About UKAI Projects

Cathleen Calica is a creative visionary. As the co-founder, director and curator of 187 Augusta, ‘Cat’ has five years of first-hand experience of arts management and community leadership. As an artistic director, Cat has styled and designed sets for award winning artists and musicians as well as commercials for high profile clients such as McCain Foods, Adidas Canada and Google. Cat's work revolves around centering and celebrating BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Colour) and 2SLGBTQ+ artistry and excellence.

Adrian Layne is an academic and creative professional, passionate about exploring the intersections of art, education, community development, and technology. Currently pursuing an M.Ed in Adult Education and Community Development at the University of Toronto, he also brings experience as a University administrator within an engineering faculty, where he champions teaching and learning for human innovation as the cornerstone of his work. In the past half-decade, Adrian has reignited his artistic pursuits, leveraging them as tools for community empowerment. This occurs through various initiatives, such as his radio show providing local artists with live music opportunities. Additionally, Adrian has also contributed to the world of dance, particularly in Krump, by establishing drop-ins and classes at local studios like Run The Flex. Technology has become a core part of his practice when creating live shows or finding novel ways to share Krump.

Agnes Cebere is an interdisciplinary artist working primarily with performance, video, and photography. Their work involves creating specific and localized social spaces and exploring the ways in which our individual sense perception can contribute to a collective space of action.

Ahmad Aiuby is an interdisciplinary artist and creative technologist from Upper Egypt. His work uses immersive and interactive media, creative coding, AI, and sound to explore the expressive possibilities offered by emerging digital technologies, and the ways in which algorithms are reshaping our everyday lives. He was a 2020 “We Are Data” artist fellow in a fellowship program by Cairotronica (EG) and IMPAKT (NL) festivals. Aiuby’s work has been exhibited at Cairographie Festival (2017) and Roznama 7th (2019), Cairotronica Festival (2021), Ars Electronica (2021), and Arab Arts Focus (2022).

Lawyer, certified mediator, and inter-arts curator, Valentine Goddard (AI Impact Alliance) is a member of the AI Advisory Council of Canada, and a United Nations expert on AI policy and governance. In 2017, she founded and is currently the executive director of AI Impact Alliance, an organization whose mission is to facilitate a responsible governance of AI and steer its use towards the achievement of the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals. It is recognized by the Conseil des arts de Montréal as a digital arts research organization. Valentine designs and leads transdisciplinary programs that bridge civic engagement and knowledge mobilisation to policy and regulatory innovation. The Art Impact AI programs led to the adoption of international policies that highlight the role of the arts and civil society in AI and digital governance. She is regularly invited to take part in the analysis of emerging AI and data laws and discuss the impact of generative AI. She initiated and co-chairs the Gender Equality and the Environment in Digital Economies international expert group whose policy recommendations address critical issues for the Women, Peace and Security Agenda and sustainable natural resource data governance. In 2023, she was awarded the Mozilla Creative Media award for “Algorithmic (or not) Art to Counter Gender, Cultural and Racial Bias in AI”.

I (Albertine Thunier) study and teach in the Department of Communication at the Université de Montréal. My thesis, as well as my research-creation practices, focus on memes whether they are found on or off the WorldWideWeb. My research-creation approach aims to highlight how present and past memes operate by creating transmediatic memes. I am on the executive committee of the Hexagram network, as well as a member of the Artefact Lab. I also hold a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from UQÀM, a Master’s degree in Political Analysis and a second Master’s degree in Digital Humanities both from Université Paris 8. Also, and most importantly, I'm the admin of the esoteric memes page @montreal.affirmations.

Alexandra C. Yeboah is a Brampton-based writer, creative facilitator and quiet disruptor, who is currently using her curiosity to embark onto newfound paths of creativity. A second-generation Canadian to immigrant parents, Alexandra is keen on exploring the intricacies of bi-cultural identity and the different ways it intersects with everyday experiences. Some of her more recent projects have involved her writing on the themes of body image and colourism and documenting the contributions of Black pioneers in Canada. Her vision is to continue telling stories that centralize themes of marginalization and exclusion and celebrate Afrocentric heritage. Art in mainstream culture can often present a linear, one-dimensional narrative, leaving those who don’t fit within the traditional, Eurocentric norms out of the picture. Alexandra believes that there is more than one side to every story, and we owe it to the generations before and after us to champion stories that reflect the lived experiences of those from the diverse communities we serve. In the consistent sharing of these stories, we help ensure that the voices of both the storytellers and the receivers are being heard and accounted for. As Alexandra continues to immerse herself in community arts work, she seeks to help cultivate more low-cost accessible spaces that channel innovation and promote collaborative art-making, community-building, and free-flowing art.

Alexandra Lord is an artist-educator. She discovered theatre as a facilitator of community-based arts workshops and a participant in collective creation projects during her studies in English Literature and Cultural Studies at Trent University and Community-Based Arts Education at Queen’s University. This is where she first encountered the transformative power of storytelling through costume-based character development and exploration of narrative space through performative objects. Alexandra Lord is interested in producing theatre that speaks to children of all ages. She strives to build environments and construct characters that inspire us all to make believe at every stage of our lives. She studied costume and set design in the bilingual program at The National Theatre School of Canada where she began cultivating a preference for recuperating, reimagining and repurposing materials in her work, creating from a place that takes into consideration human relationships with ourselves and others all within diverse environments. She is particularly drawn to collaborative projects that demand a discourse that transcends difference, engaging in the liminal space of gender, race, and socio-economic definitions. Alexandra Lord is a graduate of the Soulpepper Theatre Company Academy. Mentored by Lorenzo Savoini she continued her development as a scenographer through further refining her skills as a set and costume designer as well as learning more about lighting and projection. Alexandra Lord is currently in the process of establishing Triga Creative with fellow Academy designers Shannon Lea Doyle and Michelle Tracey and working collectively to innovate sustainable approaches to design.

Alexandra Ruppert is a visual storyteller, illustrator and graphic designer based in Berlin, Germany. Driven by a bewildered curiosity for humans, she lets you dive into parallel universes like lucid dreams, the subconsciousness or the internet. Be prepared to be shaken up with what we call „reality“.

Ananya is an award-winning Arts Administrator, Producer and Writer who was born in India, and moved to Canada when she was ten years old. For seven years, she was the Executive Director at the Regent Park Film Festival (RPFF), Toronto’s longest running free community film festival. At RPFF, Ananya also founded and directed the Lieutenant General Award-winning and Governor General Award finalist (Honourable Mention) project, Home Made Visible (www.homemadevisible.ca), where she worked to preserve old home movies for BIPOC families across Canada. With 13 years of organizational experience, Ananya consults in areas of research, programming, financial and project management, grant writing and community engagement, supporting Senior Arts Administrators in solving problems, getting things done and increasing capacity for positive change across the organization. ​ Driven by her experience programming for a community-based film festival and consuming media alongside her own kids, Ananya is motivated to cultivate greater diversity both in front of and behind the screen in the Film and TV industry. As a filmmaker, her short experimental films and documentaries have screened locally and internationally, including the Berlinale, the Images Festival, at UNICEF, and at the Toronto Urban Film Festival, where her film "Castles on the Ground" won Best Film. As a recipient of CBC/Radio-Canada and Canada Council for the Arts Creation Accelerator funding, Ananya is currently producing and writing a kids’ animated adventure mystery series , created with collaborator Fiona Raye Clarke.

Aphiraa Gowry is a multi-faceted artist; she makes paintings, digital drawings, photography, garments, and a fusion of these mediums. She has a fundamental instinct, throughout her artistic initiatives, to explore and integrate eco-consciousness— as a set of practical principles, but also as an overall worldview framed by certain values. She feels that young artists have a special power to contribute solutions to the daunting environment-related challenges of our time, from climate change to refugee crises, by using tools of artistic expression to expand understanding of these issues. Many of her community members also come from families streaked with marginalization and violence. She herself was raised in a refugee family, who escaped genocide in Sri Lanka. Most importantly of all, she has lived experience in areas of the world where the climate crisis is being felt most acutely, from tropical rain-forests, occupied lands, to remote islands. She has taken the time to understand and build inter-community solidarity between vulnerable communities who are being systematically harmed, or even erased, by an environmental disaster; and she is working to channel her passion for human rights into artwork which can raise awareness around these issues. Creating her sustainable clothing line is much more than making well-designed clothing. It's addressing ethical labour conditions of factory workers, preventing long-term dangerous health effects of farmers, and minimizing the dangerous environmental impact of fast fashion. Most importantly, it represents an alternate solution for how revolutionary our wardrobes and sense of style can be.

Bad Machine is a comic, improviser, writer, loop musician, and screen/voice actor based out of Toronto. He is weird. They've done stage shows with the Second City, written for games, magazines, TV, and the Beaverton, voiced a host of strange, animated characters, and appeared in a bevy of films, tv shows, web series, commercials, and comedy sketches. They've also performed live all over Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, and the United States. They love weird literature, 90s animation, video games, genre movies, and ramen. Most of their free time is spent improvising music for people or hanging out with their German Shepherd (his name is Beans).

