Paulina O’Kieffe-Anthony (Chair) is an award winning artist, curator, arts educator and creative consultant. As an artist, her high level accomplishments include being featured in When Sisters Speak, co-curating Scarborough: The Backbone as part of Toronto’s Year of Public Art, co-producing the Spoken Soul Festival, and representing Toronto as a 2x national team finalist in the Canadian Festival Of Spoken Word. In 2019 she was a TEDx speaker and in 2020 an excerpt of her play How Jab Jab Saved the Pretty Mas was featured as part of Piece of Mine’s Black Women in Theatre Festival. Her work has also been featured in media via Bell Fibe TV, Huffington Post Canada, AfroGlobal TV, Metro Morning and CBC Morning as well as in performances across Canada and Internationally alongside notable performers such as Dwayne Morgan and Randell Adjei. 

Her 20 years of working in the not for profit and arts and culture sectors have given her  opportunities to support multiple organizations. She is an active member of the Toronto Arts Council and currently chairs the Black Arts Granting Program. She also sits as Chair of the Board for RISE Arts and Community Services and is a program mentor with NIA Centre for the Arts. 

Mark V Campbell, PhD is the founder of Northside Hip-Hop Archive. He is a DJ and Curator working at the intersections of afrosonic and digital cultures. He was appointed to the Board of Directors of the Ontario Arts Council from 2015-2018 and is currently a member of the Board of Directors at the Power Plant Gallery. Dr. Campbell is an Associate Professor of Music & Culture at the University of Toronto Scarborough. 

Sedina Fiati is a multi award winning, Toronto based performer, producer, director, creator and activist for stage and screen. Proudly of Trinidadian and Ghanaian descent, queer and femme, Sedina is deeply invested in artistic work that explores the intersection between art and activism, either in form or structure or ideally both. Sedina was the co chair of ACTRA Toronto’s Diversity Committee where she co-led the committee in several initiatives including a partnership with Working The Scene In Colour and the creation of The Sandi Ross Awards. Sedina is a proud co-founder and Lead Producer of The Black Pledge, an initiative to dismantle anti-Black racism in live performance. Recent projects: Canadian Slavery Project: Unheard Voices (Director/Dramaturg), Femme in 5 (writer and director, in development), Last Dance (creator and performer, web series in development, recipient of Inside Out Re: Focus Fund & Solidarity Fund), 22 (in development, playwright), Tar: The Musical (dramaturg). 

Victoria Mata (Chair) ​is a Venezuelan-Canadian settler in T’Koronto. ​Poly-lingual ​choreographer, dance artist and activist with a background in expressive arts therapy. Mata’s career was first sculpted by pedagogic, self-directed training, which proceeded with internationally renowned residencies and choreographers at ​the Banff Arts Centre, Counter Pulse, African American Art & Culture, Centro de Investigación Coreográfica del Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes de México, The Biggot Foundation, Ballet Creole, Aluna Theater and Teatro Delle Radici. ​Mata’s sensibility to inclusion and border stories is due to her eclectic upbringing in three continents before the age of fifteen. Intersectional, multi-framed community-arts and the abolishment of violence against women are some of Mata’s passion. She has intricately weaved these themes in her MFA in Contemporary Choreography and is foundation for some of her recognitions such as being a recipient of the Metcalf Foundation, a finalist of the Toronto Arts Foundation Emerging Artist Award and 7 Dora nominations. Mata deeply believes in the arts as core and tangible mode of sustaining and transforming paradigms of exclusion. Currently, Mata is developing a full-length production called Cacao | A Venezuelan lament, which​ illuminates the vibrant and resilient stories of cacao farmers in Venezuela whose labour and sweat are behind every bite of chocolate consumed worldwide. 

