2019 Presenters
Ajamu is a fine art photographic artist and archive-curator whose work has been consistently shown in galleries, museums and alternative spaces throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. He is predominately known for black male portraits, self-portraits and studio-based constructed imagery.
Alessandra Pomarico is a curator of international and multidisciplinary residency programs at the intersection of arts, pedagogy, social issues, nano-politics, and community building. Her practice is based on research and context-based art projects, with a focus on social change. Mobilizing…
Angel Velasco Shaw is a media artist, educator, curator, and cultural organizer living in Manila and New York City. Her experimental documentaries—Inherited Memories, When Absence Becomes Presence, Motherload, The Momentary Enemy, Umbilical Cord, Asian Boys, Nailed and Balikbayan/Return to Home…
ARAHMAIANI is one of the leading figures in the contemporary art scene in Indonesia, working in performance, painting, drawing, installation, video, poetry, dance and music. She was one of the artists featured in the Indonesia National Pavilion at the 50th…
Elwood Jimmy is a learner, collaborator, writer, artist, facilitator, cultural manager, and gardener. He is originally from the Thunderchild First Nation, a Nêhiyaw community in the global north. For close to 20 years, he has played a leadership role in…
Emma Kazaryan is a multimedia journalist based in New York City. She holds a master’s degree from Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. She is ethnically Armenian who was born in Georgia and grew up in Russia. Her passion is covering…
Esi Edugyan was born and raised in Calgary, Alberta, and studied creative writing at the University of Victoria. She is author of the novels The Second Life of Samuel Tyne which was shortlisted for the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award, and Half-Blood…
Esteban Figueroa is a Puerto Rican visual artist and organizer. His work is comprised of community-based theatre workshops, photography, painting and digital editing. Figueroa employs theatrical, multi-sensory installations, which are hosted in iconic architectural structures where participants and visitors come…
Haroon Siddiqui is Editorial Page Editor Emeritus of the Toronto Star, Canada’s largest newspaper; a senior Fellow at Massey College, University of Toronto; and Distinguished Visiting Professor at Ryerson University, Toronto. He has reported or supervised coverage of Canada for…
Jacob Cohen is a Brooklyn based experimental cellist and visual artist. From 2011–2016 he earned a living performing in the New York City subways, developing a unique style that has grown out of a frustration with traditional cello music and…
jake moore is an artist that works at the intersections of material, text, and vocality and a PhD candidate in Art History and Communication Studies at McGill University . moore considers her primary medium to be space; this idea expands the understanding…
Kahsenniyo Williams is a spoken word artist from the Mohawk Nation Wolf Clan. Kahsenniyo began utilizing her poetry as a tool for social change and community engagement in 2008. Her work is centered around Indigenous issues. She aims to educate…
The artists of Mix Mix Dance Collective have been extensively training, performing, teaching and competing in various street dance forms for more than 10 years. Their work is loud, colourful, groovy, accessible yet poignant, sharing their love of underrepresented street…
Natalia Crocker lives in Trout River, Newfoundland. She works at Elephants Head RV Park, and is a member of the Trout River Trail Committee — a new group she co-founded — to restore the town’s hiking trails. She is the…
New Chance has performed in art venues, concert halls, dance clubs and public spaces. Her work in music also includes a long-time collaborative practice in contemporary dance. She DJs and organizes queer raves as part of the New Nails collective.…
Nikolay Oleynikov (1976) is an artist; punk; antifascist; member of CHTO DELAT; musician with the ARKADIY KOTS band; mentor at the SCHOOL of ENGAGED ART of Chto (St Petersburg); present at ROSA’s House of Culture; co-pilot at FREE HOME UNIVERSITY; contributor and editor for ArtsEverywhere.ca; and author of the SEX…
Peter Schuler is an Elder of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation of the Anishnaabek Peoples.
Petra Glynt is the solo experimental pop project of Alexandra Mackenzie formed in August 2012 in Toronto, Canada. Her first recordings (Of The Land EP) were recorded on a four-track tape recorder in the bedroom of her Bloor Street apartment…
Qwo-Li Driskill is a (non-citizen) Cherokee Two-Spirit and Queer writer, activist, and performer also of African, Irish, Lenape, Lumbee, and Osage ascent. S/he is the author of several books, including Asegi Stories: Cherokee Queer and Two-Spirit Memory, a finalist for…
Robert Houle is a Toronto artist and a member of Sandy Bay First Nation, Manitoba. He graduated from both the University of Manitoba (B.A.) and McGill University (B.Ed.) and studied painting and drawing at the International Summer Academy of Fine…
Rocky Cajigan is a multimedia artist from the Mountain Province of the Philippines. He was awarded the 2016 Ateneo Art Awards’ Fernando Zobel Prizes for Visual Art for his solo show Museumified, which featured 22 assemblage pieces and sculptures made…
Originally from the coastal Cree community of Fort Albany First Nation, off the coast of James Bay, Rosary Spence is a well-recognized Indigenous singer, steeped in time-honoured Aboriginal rhythms and styles. Spence prides herself as an established self-taught vocalist but…
Sandra Semchuk is a Ukrainian Canadian photographer and video artist who works across generations, cultures and species. In her book, The Stories Were Not Told, Canada’s First World War Internment Camps, Semchuk uses memory work and photography to create a…
Sidd Joag is a visual artist, journalist, and community organizer working at the intersection of arts, culture, social justice, and human rights for over fifteen years. He is the Managing Editor at ArtsEverywhere.ca and a member of the public art collective Amber…
Tanya Lukin Linklater’s performances in museums, videos and installations have been exhibited in Canada, the United States and abroad. Her work centres Indigenous knowledge production in and through orality, conversation and embodied practices, including dance. She considers That which sustains us a…
Experimental vocalist and artist Tanya Tagaq won the Polaris Prize for best Canadian album in 2014, for Animism. Those who thought she had then made her definitive artistic statement are in for a surprise. Also in for a shock are those…
Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti holds a Canada Research Chair in Race, Inequalities and Global Change at the Department of Educational Studies, University of British Columbia. She is also currently the Interim Director at the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies.…
Founder of the renowned Zab Maboungou / Danse Nyata Nyata Company, artist-choreographer and performer, philosophy professor and author, Zab Maboungou has distinguished herself on all fronts of artistic and cultural action. Through her works and involvement in artistic and cultural…