Ben McCarthy’s practice plays out a dichotomy between embodied and intellectual pleasure. He is drawn to the allure of sonic texture, of the natural and synthetic sounds that attune and disorganize one’s perception. Through experiments in signal processing and emerging technology he seeks to arrange a sensual present that invites embodied attention. McCarthy works from the intuition that one’s experience of sound and voice is dense with personal and collective association. With sound, text, and documentary he thinks through the social and economic conditions that produce the listening subject. 'Toronto-based producer & sound artist Ben McCarthy is easily one of the most underrated producers in the city.' Adam Piotrowicz, SBVRSV.press

Bianca Weeko Martin is a writer, architectural researcher, and passionate practitioner of the arts and the Internet. Her work is informed by a wide range of experiences from architectural offices to interdisciplinary installation studios to fine art museums, from Mexico City to Berlin to Toronto. Bianca has previously collaborated with UKAI Projects, DesignTO, the Bentway, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the Goethe-Institut Toronto. Projects have explored the counter-narratives of domestic space and suburbia, bringing together ancestral knowledge and contemporary dissemination methods. Bianca’s first book Architectural Guide Manila is projected to be published in 2024 by DOM Publishers. She enjoys food, films, surfing, and scuba diving.

BLC is a multi-disciplinary designer and entrepreneur working at the intersections of brand, music, venture & social equity. Bianca is currently co-designing spaces, products and experiences that empower people to design their own futures.

Borelson is a multi-disciplinary artist and creative director based in Toronto. After a multi-lingual upbringing in central Africa (Gabon, Congo), he went on to spend some years in France following some disruptive family events, before relocating to Canada by himself. His unique music is mostly hip-hop and Afro-fusion infused, mixed with other music influences such as jazz, classical music, gospel. After a mix-tape (2014) and an EP (2016), Borelson released his debut album in May 2020 titled 'As Far As Eye Can See' along with a docuseries about the success stories of immigrants and first-gen Canadians, both projects inspired by the quote ‘I didn’t come this far to only come this far’ and the power of visualization. Borelson’s creations revolve around the concept of Afro-futurism and the Ubuntu philosophy, aiming to give more drive, hope and a sense of collective freedom through mutual respect and balance. As an explorer and bridge builder between communities across the universe, Borelson has performed in Paris, London, Miami, Austin (SXSW 2018), Ghana (Year Of Return), as well as Montreal and Toronto (Afrofest, Nuit Blanche, Toronto Biennale, RBC Music virtual showcases, Fashion Art Toronto,…). His shows whether solo or with a live band, always bring high vibrational energy and are worth attending.

Brian Jiang (they/she) is a queer trans multi-disciplinary artist of Chinese-descent based in Tkaronto. Their practice comprises of animation, illustration, painting, graphic design and beyond. Brian graduated from OCADU’s illustration program in 2020. As an artist collaborator working within the cultural sector, their arts-practice is informed by their love for the communities that they belong to. Brian’s work draws upon mythology, the natural world, and lived experiences to explore the ties between identity, diasporic migration, kinship, and ecological connections. They have been commissioned by Pride Toronto, Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival, Inside Out Film Festival, Xpace Cultural Centre, Maisonneauve Magazine, LinkedIn StreetARToronto and more.

bryan depuy (he/him or they/them) is an artist, game developer, and writer based in Toronto, Canada. Since coming of age in the Washington, DC punk/anarchist scene, he has aspired to balance creative practice with ongoing accountability to the communities that support and inspire him. As a queer white settler on Treaty 13 / Dish With One Spoon territory, he struggles to meaningfully embody anti-racist, anti-colonial, and anarcha-feminist ideals.

Cẩm-Anh Lương |is a Berlin-based multimedia artist from Vietnam known for her work centered around experimental storytelling, digital media, and the politics of memory. Using storytelling as a strategy, Cẩm-Anh examines forgotten memories resulting from the impacts of western colonization, propaganda of regimes, and stereotypes that have been imprinted on East Asian bodies. Her work is interested not only in the end results, but also in the process of exploring uncharted territories. She collaborates with several collectives in Berlin, including Neue Nachbarschaft// Moabit, menseer_projekt, and *foundationClass*Collective, to investigate the intersection of new media art, technology, and social justice. Her artistic practice is complemented by her work as an educator for outreach projects, advocating for alternative voices that empower marginalized communities by challenging dominant narratives. Cẩm-Anh's work has been featured in various exhibitions and festivals, including a group performance for Berlin Biennale 10, nGbK, Vorspiel Berlin, and documenta-fifteen.

CAM Collective is a group of three multidisciplinary artists – Carisa Putri Antariksa, Amreen Ashraf, and Maria Denise Yala – who specialize in world-building, speculative storytelling, and exploring the intersections between life and digital tech. Their use of mixed reality (MR), creative coding, and physical computing allows them to create works that blur the boundaries between the physical and digital realms, enabling audiences to engage with their art in novel and exciting ways. Through their projects, CAM Collective aims to offer fresh perspectives on the ways technology is shaping our world, and to encourage viewers to reflect on their own relationship with digital media and technology. They aim to create worlds and narratives that offer a glimpse into possible futures and challenge us to consider the implications of our rapidly changing technological landscape.

Chase Young is an American artist (b. 1999) based in London. His work is concerned with the built and natural environment, emergent culture, and speculative futures. He works with computation to make sculptural and durational installation and investigative video. He is often heard regurgitating something he read in Spike, telling people to listen to New Models, and suggesting people watch Whit Stillman movies. Aside from his independent practice, he is one-half of the multi-faceted creative entity Black Helmut where he designs objects and [REDACTED].

circle4 is a self-taught new media artist based in Toronto. Her art leverages computer vision to explore automated perception. Her past projects are characterized by their immersive, participatory nature, as well as their innovative use of technology; face detection, custom application, robotics, and feedback, through which participants examine perceptions of self, behaviour, desires, motivations, and actions within the technological systems they inhabit.

Clare Aimée (b. 1992 on lək̓ʷəŋən territory, Vancouver Island) is a Métis Canadian artist that has been working in Iceland for the last 8 years. She graduated with a BA in Fine Arts from the Icelandic University of the Arts in 2020 and in 2019 went on academic exchange at The Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, Czech Republic. In her practice she often works with performative gesture and interactive experience – inviting people into familiar frameworks with poetic fellowship as a goal. Her work has been shown in Switzerland, Chile, Czech Republic, Portugal, Iceland, Denmark, Greece and Canada.

Connor MacKinnon is a sculpture artist originally from London, ON. He received an Advanced Diploma in Fine Arts from Fanshawe College, a Bachelor of Fine Art from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, and most recently a Master of Fine Art from the University of Victoria with his thesis exhibition Historical Fictions (2022). His SSHRC funded research explored the physical and conceptual reconstruction of fragmented histories and historical objects through the use of generative and parametric algorithms as well as a framework of imagination, potential, and fictionalization. These examinations resulted in his participation in an online special project through the In-ruins Residency based out of Italy, linking archeology and contemporary art, and the Duplex art residency in Lisbon, Portugal where he crafted another fiction based on local history. As a recent Kwi Am Choi Exhibition Scholarship recipient he applied this historical fictionalization closer to home in his exhibition A Fragmented History: Port Moody (2022) at PoMo Arts. MacKinnon currently lives and works in Kelowna, BC where alongside his artistic practice in which he explores the physical and conceptual reconstruction of objects and the variability and multiplicity within their essential structures, he is a studio technician at UBC Okanagan supporting fine arts students and faculty with metalworking and digital fabrication.

Cyril Chen is an animation filmmaker, designer, writer, and media artist based in the Treaty 4 and Treaty 13 territories of Canada. Their emerging career spans communications, UX design, digital archiving, animation, illustration, design, sculpture, 2D/3D, mixed media projection, installation, and storyboarding. They currently work as an educator and visual storyteller with organizations such as Hi-Vis Film, CBC Creators Network, and Saskatchewan Filmpool. They have worked with UKAI as a digital prototyping artist for the New Not Normal online residency.

D.Blavatsky is a multi-disciplinary producer, DJ, and rave organizer based out of Montreal Canada. Mainly focused on audio-visual installation work, their practice desperately confronts our search for connection amidst an unravelling social backdrop of growing isolation, hyper-stimulation, mass paranoia, and the self-mutilating aspects of capitalist realism. Emerging as a dominant creative force across underground rave communities across the world, the SIM Residency was D’s first-time bridging their audio-visual practice with group exhibition work.