Amanda Bernard is a member of the Madawaska Maliseet First Nation, Director of Indigenous Programs at the Laidlaw Foundation and is an Honours Bachelor of Business graduate from the University of Guelph Humber. Her active engagement extends to board roles with the Philanthropy Canada Foundation (PFC) and Advisory Committee with the Canadian Women’s Foundation (CWF) and Indigenous Peoples Resilience Fund (IPRF). Amanda is deeply committed to supporting Indigenous youth by facilitating their engagement with their ancestral land, language, culture, and peers through diverse projects. While residing in Tkaronto, ON, her roots remain in Ottawa, ON where she was born and within Edmundston, NB, where most of her family resides. 

Cole Forrest is an Anishinaabe filmmaker, film programmer and curator from Nipissing First Nation. They have written and directed films that have been screened at film festivals including imagineNATIVE, TQFF, TIFF Next Wave, and the Vancouver International Film Festival. Cole has created films through imagineNATIVE, National Film Board, and Canada Council for The Arts. Cole is a recipient of the Ken and Ann Watts Memorial Scholarship, imagineNATIVE Director’s Lab, and of the James Bartleman Indigenous Youth Creative Writing Award. They are the 2019 recipient of the imagineNATIVE + LIFT Film Mentorship and a 2020 Artist in Residence as a part of the Sundance Native Filmmakers Lab. Cole is a 2023 participant of the Reelworld E20 Program and the 2024 emerging curator-in-residence at Images Festival. Cole has supported programming at festivals including TIFF, imagineNATIVE, VIFF, Yorkton Film Festival, and Fabulous Festival of Fringe Film. They are a graduate of the Video Design and Production program at George Brown College. Cole is currently writing their first feature film. They are grateful to represent their community in all artistic pursuits.

Cecília Garcia is an arts manager, fundraiser, community organizer, and multidisciplinary emerging artist based in Tkaronto. Originally from Brazil, Cecília holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Diploma in Arts Management. She has built a diverse portfolio working and volunteering in the Canadian arts sector at multiple organizations, including CONOSER, Queen Gallery, Regent Park Film Festival, Airsa, Hot Docs, North York Arts, and others. 

Currently, Cecília is the Operations Advisor at the Community Arts Guild and a Fundraising Consultant at Forward Avenue. She has experience in multiple areas in the sector, including programming, volunteer management, arts facilitation, and fundraising. Throughout her career, Cecília has had the immense privilege of participating in organizations and projects that have helped build communities through the arts. She is excited to be a part of the Mural Routes Board and continue to contribute to creating a thriving arts sector. 

Eva Hellreich (any pronouns) is passionate about providing underserved communities access to resources, knowledge and networks that enable and sustain self-empowerment through creative leadership and community building. They bring over 7 years of arts and funding administrative experience spanning non-profit, community arts, festivals and government funders, as well as experience as a youth and adult educator. In addition to ample experience with program development and service delivery, they served a 3 year term as a Board member of Mayworks Festival of Working People where they support festival curation and fiscal governance. They are currently the Program Manager at ArtsBuild Ontario, where they support creative spaces across the province through research and resource distribution. 

Eva is enthusiastic about sharing their passion for project management, collaboration and creative problem solving with community engaged artists and organizations through skill and resource exchanges, collaboration, and peer mentorship. Eva believes in art for art’s sake and challenges the influence of capitalism on determining the value of a creative practice or production. Their personal practice includes photography, textile art, and creative writing.

Spencer Phillips. A dedicated champion of the arts, Spencer brings over 16 years of experience building community programs, delivering cultural events & festivals, and managing various creative spaces within in the Greater Toronto area. In 2014, he founded Wimbo Media – a Toronto-based boutique communications firm, partnering exclusively with non-profit, cultural organizations and social enterprises to achieve greater impact through effective brand strategy, graphic design, and content strategy. At Artscape Daniels Launchpad, Spencer oversees program initiatives and community partnerships aimed at supporting the next generation of creative entrepreneurs.  In recent years, Spencer has managed Artscape Weston Common – a community cultural hub located in central West Toronto, and has overseen programming and communications at UrbanArts – a Local Arts Service Organization (LASO) providing opportunities for diverse cultural expression, artistic development, and employment to members of urban communities. Currently serving as a Director on the Board of SKETCH Working Arts, Spencer is committed to working collaboratively with culturally diverse and underserved communities to ensure greater access to arts and culture. 

