and Cosmetic Surgery series during my M.F.A. study at the State University of New York at Buffalo in the USA.

I am a retired lawyer and college instructor now involved in community development on Denman Island, British Columbia. I identify as a cultural feminist; I am concerned with achieving equality for women in the creative and spiritual realms of our society, where some of our natural ways continue to be repressed, oppressed or unrecognized. I believe that feminine creative and spiritual processes are different from masculine constructs, and that feminine processes need to be explored as they point the way through to a healthier, more whole world. I taught law courses in a Criminology Program at Douglas College. There I developed the first course at our college on environmental law and I pioneered curriculum and practise in restorative justice as a new criminal justice paradigm, which involves circle work and holistic healing, and values interconnectedness, intuition and and the feeling level.

I am fortunate to now live in a community that supports creative and spiritual women and my desire is to help facilitate and bring their work and exploration of the feminine energy spectrum to broader audiences. My retirement enterprise is called Quaternity Platform . The word quaternity is a Jungian term and involves integrating the fourth dimension, which is often seen as the shadow or the feminine aspect. We produce art shows in the community that focus primarily on the Western Mystery traditions that have the feminine alive in them and that were discarded or repressed as dark or occult. These traditions are part of our rich Western heritage.

Toronto-based director Sydni Lazarus likes to attribute her interest in making films to Digimon The Movie and Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist. As a queer, Jewish, sexual assault survivor, Sydni has always had a strong interest in positive and accurate representation in film. Her passion lies in making documentaries and fictional shorts that explore the voices of marginalized groups effectively.

Since childhood, Tanesha Childs has created figurative stories of worlds inspired by her surroundings. While studying at Atlanta Metropolitan State College she began building items and artifacts in these dreamworlds. Mediums Childs has explored in her installation works have gone from ceramic, paper, shoes and cotton candy. Her work is all mystically placed in a Childish Reality, a play with her last name, which is based on our individual change in reality based on our perception. She wants viewers to see where misunderstandings can impact situations and ideas. By placing the audience in a child’s point of view, she is giving them fresh eyes to see dilemmas, or people. Graduating from The University of Alabama she concentrated on her photographic work, exploring the black experience incorporating Afrofuturism, Trap Culture, and Black Consciousness. Creatively displaying black people in the art world, she’s also awakening political statements with her recent works that capture different opinions from those of different backgrounds. The ominous narratives of her photography keep viewers in their present reality while simultaneously detaching them from what they may have thought they were viewing. While the images are visually interesting, she wants her audience to pull further in the contemplation of “what they thought” versus “what they see”.

My name is Vanane Borian, I was born in Armenia at 1984. I immigrated to Israel, with my parents, at 1998. After graduating high school and conservatory (piano class) at 2003, I started the studies of Bachelor degree of textile design at Shenkar – college of engineering, art and design. Till 2013 I worked as a design and decorator, but i decided, that I want more knowledge and started the Master Degree of multidisciplinary design, also at Shenkar. During the studies, I understood, that I want to create an art works talking about social and political problems. In the past two years, I was participated in joint projects with Tempus IDEA (EU), with the Imperial College (London) and the Royal School of Art (London). All the projects were aimed at the creation of new design concepts, the development of companies and corporations with the help of creative thinking, solving political problems, using method of implementation of creative collaborations. There was also project mentored by Naomi Filmer, great artist and designer from UK, that talked about virginity and the ritual of marriage. From then, I started my way of making art that talks about feminism, gender politic problems, ethnic traditions, patriarchy at religion and the role of woman in our social and political life.

Vinopa Sivakumar is a visual artist that strives to create pieces that can be powerful tools to support social change. Born in Sri Lanka she moved to Canada when she was three. She is currently navigating her identity as a South Asian Canadian. She enjoys creating content with a South Asian focus. She hopes her work will resonate with people that are going through similar challenges. She seeks to challenge topics that are taboo within society and create content outside of her comfort zone. Though she finds it difficult at times, she finds incredible strength when working on these projects. She uses photography as a tool to express her thoughts and feelings. She believes art can be a powerful expression of one’s voice and identity. Most of her work is influenced by her observation of society. She hopes that the art she creates will allow for conversations about issues within society that need to be challenged.

Zac Slams is a collage and video artist working in Calgary. She is also a student at the University of Calgary. Currently, she is producing a queer video mixtape with her boyfriend called “Twink Party Sex Tape” for the gallery and production society “EMMEDIA”.