Dan Tapper is an artist whose work focuses on revealing hidden worlds through technology and how methods of data processing shape human experience. His work spans DIY radio astronomy – converting the electromagnetic emissions of planets and our own ionosphere into sonic installations – to generative art inspired by emergent behaviors found in nature. For the past 2 years he has been experimenting with artificial intelligence, attempting to convert his practice into a feedback loop between nature and machine. His work stems from experiences he had as a child moving through mud and bracken in the hillier areas of the UK. He was fascinated by the sounds created as he moved through these landscapes as well as the endlessly evolving noise of wind and water. As a very digital artist, he has always attempted (with varying degrees of success) to maintain a connection to these early roots. He was lucky to find this connection in a footnote of an electronics manual. Here he discovered the strange and wonderful world of Very Low Frequency (VLF) natural radio. Through simple circuitry and coils of wire he was able to listen to electromagnetic activity occurring within the earth’s ionosphere – lightning strikes, Aurora borealis and even occasional bursts of noise from passing planets and the sun. Human generated electrical activity was very present in this band too, so he found myself hiking up hills, far away from cities and human inhabitants to listen to and capture these ionospheric sounds. These excursions made him think about how technology translates information, allowing us to experience sounds and spectrum outside of the human sensory range.

Daria Morgacheva aka Dora is an electronic musician, producer, pianist, known musically as Garden of Magic. Grounded in a scientific background in physics and biology, she finds inspiration in the fusion of science, technology, and nature. Eager for collaborative opportunities, she’s drawn to themes like extended reality, technology/nature, and trans/posthumanism, open to exploring a myriad of topics.  “Garden of Magic” is an experimental dance electronic solo project by Daria Morgacheva. Daria plays keyboards, synthesizers, drum machines, and samplers, traversing various terrains of UK dance music, world music, jazz, and even classical music. Through her improvisational style she weaves hypnotizing patterns which shift and transform in organic ways as if moving through an ever-changing metaphysical landscape. She brings listeners to a magical place where they feel uplifted, inspired, and compelled to dance, defying gravity.

Darian Razdar is a writer, artist, and independent scholar. His work ties together poetics, landscape, and abstraction through the methods of poetry, photography, publication, art-writing, and collaboration. Darian performs creative field research to experiment with unconventional and embodied methods of learning with place. Darian’s field work for Locating Belleville (2018) inspired his Community Power Mapping workshop series (2017-2022), which he facilitated for over 300 participants in 4 countries. Critically re-thinking the project, Darian created Poetics of Place (2022-present), a workshop-research-publishing project that challenges conventional notions of what maps are and how they do. Darian is also an actively publishing poet and photographer. His titles include: Morning Poems (San Press, 2023); Eye of Water (self-published, 2023); and Counter-Map: A Poetics of Place (Reflex Urbanism, 2022). His critical and poetic writing can also be found in Peripheral Review; C Mag; Vallum: Contemporary Poetry; The Blasted Tree; PM Press; Pleasure Dome; The Asian Canadian Living Archive; Upping the Anti; QT Literary; Hearth Garage; Toronto Star; Progressive City; and Metropolitics. Darian holds a BA in Social Theory & Practice and French & Francophone Studies from University of Michigan and an MSc in Urban Planning from University of Toronto. With roots in the Great Lakes and Caspian Sea basins, his practice is currently based in Toronto and Mexico City.

Dashiel Carrera is a Half-Argentine novelist, sound media artist, and Human-Computer Interaction researcher. The author of the novel The Deer (Dalkey Archive Press, 2022) and an editor at Conjunctions, his writing has appeared in Los Angeles Review of Books, LitHub, BOMB, and FENCE and has received support by the Banff Centre. As a media artist and researcher—working at the intersection of sound and technology—his work has been supported by the MIT Media Lab, Harvard’s metaLab, the School for Poetic Computation, HackPrinceton, and elsewhere. He is currently a Computer Science PhD Student at the University of Toronto where his work seeks to find new metaphors for AI design.

Ensemble Jeng Yi is a Korean performing arts ensemble based in Toronto. Formed in 1998, they build upon the conventions of Korean performing arts and create a variety of innovative productions including site-specific works, interactive performances, and multi-disciplinary productions.

I am an interdisciplinary artist, designer, and writer in Toronto that believes art can change our relationship with space, objects, and new technologies. My practice is inspired by music, and I’m interested in fabrication methods within visual arts, sculpture, and speculative fiction.

Over the past 20 years Erika-Jean has been challenging conventional knowledges and ideologies embedded in symbols, systems, and objects. Her method of art making speaks from a perspective of cognitive difference in the style of non-conformity, undoing, miss-fitting, and troubling. She is currently researching artificial intelligence and machine learning (AIML) framed by the concept of criptechnoscience. Erika-Jean recently completed a residency with Ingenuity Engineering Labs at Queen’s University to develop her latest AIML project. Past collaborations include Ferment AI, The Manitoba Neuroscience Network, Medialab Prado. She has exhibited at the University of Winnipeg, Science Gallery, MAT-UCSB, Boston Cyberarts Gallery, and The Bauhaus-Archiv. She is a board member of the Arts AccessAbility Network Manitoba. (AANM) Erika-Jean currently lives in Winnipeg-Treaty 1 territory, home of the Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) and Nehiyaw (Cree) original peoples, and national homeland of the Red River Metis. This site is entangled with the Mississippi migratory flyway, on the bed of an ancient glacial lake, at the northern limit of the monarch butterfly's migration, 300 km from the geographic centre of Turtle Island. 49° 53' 42.2772'' N 97° 8' 18.4236'' W.

Founded in 1982 by Esmeralda Enrique, the Esmeralda Enrique Spanish Dance Company has a history rooted in flamenco and Spanish Classical dance. While maintaining the tenets of traditional flamenco singing, dance and music, the company presents a style that holds in perfect balance tradition and classicism with a contemporary aesthetic. They believe the art of Flamenco – song, music and dance; embodies a complex musical and cultural Andalusian tradition.

Evangeline Y Brooks (she/her) is a third culture kid and visual artist working to maintain sustainable and accessible artist communities in local Toronto and online DIY spaces, which are often fleeting against our current culture of immediacy. She looks to counter this by slowing down towards careful, intentional movements, while minimizing workloads by learning from tradition – embracing the paradox that slow planning that allows us to make quick moves. Coming from overlapping homes and cultures, she sees mirrored structures in how we use hybrid digital/physical spaces, and in how these overlaps lead to strength when digital capacities are used not as end goals, but as tools towards making our lives smoother. With experience in live-stream artist spaces and building accessibility IRL and online, she’s bringing a hybrid forward mindset to UKAI, and looking to further support local and online communities with sincerity and radical compassion.

Ferme Lanthorn is a regenerative farm growing sustainable materials for fine arts and functional craft, in the thriving arts and maker community of Wakefield, Quebec. They specialize in basketry willow with over 20 specialty varieties for weaving, furniture making, living structures, and sculpture. With backgrounds in arts and education, they host residencies, workshops and cultural events. Lanthorn is led by co-directors Bob Labbe and Mary Ellis, who joined the Intelligent Terrain research group to explore the role of living willow structure in arts pedagogy, relationship with technology, and culture. Mary Ellis has a background in Education and Art with over a decade of experience teaching and creating. Mary’s experience in software development as Creative Director for MasterpieceVR, 3D software company using virtual reality to make 3D modeling intuitive and efficient. As an educator, Mary has worked with artists with varying skill sets and levels of experience. They are passionate about representation and making content creation and creative expression more accessible.

François Bangwe is a refugee visual artist from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Currently he lives at Dzaleka Refugee Camp in Malawi having forcedly fled from his home country.

Frank Pakaine is a Malawian visual artist living in Malawi’s capital Lilongwe. He is passionate about abstract art and draws his inspiration from sunsets. Frank has 15 years of painting experience, and he conducts painting training for both children and adults in a project called ArtOn workshops.

Greta Grip enjoys pulling the strings of what is traditional knitting and winding it around the digital age. Grip knits with her hacked knitting machine, hacked by removing its original brain and replacing it with an USB port. Focused on a practice of exploring the use of layering texts and symbols, colours and textures; Grip’s work challenges the understanding of what knitting is supposed to look like.

Helen Lam is an Ottawa-based extended reality (XR) and narrative designer with experience in video games and virtual reality. She brings perspectives from a variety of mediums to each project, keen to experiment with the boundaries of each technology. Fascinated with XR and its impact on modern society, her projects exist where art and technology intersect in order to explore how we create engines of meaning for our everyday lives. Her most recent work is an Augmented Reality portal experience Now That I’m Here (2022), exhibited online in the Tender Circuits exhibition with the Digital Arts Resource Centre. Her previous projects include a collaborative video game made in 48 hours featured in the 2021 Ars Electronica Festival, and fiction that has appeared in the Ottawa-based indie zine Subscribe/d.

Heran Genene is an explorer, thinker, content creator, community mobilizer and vlogger. She is interested in exploring the future of remote work and freelancer work. She is looking at the future of digital “nomad-ing” and for ways to bridge opportunity gaps for equally talented creative youths outside of North America – specifically, youth who face disproportionately more barriers to paid opportunities and networks. This year she started an agency called Digital Knowmads. It is an attempt to provide opportunities to digital creatives through global-network-building and paid-gigs. Her professional history is deeply rooted in the grassroots community and youth services sector, primarily through Young Diplomats (an Ethiopian and Eritrean Youth Development NPO). Over 6 years, her passion projects were building diasporic networks; internationally and locally, enabling youth through the arts and arts platforms, and most recently, destigmatizing mental health in the community through social media campaigns (2015). She completed a B.A. in International Development Studies at York University in 2017, specializing in environment and culture (anthropology). All her combined experiences have informed and influenced her methods and integrity as a social enterprise. The idea is to use tech and digitization to try to dismantle pre-existing barriers for young people across the globe.