Flora Shum is a Hong Kong born-Tkaronto/Toronto based artist, educator, and cultural worker. She co-runs Paperhouse Studio, where she carries forward the vision for paper as a medium, and leads arts-based programming for underserved communities. She is one half of duo collective—AURA, and coordinator and artist support for CARFAC Ontario, supporting access and advocacy for artists’ legal needs. Her artistic practice is experimental and collaborative by nature, with roots in papermaking, printmaking, and book arts, extending to found objects, sculpture, and installation. Her art utilizes these mediums to explore alternative histories and archives, alchemy, multiples, mass-production, cyborgs, and slow labour.

She has exhibited locally and internationally, including Toronto (ON), Whistler (BC), New York (NY), Hong Kong, Kinngait (NU), and London (UK). Flora has facilitation experience at OCAD University, Harbourfront Centre, Toronto Public Library, University of Toronto, Central Technical School (Toronto, ON.), Peter Pitseolak School (Kinngait, NU.) and Attagoyuk Ilisavik (Pangnirtung, NU.).

Tamla Matthews (Chair) is a professional artist, administrator, community architect and educator with an expertise in cultural arts and a passion for blossoming art-based communities. As a dancer and choreographer, Tamla has been trained in Contemporary and traditional Caribbean dance. She has performed on numerous local and international stages since childhood. Tamla started with the Scarborough Caribbean Dance Ensemble at 12 and was the Artistic Director at 18. Tamla left SCYDE in her late twenties, but her passion for all things Caribbean helped her birth Roots And Branches, her dance-focused children’s and youth cultural arts program in 2010.  

As a dancer, Tamla performs as a soloist with Caribbean dance theatre and Roots and Branches. She is also a regular guest artist with Dance Caribe Performing Company and Mafa Makubahlo’ s Mafa Dance Village.  

14 years after its birth, Roots and Branches is a vital hub for Caribbean Canadian children and their families to create community by learning about dance, music, culture and community using Caribbean artforms. Tamla’s lifelong contribution to the Canadian Black dance community was recognized by Robert Small on his 2015 Black History Legacy poster. In 2016, she was recognized and awarded by Hibiscus United of Trinidad and Tobago for promoting dance to the youth in our community. Other recent awards include 2017 GTA’s Got Talent Best Dance Crew Award, 2016 Praise Him Festival best dance in the junior and senior divisions. Most recently Roots was commissioned to create and perform the tribute performance for Toronto Activist Louis March at his community Aseda. 

 In addition to being the current Director of the Roots And Branches Children’s Dance and the Artistic Director of the Caribbean Dance Theatre Company, Tamla was the Children’s Programs Manager for Scarborough Arts for 5 years and is also the former Executive Director Of Drum Artz Canada. She has curated a number of exhibitions and gallery shows for The Scarborough Bluffs Gallery including Akwaaba, Scarborough Arts first Black History month themed exhibition, and Unsung Sheroes, a month-long International Women’s Day community-based program including community forums, lunch and learns and paint classes. Her school-focused cultural arts program, Kaleidoscope, delivered over 250 artbased workshops to 500+ Scarborough students in over 30 classrooms and community organizations in Scarborough over 5 years.  

Tamla is passionate about community-based work and has also spent 3 years on Toronto Arts Council’s Community Arts committee (2014-2016) amplifying this perspective. She was the Operations Lead Manager at Nia Centre for the Arts, where she worked to increase Intergenerational conversations between older and younger artists. Tamla also runs the CHEERS mentorship program which focuses on strengthening community connections between Black youth and their cultural communities.  

In addition to her work in the arts, Tamla remains dedicated to lifelong learning and teaching as a Training and Development consultant with the City of Toronto’s Social Development – Finance and Administration division.  

Passionate about most things chocolate, Tamla strives for at least one good belly laugh daily and believes in the transformational power of awkward conversations. She insists that the role of the arts is to celebrate life, build community and maximize human potential 

Emily Cheung is an educator, performer, and choreographer who holds degrees in B.F.A., B. Ed., and M.A. from York University, with a specialization in Dance. Her extensive training took place across China, Hong Kong, the United States, and Canada. Renowned for her pivotal role in fostering cross-cultural connections and facilitating collaborations with international artists dedicated to traditional and modern Chinese dance in Toronto, Ms. Cheung received recognition as one of the prominent figures during the 150th Anniversary celebration of Canada, being honored as one of the ten “Voices of Chinese Canadian Women” in Ontario. She was also a finalist for the Muriel Sherrin Award, nominated for The Johanna Metcalf Performing Arts Prizes/Les Prix Johanna-Metcalf des Arts de la scène. She is a board member for Dance Ontario. Over the years, Emily has created or produced over 20 full-length shows and films in dance, and has championed over 200 touring performances. 

Currently serving as the Artistic Director of Little Pear Garden Dance Company in Toronto, Ms. Cheung is an active member of the board of directors for Dance Ontario. Her expertise encompasses both Chinese Classical dance and Chinese Contemporary dance. Emily Cheung is deeply committed to preserving the essence of traditional Chinese dance, crafting contemporary expressions that pay homage to Chinese heritage, and engaging in collaborative ventures with artists from diverse backgrounds and disciplines to create works imbued with distinctive aesthetic values. 

Nicole Inica Hamilton is an award winning choreographer, and the Founder/ Artistic Director of Inica Dance Industries. A certified educator and member of Dance Masters of Canada and Dance Masters of America, Hamilton has served as a guest teacher, mentor and speaker at institutes across Canada including but not limited to; George Brown College, University of Toronto, York University and University of Calgary. She has presented in national and international conventions including; En Avant -RAD World Convention, Toronto Dance Teacher Expo, Creation Dance Championships, the Performing Arts Medicine Association and more. Hamilton is an on -air radio Host at CIUT 89.5 FM, and is the Producer/ Host of Turn Out Radio. She reports on the current news affairs of our time with special focus on arts, health, career, and business news. She is the in -suite moderator for dance Immersion, and has operated as a guest correspondent on media and discussion platforms across Canada including the Career Buzz Show, and Fall for Dance North’s Mambo Podcast. Her voice has been featured on national commercials, film, and television networks where she has moderated, and facilitated conversations with leaders across the globe. In her work in health, Hamilton is a counsellor and actively works with organizations to advocate for and promote healthy practices for dance Artists. Her presentations on practices of self-care, injury prevention, holistic teaching practices and psychological stress have been presented on nationwide platforms, festivals and conferences.

Shannon Litzenberger is an award-winning dance artist, embodiment facilitator and experienced cultural leader working at the intersection of art, ideas and transformational change. Her work as a dancer and performance maker explores our relationship to land, the politics of belonging, and the forgotten wisdom of the body. Her imaginative productions have been presented across Canada and the US and she has collaborated with some of Canada’s most celebrated artists including Marie-Josée Chartier, Lorna Crozier, Christopher Dewdney, Renelta Arluk, David Earle, Ravi Jain, Don McKay, charles c. smith and Michael Greyeyes, among others. She has been an invited resident artist at Soulpepper Theatre, Toronto Dance Theatre, Harbourfront Centre, Atlantic Ballet Theatre, Banff Centre, and Saskatoon’s Remai Modern and is a frequent collaborator with the wind in the leaves collective. Shannon is the recipient of the Jack McAllister Award for accomplishment in dance, A 2019 Chalmers Fellow, and a twice-shortlisted finalist for the prestigious KM Hunter Award. Her recent work World After Dark was nominated for a 2019 Dora Mavor Moore Award.