Originally from Iran, Hooria Rahimi is an interdisciplinary artist currently based in Montreal, QC. Through her artistic practice, she explores human perception through the manipulation of light and reflection in space with a sense of nature and science. By working primarily with light in different forms along with other translucent materials such as mirror and optical glass, Hooria transforms the appearance of a space and bends the reality into something illusory. Her artworks address the major environmental and social issues that the world and humans are struggling with today. Interactivity is an important part of her practice; has led her to create immersive installation arts during the past years with a focus on spectatorship. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a concentration in Sculpture from the Art University of Tehran and is currently pursuing her Master of Fine Arts in Intermedia at Concordia University. She is an artist-in-residence at Poetic Societies in Detroit, MA since 2018 and has participated in several group exhibitions in Iran and recently in Canada.

The Humming Collective is an interdisciplinary art collective based out of Kensington Market, Tkaronto, operating since 2016. Serving as a virtual arts publication and dynamic community-engaged collective, The Humming operates laterally among its members and advocates for an anti-oppressive approach to art-making and sharing that’s rooted in relational, anti-colonial visions and earthly trust towards just futures.

Ian Garrett is a designer, producer, educator, and researcher in the field of sustainability in arts and culture. He is producer for Toasterlab, a mixed reality performance collective. He is the director of the Centre for Sustainable Practice in the Arts and Associate Professor of Ecological Design for Performance at York University, where he is Graduate Program Director for Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies. He maintains a design practice focused on ecology, accessible technologies and scenography.

Jasmine Ghandtchi has Iranian-German roots and lives in Berlin. She works as a freelance intercultural mediator, language teacher and artist in Germany and worldwide. Connecting the dots between humans, art, culture, technology, nature, language is the core of her work. She loves developing new creative forms of learning. Her passion is storytelling, drawing, cooking and Yoga.

Jason Yung is a New York-based Canadian new media artist working primarily in light, using LEDs, but also using other mediums. ​Working with new media since 2016, Yung aims to bring together the visual principles of traditional painting with new media. Yung looks at painting the same way David Bowie did -- that is, everything is painting. ​Art is Yung’s second career. Previously, he was a Canadian diplomat. His experiences serving in the Afghan war led to his career change to art. Yung has strong interests in psychology, philosophy and spirituality. ​Yung graduated from NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) in 2019. ​

JC Fung is a transdisciplinary creative technologist and educator, originally from Tkaronto (Toronto, ON), now living in K’emk’emeláy (Vancouver, BC). As a queer, trans, and non-binary person of colour, they are most interested in exploring liminalities: learning from and centering the experiences of people and communities that find individual and collective meaning in the between spaces. Currently, their practice explores themes of divestment from exploitative technologies, decolonization, and advocacy for inclusive, ethical, and anti-oppressive practice.

José Andrés Mora is a Venezuelan-Canadian artist who creates work in interdisciplinary media. Mora’s current text-based video installations reflect intimate politics of language told through animated text utterances. With a particular focus on experiences around displacement, cultural hybridity, and assimilation, Mora creates display mechanisms that affect the personal connotation of his texts.

Katie Sullivan is a researcher, curator and designer who holds a Master’s in Strategic Foresight and Innovation (MDes) from OCAD University. She uses co-creation and design thinking to deeply and intentionally explore and design for complex societal challenges. Her work combines research insights with creative practices, like dance, and highlights lived experience as expertise. Currently, Katie’s practice focuses on the creation of concept-driven models that facilitate relationship-building and enhance group communication. As her cross-sectoral experience spans business, social services, and the arts, her design work investigates how we better express ourselves, how we connect with each other and how we gather across disciplines.

Kélig Puyet is an advocacy leader committed to social justice and participatory democracy, Kélig is a driver of policy changes at local, national, and international levels. Kélig has proven experience in building long-lasting relationships with governmental and non-governmental decision-makers and developing bottom-up campaigns and tools.

Kiyoshi Nagata, Nagata Shachu’s founder and Artistic Director, has been performing in a career that spans four decades. Since 1998 Kiyoshi has taught a credit course in taiko at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music. From 2003 to 2011, he established a public taiko course at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. For eight years, Kiyoshi instructed two community groups, Isshin Daiko in Toronto and Do-Kon Daiko in Burlington, which he helped to form in 1995. In 2020, Nagata partnered with UKAI Projects on Migration: Migrating diasporic performance to digital production, as well as Long Walk – NYC in 2018. In 2023, Nagata was the lead partner of Together We Rise, a two-day Asian arts festival in Scarborough programming a mix of live performing arts, film screenings, in-person workshops, multimedia installations, and commissioning original professional works. In 2019, the ensemble was the recipient of Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs commendation for “Promotion of cultural exchange through art between Japan and Canada.” In 2020, Nagata Shachu was one of three finalists for the Toronto Arts Foundation Roy Thomson Hall Award of Recognition for its contribution to Toronto’s musical life.

Koohyaar is the alias of Koohyar Habibi, a Toronto-based producer, and composer. In his compositional practice, he finds new approaches to infuse the middle eastern micro-tonal music system with western harmonization and modern principles. With formal musical training as a Classical Oud performer, and being self-taught in electronic music, his own unique production style roots in industrial Techno, Dub, EBM, no wave, dnb, and middle eastern folk music.

KyViTa is a Toronto based producer and multi-media artist. He was born in Manila, Philippines and moved to Canada at 8 years old. His skills in English and Tagalog were both underdeveloped at the time. Not having fully grown in either culture, he faced challenges with self-identity and connecting with others through language. He has made it a goal for himself to find ways to connect without using language. KyViTa's art is based on the idea of communication without words or recognizable structure. He prefers speaking through music, and a variety of mediums to express the complex and infinite nature of emotions by using shapes, colours, sounds, textures, vibrations, and other basic elements. He wants to define and articulate his own artistic vocabulary that can invoke emotions to an audience without using real words or following an existing structure. We live in a world where the body and mind need to perceive to connect and survive. KyViTa wants others and himself to feel their emotions without feeling the need to attach their ego or themselves to it, just to simply experience. Furthermore, Kyle is a founder of a non-profit organization entitled "Yuzu" that exists to provide young aspiring artists like himself the opportunity to grow their career in art through mentorships, volunteering, and performances in multi-media events in underused spaces in downtown Toronto.

Leslie Predy is an artist, musician, and designer whose work addresses how we interact with technologies, and how they change the ways we communicate with each other. She creates audio-visual performances, videos, recordings, installations, and publications. Leslie performs as Doom Tickler, an experimental noise project that incorporates samples, hand-built electronics, and improvisational, rhythmic vocal approaches. She has performed at Electric Eclectics, Pop Montreal, Long Winter, and many DIY spaces.

Manal Siddiqui is a systems change strategist working on growing Canada’s position as a globally significant voice in the responsible stewardship of AI and frontier technologies. In doing so, she hopes to progress society’s understanding around how technological advancements can drive strategic business value and policy decisions to positively impact fairer, safer, and more inclusive global communities. Before joining Accenture’s Responsible Innovation practice, Manal exited as Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Transitional Forms, an interactive media startup in Toronto pioneering the future of intelligent entertainment. Prior to that, she helped build foundational operations for the Vector Institute, one of the premier machine learning and AI research institutes in the world and home to over 500 of Canada’s AI researchers. Manal hails from Pakistan and lives in Toronto with her family. She holds a Master of Laws degree in Technology Innovation from the University of Toronto and a Master of Sciences in Management from the Bayes Business School, City of London. She is also certified in Health Law (Osgoode Hall Law School, Canada) and International Law and AI (T.M. Asser Institute, Netherlands).

Marbella Carlos is a Filipina immigrant artist living in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal, who makes art primarily using performance embodied practice; using burlesque as a medium to interrogate sexuality as a woman of colour.

Maria Simmons (she/they) served as Community Lead for UKAI Projects in 2022 and 2023. She is a Canadian-based hybrid artist who started at UKAI while working as an artist-in-residence in Finland. Maria investigates potentialized environments through the creation of hybrid sculpture and installation. Her work embraces contamination as an act of collaboration. She collects garbage, grows mushrooms, ferments plants, and nurtures fruit flies. She makes art that eats itself. In addition to being a direct digital contact, part of Maria’s work with UKAI involved taking some of the ecologically-rooted theories she developed as an artist and expanding them, such a thinking about how the biology of lichen can inform community engagement and practices.

Marie Sotto is a Filipinx futurist, art witch and storyteller. A dynamic community catalyst, Marie has 10 years of experience in arts leadership, cultural strategy and arts programming. Marie has previously exhibited at Artscape Youngplace, The Gladstone Hotel and The Harbourfront Center. Marie recently completed the Virtual Grounds Research and Training Initiative, exploring feminist perspectives on digital sustainability and survival presented by Trinity Square Video and the Digital Justice Lab. Marie is 187’s illustrator and tinkerer. Marie strives to build a just and loving world for future ancestors.