Roxana Menzies. With an Honours BFA in dance from York University, Roxy Menzies has shifted from performer and choreographer to dance educator to a teacher supporting artists through somatic practices and, most recently, to a writer. It has been a natural progression that continues to draw on and from each other, deeply rooted in storytelling and predominantly related to forms within the African diaspora. Highlights of her dance career include training under The National Dance Theatre Company of Jamaica with the Honourable Rex Nettleford and experiencing dance pioneer Katherine Dunham at the Dunham Technique Seminar in St. Louis. She was an original member of Toronto’s first all-female Hip Hop dance group, PhemPhat/Blaze, has worked with Decidedly Jazz Danceworks and produced her own successful show, “Fairy Tales of Funk,” in Western Canada. She has extensive experience in commercial and stage work and represented women for Nike Dance in Europe. Roxy has taught dance and various movement modalities for the Canadian Educational system, professional dancers, Zeynep Tanbay Dance Project, Cirque du Soleil, and multiple corporations. She has presented, guest-taught, or performed in London, New York, Paris, Beirut, China, Türkiye, Hawaii, and Thailand. Her essays have been widely published in The Dance Current, The Guide Istanbul, Pilates Anytime, Healthline, and Black Girl Pilates. 

Since her full time return to Canada she has been a keynote speaker about Dance Legacies for the International Blacks in Dance conference in Toronto, was selected as a dance researcher for Dancemakers 50th Anniversary archival project in conjunction with Dance Collection Danse, sits on The Dance Current’s Editorial Advisory Committee and has worked with Arts Etobicoke, Nia Centre of the Arts, Workman Arts, and UrbanArts. 

Bageshree Vaze is an Indo-Canadian dance artist, musician and writer. Bageshree initially trained in Bharatha Natyam in St. John’s, NL, and studied vocal music with her father, Damodar Vaze. She later trained in Kathak dance with Jai Kishan Maharaj in New Delhi, and studied vocal music with the renowned Veena Sahasrabuddhe. Her vocal music and dance practice go hand-in-hand, as Bageshree composes much of the music for her dance works and choreographs with music as a starting point. As a vocalist, Bageshree has five CDs to her credit, including Tarana, an album of music for Indian dance, which was released in India by Times Music under the name Khanak. In 2004 Bageshree was named an MTV India ‘rising star’ and in 2010 she was awarded the K.M. Hunter Award in Dance. Bageshree has a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism from Carleton University and a Master’s in Dance from York University. Bageshree was Dance Collection Danse’s inaugural Artist Researcher-in-Residence in 2022. Bageshree was the 2022 co-recipient of the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding Original Sound Composition in the Dance Division for Pratibha Arts’ ‘Sadhana/Tarana’ production. Her choreographic works have been commissioned and presented in prestigious festivals such as the Canada Dance Festival, CanAsian International and Dusk Dances. In 2024 Bageshree was a delegate as part of CAPACOA’s cultural mission representing Canadian dancemaking at Tanzmesse in Dusseldorf, Germany, and Bageshree was a featured soloist with Spain’s celebrated Flamenco artist Eduardo Guerrero at the Aga Khan Museum’s 10th Anniversary Gala in Toronto. 

Lindsey Lickers, Chair, is an Onkwehon:we (Kanien’kéha)/ Anishinaabe (Ojibwe- Missisakis) artist & community developer originally from Six Nations of the Grand River with ancestral roots to the Mississauga’s of Credit First Nation. She specializes in painting & beading as well as Indigenous arts and culture facilitation, governance, community and program development. Her traditional name is ‘Mushkiiki Nibi’, which translates to ‘Medicine Water’, she is turtle clan.

Lindsey is a graduate of OCAD University and has sat on a number of community boards and committees in the Toronto area over the last 15 years. Some of her past committee work has been for the Native Canadian Centre of Toronto and the Institute for Research and Development on Inclusion and Society (IRIS). She is currently a member of the Toronto Arts Council and Steps Public Art- Indigenous Advisory Committees.

In 2017, Lindsey was shortlisted and awarded a public arts project for the Region of Waterloo’s LRT System resulting in a permanent public instillation for the Block Line stop that speaks to the historical stewardship of the land base of Waterloo and the importance of agriculture from a First Nations perspective. Lindsey also received an International Women’s Day- Leadership in the Arts award in 2019 from the City of Toronto.