Marko Cigljarev is a Yugoslavian-born multimedia artist exploring the enigmatic depths of consciousness and our profound connection to the cosmos. Based in Toronto, he studied film at Humber College and interactive media at George Brown College. With a specialty in cinematography, Marko shines a light on his passion for science and technology, especially astronomy, robotics, and virtual reality. His obsession with light and image has inspired projects using 16mm film, analog tape, digital video, photography, 3D design, Arduino, and extended reality. Marko’s work often deals with illusion or hybridism. He investigates the many realms of our existence and invites others to wander with him.

Maurice Jones is a curator, producer, and critical AI researcher based in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal, Canada. He's a PhD student at Concordia University, Montréal, under Dr. Fenwick McKelvey, where he investigates cross-cultural perceptions of AI and public participation in technology governance. Since 2016, he is the Artistic Director of MUTEK.JP | @mutek.jp festival of electronic music and digital arts in Tokyo. In 2021, Maurice joined MUTEK’s Montréal | @mutekmontreal headquarters in developing the program of the professional MUTEK Forum and leading the transnational Future Festivals research project. Maurice also produces audiovisual works including the Iwakura full-dome show together with visual artist Ali M. Demirel and ambient musician Kazuya Nagaya and the AI-driven multichannel sound installation Soundscapes of an Earthly Community.

Meagan Byrne is an Âpihtawikosisân (Métis) digital media artist and game designer born and raised in Hamilton, Ontario. She has been creating digital interactive works since 2014 and is heavily influenced by both RPG games and stories of her past. Her designs incorporate narrative, game mechanics, sound and traditional art. Meagan has received a B.A. of English Literature from McMaster University and a B.A. of Game Design from The Sheridan College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning. Her first major work; Wanisinowin | Lost (2015), has been shown at ImagineNative, Toronto; Different Games Conference, New York; and IndieCade California. She is the proud owner/lead designer of Achimostawinan Games, an Indigenous-run video game studio.

Meena Rizwan (she/ her) is a Tkaronto-based multidisciplinary artist, consultant, and creative director whose work aims to challenge prevailing ontological and relational narratives by actively inviting persons to explore realms of connection and metamorphosis. Part bird of prey, part researcher of play, Meena’s framework meshes her proclivity for analytical, scientific thought with her impassioned curiosity, love of humour, and desire to create alternate realities. Her work strives to yield transformation through the intimate exploration of (dis)comfort in geographies of extremity, sites that provide space to question the reticence and fear embedded in dominant, rigid ideologies of power and community. By playing in these places, an alternate way of being may be experienced, allowing for bridges of connection and hope to emerge. Meena’s work is informed by her positionality as a queer woman of color and newcomer-settler born in Pakistan and raised on Long Island and in Tkaronto. Her growth mindset is oriented towards a multifaceted and polyphonic comprehension of the world and the people within it, reflected in her amalgamation of different disciplines and modalities. Her practice, which often has interactive elements, involves installation, film, audio, woodwork, metalwork, web design, photography, and performance. Her recent work has probed notions around alienation, racial identity, sexual absolution, digital consciousness, counter cartographies, and the grief of displacement. By applying a communal framework that centres principles of decolonization, anti-racism, cultural diversity, critical disability, and human rights, she works towards accessible, respectful, and inclusive design. Meena has consulted for organizations on issues pertaining to strategic planning, creative direction, and diversity, equity, and inclusion. She has also managed projects, produced curriculums, facilitated workshops, curated exhibits, coordinated conferences and DIY shows, and created employment opportunities for BIPOC and LGBTQ+ community members. Meena has a Master of Arts degree in Gender Studies and Feminist Research and a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Psychology.

Mi’Jan Celie Tho-Biaz, Ed.D. is a cultural leader, oral historian and documentarian who shares narratives of personal transformation and community change. Her goal? To make the historical contemporary and personal, while surfacing the marginalized stories that need to be heard.As a public speaker, she graces audiences with her visionary, story-rich talks at a range of institutions, from Carnegie Hall to the Institute of American Indian Arts. To say this historian’s own history is distinguished is an understatement.

Michael F Bergmann is a neurodiverse techno-optimist who explores novel technological approaches to storytelling, performance, and play. His research and creative practice aim to apply improvisational techniques and critical discourse principles to human-robot and human-AI interactions and communication to foster empathy. Their mediums of engagement include theatre, dance, installations, mixed and augmented reality, and collaborating with digital minds. His physical being is mostly located in Toronto and is a faculty member in Performance at The Creative School at Toronto Metropolitan University, where they teach and conduct research through their Technological Research in Performance Lab (tripl.ca). Michael received his MFA in Design from the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University and held an Eldon Elder fellowship there. They are a member of IATSE Local ADC 659 and continue to design when possible. Michael is a founding member of Synectic Assembly, an art collective for projects organized in response to questions about artificial intelligence and algorithmic culture. Michael is also pursuing his doctorate in Critical Studies in Improvisation at the University of Guelph, examining post-anthropocentric improvisational performance modes for inter-sentient empathy and play.

Milton Lim (he/him) is a digital media artist, game designer, and performance creator based in Vancouver, Canada. His research-based practice entwines data, interactive digital media, and gameful performance to create speculative visions and candid articulations of social capital. This line of inquiry aims to reconsider our repertoires of knowledge aggregation and political intervention in the contemporary context of big data and algorithmic culture. Milton holds a BFA (Hons.) in theatre performance and psychology from Simon Fraser University. His work has been presented at festivals, venues, and galleries in Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, Seattle, San Francisco, Buenos Aires, Edinburgh, London, Hong Kong, Singapore, Darwin, and more. In 2016, he was awarded the Ray Michal Prize for Outstanding Body of Work at the Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards. He is an artistic associate with Theatre Conspiracy, founder and archivist with the videocan national archive, and co-creators of culturecapital: the performing arts economy trading card game. Milton is interested in the overlapping logics of (p)la(y)bour, the non-human, game cultures (both analogue and digital), AI, public data, and sociopolitical currents of the past being pulled into the present. Games in particular, offer him a window to examine and reflect on the various systems that we perpetuate through participation; the increasingly automated and experiential scaffoldings that govern and guide us.

Monika Bielskyte is a futurist with an artist's eye and an inventor’s mind. She consults on and prototypes culturally diverse, socially and environmentally engaged future world designs for the media industry, technology companies, and cities/countries. As an expert in the immersive media space and edutainment, her work consists in connecting bleeding edge technological innovation with some of the world's most original creative visions that explores the relationship between speculative science fiction narratives and the unfolding of global futures. As a digital nomad, Monika has embarked on a journey researching futures in over 90 countries, with the specific focus on the perspectives of the Global South.

Music Picnic is a music and theatre production company led by Toronto-based composer Njo Kong Kie. Njo makes and produces music theatre works that are rooted in European and American classical music conventions, while reflecting aesthetics of contemporary culture and traditions of their own heritage. Their shows tend to gravitate towards personal stories that speak to larger challenges facing our communities, particularly those concerning social justice and equality.

Nadine Lessio is a researcher, artist, and creative technologist based out of Ontario, Canada who’s practice explores how technical systems can be used for creative work, while looking at ideas around uselessness, bots, and game peripherals. Nadine’s work has been shown in many places including Indiecade, Vector, and NeurIPS. When not at a computer you can find them hiking or reading books about sad robots.

Nagata Shachu, based in Toronto, has enthralled audiences with its mesmerizing and heart-pounding performances of the Japanese drum (taiko) since forming in 1998. While rooted in the folk drumming traditions of Japan, the ensemble’s principal aim is to rejuvenate this ancient art form by producing innovative and exciting music that seeks to create a new voice for the taiko. Nagata Shachu has toured extensively throughout Canada, the US, and Italy, and has performed at major engagements in Mexico and Lebanon. In addition to having recorded six CDs of original music and five DVDs, Nagata Shachu produces a three-concert season featuring collaborations with both local and international artists.

Nazanin is an artist, writer, political theory researcher, and editor. Sonically, Nazanin spins experimental electronic music coming from the Global South and its various diasporas. With careful curation, they emphasize poetic explorations of lamentation, release, and liberation through sound and the body, inviting complexity on the dancefloor through the disruptive rumbling of West Asian percussion and bass-heavy emergent soundscapes. Nazanin’s multidisciplinary work is interested in locating radical futures and avenues for political re-enchantment within the cultural landscapes of the subaltern and global underbellies. As a writer and editor, Nazanin seeks to transform text into an agile, mobile, and disruptive medium through the use of print, publishing and large-format poetry. She is the co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Vermin | @theverminmag – a critical inter-arts magazine dedicated to centring the marginal and peripheral, as well as a member of the Briarpatch’s board of directors. Exploring anti-colonial alternative modernities within the cultural histories of West Asia, they are currently a researcher of political theory at the University of Toronto, and an incoming PhD student in Comparative Literature at Cornell University.

Negin Sairafi is an Iranian-Canadian producer, designer and artist. She first began practicing multidisciplinary art and design as an undergraduate student enrolled in Ryerson University’s New Media program. Her passion for production has been shaped and influenced by her background as a dancer, performer and choreographer. Negin is deeply curious about exploring the edges of human potential, and designing programs, experiences and community platforms that create space for meaningful connection, self-exploration, creative expression and profound personal and cultural shifts. Through her work, she aims to transform the internal and external barriers that limit us individually and collectively in co-creating the future we want and need.

I’m a writer, researcher, and editor based in Toronto. I was born in Khartoum, Sudan and grew up between there, London, U.K. (where I completed undergrad at University College London), and Muscat, Oman. I hold two editorial positions: Science + Technology Editor at The Conversation Canada, an academic news site, and Editor-in-Chief of Studio Magazine, a biannual magazine dedicated to contemporary Canadian craft and design. I’m trained as a science and environmental journalist — I attended j-school at the University of Regina, interning at The Discovery Channel Canada. I researched environmental risk communications in Canadian mainstream media for my Master in Environmental Studies degree at York University. I also hold a PhD in Planning from the University of Toronto, where my research examined the interplays between material and virtual public spaces for women of colour social justice activists. This is where my ongoing project on the production of presence began, as well as my investigations into ethical data collection and management for planners, journalists, and healthcare professionals. I have written for various media, and in formats ranging from journalistic reportage and peer-reviewed articles to literary nonfiction, poetry, exhibition texts, and scripts for film and theatre. My work has been published in academic journals, artist catalogues, anthologies, magazines, and online. I often give talks on my research, and frequently participate in panels as speaker and moderator, and I occasionally produce and host audio projects. I frequently write for and collaborate with artists, including Coco Guzmán, Azza El Siddique, Sandra Brewster, Jessica Karuhanga, Charmaine Lurch, and Yaw Tony; I recently curated Neglected Nostalgia, a solo exhibition by Elicser Elliott at BAND Gallery in Toronto. In my professional capacities, I have served as a judge for several organizations, including: the National Magazine Awards (Canada); the 2023 Cheongju Craft Biennale: Craft and the City (South Korea); and the Toronto Arab Film Festival (Canada). I sit on the Board of Directors for the Provocation Ideas Festival, and was previously a member of the FIXT POINT Arts & Media board and the Digital Communities Advisory Panel at the Centre for Free Expression (Toronto Metropolitan University). I hold a postdoctoral fellowship at the Department of Health and Society at the University of Toronto Scarborough, and was previously a Visiting Scholar at the CITY Institute at York University.

Neil is a photographer who divides his time between Miami and Toronto. His need to push limits on concept, framing and style development has led him to a thoughtfully curated body of work; with attention to light, detail and texture. Growing up and moving between Canada and the U.S. allowed him to open his eyes to the impact of consistent change, and better observe the people around him. Inspired by the idea of capturing moments, Neil began his work on film, and has since grown to include the digital space. His work is meant to instill self-awareness, and a sense of timelessness. Neil is dedicated to inclusion and relationship building and uses his connections to push for the widening of perspectives. While carving out his own space within his medium, he has consistently worked to build connections with individuals willing to push boundaries and increase scope in their respective fields. This includes visual artists, advocates for social justice, writers, lawyers, and designers. Neil uses these connections to continue the conversation of who we are, and who we would like to be. His client list includes Cadillac, Bentley Motors, Essential Homme, National Geographic, The Rake (EU), Luciano Barbera, Louis XIII, A. Lange & Söhne, IkiréJones (as seen in Marvel's Black Panther), and The Armoury N.Y.C.

Nick Fox-Gieg is an experimental animator in Toronto. His awards include a 2017 Engadget Alternate Realities grant, Eyebeam and Fulbright Fellowships, and Best Animated Short at SXSW 2010; his XR work includes projects for the Verizon 5G EdTech Challenge, NYT T Brand Studio, Google Creative Lab, and Framestore.

As a tattoo artist, I have always been fascinated by traditional Chinese culture. After graduating from Traditional Chinese Realistic Painting in university in Beijing, I worked and studied in Coburg, Germany, for three years. The state of Bavaria feels like it has been plucked from a fairy tale. The German industrial style has given me a new perspective of the world. In the eyes of many Chinese parents, tattoos have been a symbol of rebellion and decadence. With the recent increase in cultural exchange between countries worldwide, the culture surrounding tattoos has completely changed. Tattoos are now associated with wealth and fashion rather than rebellion and criminal behavior. A good tattoo can be a significant part of someone’s style and help strike up a new conversation. Tattoos are pieces of art people carry on their skin. It can help express one’s emotions and reflect one’s reality. The entire range of emotion can be expressed through a tattoo artist’s style. I like to feel each individual’s unique emotion and energy. I insist on being authentic to myself and others, which is reflected in my work as a tattoo artist.

Niya Ahmed Abdullahi is a multi-disciplinary artist, technologist and the founder of Habasooda. Her work has been exhibited at Nuit Blanche Toronto, TIFF Next Wave, Black Film Festival Zurich, Gallery 44, Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival, MENA Film Festival, Eastern Edge Gallery, amongst others. She was a 2021 Hot Docs Accelerator Fellow and currently sits on the City of Toronto’s ArtworksTO program. Her work evokes memory, both past, present and future, in connection with diasporic experiences, and ancestral awakenings. Pillars of resistance are drawn through her divine labour of love.

Noelle Perdue is an artist, writer, porn historian and near-mint condition collector’s item. Her work exploring digital intimacy and the blurry borders of obscenity can be found on Wired, Washington Post, Pornhub, Slate, Brazzers, et al. As the digital world continues (desperately) to market itself as a viable alternative to the physical, new borders are being drawn over happy hours and in-office foosball sessions deep in Silicon Valley. Who-or what- is allowed to exist in this new world, and who doomed to live like a sucker in the dirt and the grass? For Intelligent Terrain, Noelle turned data mapping technology (used to auto-moderate online content) against itself , creating a series of images and objects generated to disgust software systems worldwide, ideally resulting in her permanent exile from the Metaverse and ultimate freedom.

Nova Dance is a diversiform company recognized as one of the leading forces in the evolution of Canadian contemporary performance. The Company’s genre-defying, barrier breaking programming embraces a breathtaking multiplicity of movement and storytelling art forms from across the world. Led by Founding Artistic Director Nova Bhattacharya, the company has presented many critically acclaimed works, programs which enrich artists and audiences, all the while creating a context for artists from the margins to take space with their art.

Olivia Arau-McSweeney is a Spanish-American artist working at the interaction of visual art and environmental science and advocacy. She aims to address the need for environmental action and the importance of collaborations between art and scientific fields through a practice that allows for experimentation with non-toxic and alternative printmaking and analog photography materials and techniques.

Padina uses fashion as a platform to confront critical gender-based violations of human rights with informative, credible, and engaging content that can create a network of impact, all while advocating sustainable/ethical practises in fashion, business, and social action. She is an internationally exhibited designer with a degree in fashion from Ryerson University and a Fine Arts diploma from the Arts York program. She has more than twelve years of academic and professional training in the fashion industry, including participating in numerous runway shows and exhibitions, as well as winning various competitions and training under famous couturier Deborah Milner in London. Her brand aims to use fashion as a platform for social innovation with gowns that vividly explore social and ethical issues, while maintaining sustainable sourcing and production methods that benefit her community and professional network as a whole. She specializes in couture fashion techniques, and continually pushes the technical difficulty of her pieces by incorporating wearable technology, alternative materials, and live runway transformations to deliver maximum impact with everything she makes. Through these collections, the customer journey combines the gravity of the human rights violations with exciting and interactive fashion to deeply engage audiences and give them a clear call-to-action. Her goal is always to advance her skills as a maker and engage her Iranian cultural roots to achieve diversity in both her designs and social statements. She strives to push boundaries, make the familiar strange, and illuminate marginalized narratives.

Paria is a classically-trained concert pianist, musician born in Tehran, currently based in Toronto. She developed a passion for music at a young age and began studying different genres and styles. Her music practice varies in a wide range from classical to electronic music. As a DJ, she creates well curated sets by layering world rhythm/percussion sounds with hard hitting electronic/techno beats. Beyond her musical pursuits, Paria is committed to music pedagogy, particularly focusing on music education for students with special needs. Her classical music debut EP is released on Secret Contact Records.

Parul is seeking renewed perceptions of difference. She believes unity is plurality. Through her work in reframing the housing ecosystem she attempts to demonstrate alternative, community-centred, realities. Uncovering the emotions that sit deep behind ideologies and behaviour is perhaps Parul’s obsession. As an urban strategist, journalist and poet, Parul uses storytelling and experience design to bring forward difficult conversations and unpack complex systems, including ourselves. She has a deep desire to connect people to themselves and each other.

Prachi Khandekar is a Montréal-based curator, designer, and writer. She conceives and curates exhibitions and multimedia projects. A line of enquiry that runs through her work is “How do cycles of obsolescence, experienced in material and non-material terms, affect our psyche?” Through this question, she examines our tech- and brand-driven culture. She’s particularly interested in the polarities of comfort and pain these cultures introduce: laughter, isolation, nostalgia, anxiety, and everything in between. Prachi curates The Enigma of Objects, an Instagram-based exhibition of crowd-sourced personal objects and micro-stories. Her exhibition Flight Mode, presented at Toronto’s Waterfront in 2019, questioned the erosion of solitude due to increased connectivity. She is currently developing Circuits of Sand and Water, a work of immersive theater about a woman stuck between animal instincts and digital impulses in the era of AI. Prachi studied Architecture and Psychology at the University of Toronto, Canada and holds an M.A. in Design Criticism from the University of the Arts London, UK. She has worked at universities across Canada, using creativity to showcase the work of artists, designers, scientists and educators in engaging formats. She enjoys the collaborative process of giving form to ideas, and presenting settings that foster reflection. Prachi has lived in India, Oman, Canada and the UK. These cultures / contexts continue to inform her work.

Having grown up in Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, and now calling Canada home, Raad works to trace the common thread that runs through technology, society, spirituality, and the visceral human experience. He founded and plays guitar in NOVAYA, a psychedelic rock band that weaves Western, Middle Eastern, and South Asian sounds. A scientist, artist, and convener, Raad is the cofounder of Anda Residency, an artist residency occupying soon-to-be destroyed homes and using immersive multi-platform storytelling to explore the hidden stories of Toronto's changing neighborhoods. He was a core organizer of a number of high-profile civic initiatives in the city like Toronto for Everyone, the 4-day Honest Eds Festival, and Camp Reset, a digital detox camp for adults. Raad is a creator of Bangladesh: Fashion in Flux, an immersive education program that takes fashion entrepreneurs from around the world to Bangladesh to understand the hidden stories of fashion manufacturing. He is currently on the board of directors at Fashion Takes Action, Canada's only voice for sustainable and ethical clothing. During the day, Raad helps start-ups scale up innovative technologies that can address emerging water issues across the world.

Raashan Ahmad is a musician, DJ, poet, and community worker. Beyond his music career, which has taken him to over 35 countries around the world, Raashan is passionate about building connections across barriers that can divide communities. He hosts and supports events designed to offer shared space where people can explore their connections to one another. He has released 6 critically acclaimed albums.

Rachel Gray is a Canadian interdisciplinary artist and creative leader, rooted in Algonquin Territory/Ottawa. Navigating the world with Dyslexia has led her to understand art as a medium for crafting personalized languages, bridging gaps in communication and exploring new modes of expression. Rachel’s artistic explorations are intertwined with her interests in ecology and disability arts. She believes in the transformative potential of centering difference, viewing it as a gateway to creating flexible modes of organization and being. Her work presents new possibilities for engaging with difference within both human society and the natural environment. Rachel works in painting, animation, puppetry and film-making, and collaborates extensively with other artists and organizations. Her work with academic institutions centers accessibility and explores art as a means of creating accessible multi-modal translations of academic research. As a co-founder of Ghost Rooster, a disability arts collective, she pioneers innovative approaches to accessibility and artistic expression. Rachel’s current project, ‘Insect Worlds’ is a collaboration with sound artist Pierre-Luc Clement and the Yack Lab at Carleton University. This work seeks to disrupt anthropocentric views of our planet through an exploration of insect communication and consciousness. It examines the potential and limitations of empathy in developing cross-species understandings and looks to insects as a source of wisdom and survival strategies in the face of existential challenges.

Rachel Wang (she/her) is an environmental practitioner and community organizer with 10+ years of experience in building stakeholder relationships, strategic planning, and implementing intersectional approaches to meet climate targets. She has a background in fisheries and oceans management working in Solomon Islands and Canada with the World Wildlife Fund, ECO Canada, and the Pacific Peoples’ Partnership. Rachel is also the founding Executive Director of the Bike Brigade (www.bikebrigade.ca) – a non-profit mobilizing 1500+ volunteers on bikes to deliver food and other essential supplies for mutual aid groups and food banks across Tkaronto. Rachel is currently building Evoke Creatives (www.evokecreatives.org) – a global platform that connects environmental organizations with music artists. The purpose is to inspire environmental action in ways not achievable through conventional strategies like workshops, webinars, and peer-to-peer fundraising. Evoke Creatives is dedicated to reclaiming roots and embracing decolonial practices, where the convergence of cultural traditions and music fosters lifestyles and community norms that sustain our planet.

Ryan Kelln is a software artist based in Toronto, with over twenty years of experience spanning game and web development, interactive installations, and machine learning. A passionate advocate for open source and the Creative Commons, Kelln crafts art that celebrates themes of sharing, community, and creativity. His work is realized through ongoing projects that have evolved over a decade, as well as live performances with musicians and dancers. Kelln critically addresses technology while envisioning and advocating for inclusive, emancipatory systems. Beyond his artistic contributions, curation of generative art, and advocacy for art-making, his expertise in machine learning enables him to mentor emerging artists and educate the public through lectures and workshops.

Sarah Brin specializes in building and leading teams that bring unprecedented creative technology experiences to life. Sarah is from Southern California, and lives in London with her big dog, Svenska. Sarah has a hybrid background that spans sectors, including Fortune 500 tech companies, governments, games/entertainment studios, the metaverse, arts/cultural organizations, and academia. When you specialize in innovation with new technologies, businesses and disciplines, sometimes it can be hard for other people to understand what you do. Sarah is excited about developing new and equitable systems for creating groundbreaking creative technology projects and translating that to fiscal growth. Generally, Sarah finds herself working with organizations who are in periods of transformation, starting new initiatives, or looking to scale in new ways.

Sergio Mbayo is a young refugee visual artists from Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) currently living at the Dzaleka Refugee Camp in Malawi. Sergio studied Peinture at Académie des beaux-arts de Kinshasa, DRC.

Shabnam Afrand is a multi-disciplinary Iranian visual artist based in Toronto whose practice consists of painting, installation, performance, Sculpture and metalsmithing. She creates an ambience of longing in her works by using memorable objects with fanciful extensions to consider how one can integrate bitter memories and warm nostalgia into their sense of self.

Shalaka spent their childhood between cities in India and in Dubai, before moving to a neighbourhood spitting distance from Ontario’s largest mall. They now join from Block 2 of the Haldimand Tract, splitting their time on Treaty 1 territory. Trained as an urban planner and practicing as a curator, Shalaka has worked across multiple roles, including audio journalism, in social innovation spaces, in urban planning departments, on rooftop gardens, and on farms. Across their work, they strive to apply an ecosystem approach of thinking, dreaming, and sustaining. Currently, Shalaka is exploring hosting and hospitality as a framework for problem-solving that untangles conversations around power dynamics and relationships to spaces and places. This draws on a personal uncovering of turning points and key shifts that explore memory (loss), belonging, grief, and queer ecologies in the context of spatial positionality and critical geographies as they pertain to public memory work, while thinking through the complexity of engagement as a racialized person on Indigenous territories. Recognizing that organic interventions with art have been designed out of our lives, Shalaka sees the role of strategy in supporting the response to this crisis, to build spaces where audiences pull out of solutions-thinking, into spaces of curiosity.

Shireen Norouzi is an artist from Toronto Canada with interest in technological and societally influenced artwork, as well as portrait photography. She works in digital illustration, photography, risograph, and lighting/video design. She hopes that her art can help elevate socially and politically relevant information and create a sense of community.

I (Soul Frame) was born in China in the 1980s, which resulted in a unique upbringing full of contradictions, struggles, and obedience. Growing up, we enjoyed the first wave of dividends brought about by the then communist China's economic reforms. Our generation collectively experienced how foreign culture had impacted and influenced us over traditional Chinese culture, from our education to daily life. In particular, growing up with parents who worked for centralized, national-owned companies, we became the more privileged demographic in Beijing. With our material needs met, we began to pursue spiritual satisfaction—as a result, our generation produced some of the most iconic, rebellious, and recognized artists in China. At first, I was a bass player in a rock band. Gradually, my artistry has expanded across various cultural scenes. I have worked as a fashion photographer, filmed television commercials, and worked as a graphic designer. In the 90’s, I participated in the burgeoning Chinese Hip-Hop scene. I planned a number of underground performances and domestic tours for rap artists, and later brought foreign Hip-Hop artists to China. I also began managing overseas artists. The epidemic began at the end of 2019. Due to the strict control over the domestic music performance market, all overseas work was suspended. In 2020 in Beijing, I founded the vegetarian burger restaurant, Take your Veggie. We are dedicated to promoting healthy eating habits among young Chinese consumers and helping them understand the link between food consumption and the health of the environment.

Sukruti Tirupattur is a performer, teacher and an aspiring community leader who sees Bharatanatyam as her natural form of expression. She centres creativity and togetherness in her work that breaks down the division between education, performance and community. She is also a certified Yoga instructor and holds a master’s degree in history. Sukruti is currently an Associate Artist at Nova Dance, has been a Bharatanatyam Instructor at Citadel + Compagnie and recently debuted as a physical theatre actor in ‘Metamorphoses 2023’ with Theatre Smith-Gilmour.

Tansy Xiao is an artist, curator and writer based in New York. Xiao creates theatrical installations with non-linear narratives that often extend beyond the fourth wall. Her work examines the power and inadequacy of language, furthermore, substantiates the multiplicity of being human through the assemblage of stochastic audio and recontextualized objects. Xiao’s work has been shown at Queens Museum, New Media Caucus, Piksel Festival, The American Society for Theatre Research Conference, Osaka University of Art, The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center, New Adventures in Sound Art, Pelham Art Center, The Immigrant Artist Biennial, Azarian McCullough Art Gallery, SRO Gallery among others. Her curatorial projects were presented by SPRING/BREAK Art Show, NARS Foundation, Radiator Gallery, Residency Unlimited, Fou Gallery, Chazan Family Gallery, Areté Gallery and Brooklyn Art Library.

Teya is an arts administrator and multi-disciplinary artist based in Toronto. Her practice is rooted in both the concept of memory and the application of spirituality. As an administrator, she has over 10 years experience in logistics and event management, diversifying and building membership bases, and programming small to large scale cultural events. She holds a Bachelor of Arts (Cinema Studies, History) from University of Toronto, Post-Graduate Certifications in Arts Administration & Cultural Management from Humber College, and Digital Marketing Management from University of Toronto.

Incorporated in 1989, The Kapisanan Philippine Centre for Arts & Culture is a multiple award-winning, youth-led, charitable community organization based in Toronto. They aim to create a safe space for Filipino-Canadian youth, both second generation and newcomers, to overcome multiple barriers that prevent them from meaningful engagement in society. Their annual Filipino Arts Festival; KULTURA is a multidisciplinary arts celebration of Philippine heritage, bringing visibility to Filipino artists, artisans, and entrepreneurs to diverse audiences.

Founded in 1993, The Sashar Zarif Dance Theatre is a professional Toronto based dance company with both traditional and contemporary works. Based on its eclectic repertoire, they produce performance series, tours and offer residencies, lecture-demonstrations, and classes in Eastern and Central Asian dance character, technique and choreography. Their founders' creative approach: Moving-Memories, focuses on a study of body, mind, and emotional memory through dances, stories, and songs.

The Tamil Archive Project is a volunteer collective started in Scarborough that has been active since 2016. They engage with communities through small events that centre care and critical discussions on a wide range of topics, document the past using creative archiving methods, and participate in shaping current representations of their communities by engaging in research and producing accessible knowledge.

The Time Travel Agency operates under the cover of a speculative design studio in the Nordics, the Americas, and online, under the direction of Jocelyn Ibarra. Their practice is a response to hopelessness about the future and have proposed the artistic method as a method to future making. Their interest is in the invention of worlds, and the development of what happens in these worlds, and how it feels to live in, and affect them. People travel with them because feeling agency is a beautiful, decisive, irreversible world. Jocelyn is an artist and designer interested in socio-technical artifacts, distributed technologies, interactive fiction, and narrative design.

Tyreek Phillips is an award-winning producer and music artist who has been presenting work publicly since 2017. As a former NCAA D1 athlete returning home from a diagnosis of Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy, it was his love for music that drove him to live again. Now blessed with a sense of resilience, he explores the failures of his past life, his struggles as an artist, and his life as a new father. As a lead writer, creative director, and producer; Tyreek has credits on 41 of his own productions (18 singles, 5 EPs, 4 short films, and 14 music videos) and 8 Events. Taking his personal pain and turning it into creativity, Tyreek is a champion and advocate for BIPOC creativity in Canada as he is a staple in the city’s underground hip-hop community and performing arts sector. Integrating real vulnerability with hard-hitting stories Tyreek uses his voice to speak to the sheer resilience every creator needs today.

Wesley Cabarios is a creative entrepreneur specializing in art and expression. He stands for helping POC’s, LGBT, marginalized, and minority artists find a positive voice. He does so by organizing events and providing resources that would normally be neglected for their specific group. In the past he has organized music festivals, film screenings, and many more communal activities in support of minorities and diversity. He has about 5 years of experience in this field and has worked with many community partners. With his work he hopes to bridge the gap between diversity and inclusion for minorities of underrepresented communities in the creative industries.

Willem Deisinger is an artist, designer and writer currently based in London, UK. He was the Development Lead at UKAI where he worked as a creative coder maintaining, enhancing, and re-imagining UKAI’s interconnected technological projects. He’s interested in the aesthetics of systems and tools that define our contemporary experiences in the world. Willem’s practice is based on exploring the potential and failures of old, new, and future digital technologies, highlighting their aesthetic attributes, inner processes, and histories. He re-imagines and hacks the personal and social systems we indulge over with our phones, everyday tools and digital lives.

Xuan Ye 叶轩 is an artist, musician, engineer and educator who works across and beyond these contexts. Their work coheres around the erratum and the untranslatable in the more-than-human entanglements. They make software, e.g. bots and interactive websites as digital poetry; editions, e.g. edibles and AR sculptures as durational performances; and other multi-sensory networked experiences synthesizing language, code, sound, body, image, data, light, and time. Their artwork has appeared at the Mackenzie Art Gallery (Regina), the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art (Shanghai), MOCA Toronto, Venice Architecture Biennale, Peer to Space (Berlin), Fonderie Darling (Montreal), the Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto), Inside-out Art Museum (Beijing), the Goethe-Institut (Beijing & Montreal), ArtAsiaPacific (Issue. 111), KUNSTFORUM (Bd. 257), among others. They are an artist-in-residence awarded by the Swiss Arts Council in 2023, a finalist of EQ Bank digital artist awards in 2018 and a recipient of the SSHRC scholarship. In comprovising, X is techne agnostic and genre eclectic and has been lauded as “one of Canada’s most exciting voices in textural soma.” They have been commissioned by Edmonton New Music (2021), and the Canadian Music Centre (2020). They have performed at numerous experimental music festivals and DIY shows, sharing programs with Phew, Pharmakon, Chris Corsano, Carl Stone, Alex Zhang Hungtai, Xylouris White, GOOOOOSE, etc. They have collaborated with Canadian experimentalists Chik White, Jason Doell, Brigitte Bardon't, Colin Fisher, etc. Their live performances and music releases have received critical accolades from Bandcamp, Exclaim! and Musicworks.

I was born and raised in Beijing but moved to Canada after high school, where I lived in Ottawa and Toronto for 12 years. There, I formed my new understanding of the world, and I gained a deep knowledge of North American and European culture and reflected on my own Chinese culture. I received a collectivist education growing up. When I first arrived in Canada, I felt the impact of individualism. My identity has shifted from a local Chinese kid who grew up in a Chinese family to that of a minority immigrant in Canada. This kind of identity shift gave me a deeper understanding of the world. Growing up in China, I had never been exposed to negative Chinese news, and when I began studying abroad, I was exposed to the negative perceptions of China from other countries in the world. The subversion of this value system has had a profound impact on my artistic creation. I realized that I used to live in an environment full of political propaganda. At first, I felt that my understanding of the truth was one-sided—the Western world became my new truth. But, with the passage of time and my new understanding of Canadian society, I realized the western ideal is not an absolute truth. Canadian society, despite projecting veneer of inclusivity and hope, is also a colonial country that built much of its progress on the genocide and exploitation of its indigenous people. At this time, I became more aware of China's resistance to colonialism. I realized that there is propaganda in media regardless of the country. Through this experience, I have gained a stronger curiosity and desire to pursue the truth. I hope that through my art I can explore these concepts in more authentic ways and avoid binary perspectives.

Yasmeen Nematt Alla (she/her) is an Egyptian immigrant and settler living in Tkaronto, Turtle Island (colonially known as Toronto, Ontario). She has a BA in Fine Arts from the University of Waterloo and is an MFA candidate and a Gilbert Fellow at Cranbrook Academy of Arts. She has most recently exhibited at the Bronx River Art Centre in Bronx NY, Heaven Gallery in Chicago IL, and Xpace Cultural Centre in Toronto ON. She has previously been an artist resident in the Banff Centre, ACRE, STEPs Public Art, UKAI Projects, La Centrale Galerie Powerhouse, and as an artist resident at Ferment AI and HXOUSE Creative Think Tank. As an artist worker, she supports art organizations in creating accessible and anti-racist modes of communications in their day-to-day operations.

Zerone Duo is an interdisciplinary collective founded in 2018, by two Iranian Composer-Performers, Deniz Tafaghodi and Farbod Maeen in Tehran. "Zerone Duo" draws its name from the binary elements of zero and one, reflecting the profound synergy between opposites. They are translating visual marvels of geometric intricacies found in the architecture of various cultures into the auditory realm of music. Additionally, they use daily and ordinary sounds, often overlooked at first glance, as the primary material in their works. Zerone Duo actively collaborates with various collectives in different mediums such as, live audiovisual, theaters, films, installations, contemporary dance performances, and animations.