She is currently the Community Safety Liaison for the Ontario Native Women’s Association (ONWA), providing advocacy, awareness and capacity building supports for Indigenous women & families, as well as service providers, in the area of human trafficking and gang involvement. She currently practices out of both Toronto and Six Nations of the Grand River.

Emily Henderson is a Kalaaleq (Greenlandic Inuk) writer based out of Toronto. A graduate of the University of British Columbia, her educational background is in cultural and museum anthropology, and she was a staff writer and editor at the Inuit Art Quarterly for two years before transitioning into the Executive Assistant role with the Indigenous Curatorial Collective in 2020. Emily’s primary focus has been on Inuit and circumpolar arts, and in 2019 she guest-edited the first ever issue of the Inuit Art Quarterly that featured all-Inuit contributors. 

Ginew (Graham) Paradis (he/him) is Michif/Wiisaakodewin from Penetanguishene with ancestral ties to the Metis homelands, specifically Lesser Slave Lake, AB and the Red River Settlement. He is a citizen of the Metis Nation of Ontario. Giniw has been beading since 2012 as a self-taught artist and started mentoring under Naomi Smith (Chippewas of Nawash, Neyaashiinigmiing Unceded Territory) in 2014. His beadwork and quillwork have been featured at the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, Art Mûr, the PAMA Museum, Guelph Civic Museum, the Niagara Falls History Museum, and the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum.

Sean Lee, Chair, is an artist and curator exploring the assertion of disability art as the last avant-garde. His methodology explores crip curatorial practices as a means to resist traditional aesthetic idealities. Orienting towards a “crip horizon”, Sean’s practice explores the transformative possibilities of accessibility as an embodied politic and disability community building as a way to desire the ways disability can disrupt. Sean holds a B.A. in Arts Management and Studio from the University of Toronto, Scarborough and is currently the Director of Programming at Tangled Art + Disability. Previous to this role, he was Tangled’s inaugural Curator in Residence (2016) as well as Tangled’s Gallery Manager (2017). Sean has been integral to countless exhibitions and public engagements throughout his tenure at Tangled Art + Disability.  In addition to his position at Tangled Art + Disability, Sean is an independent lecturer, speaker, and writer adding his insights and perspectives to conversations surrounding Disability Arts across Canada, the United States and internationally. Sean currently sits on the board of CARFAC Ontario, Creative Users Projects, and is a member of the Ontario Art Council’s Deaf and Disability Advisory Group and Toronto Art Council’s Visual Arts / Media Arts Committee.

Barbara Fischer is the Executive Director/Chief Curator of the Art Museum at the University of Toronto (comprised of the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery and the University of Toronto Art Centre) as well as an Associate Professor, Teaching Stream in the Master of Visual Studies program in Curatorial Studies at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto. 
 
Fischer has curated award-winning exhibitions in the area of contemporary art and its histories, including solo exhibitions of Stan Douglas, Rebecca Belmore, Will Kwan, John Greyson, Wendy Coburn, Deanna Bowen, and Kent Monkman’s Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience (touring across Canada from 2017 to 2021), among many others. She curated the internationally circulating retrospective exhibition General Idea Editions 1967-1995 (Kunstverein Munich, Kunsthalle Zurich, Kunst-Werke ICA Berlin, CAAC Seville, Henry Art Gallery Seattle, and the Andy Warhol Museum Pittsburgh, among others), and Projections (2007), the first major survey (and touring exhibition) on projection-based works in the history of contemporary art in Canada. In 2010, she partnered with five curators from across Canada to produce the first survey of conceptual art in Canada (Traffic: Conceptual Art in Canada 1965-1980) which toured across Canada and in reconfigured form to the Badischer Kunstverein (Germany) and the Canadian Cultural Centre in Paris (2010 to 2014). 
 
Barbara Fischer is the recipient of the 2008 Hnatyshyn Award for Curatorial Excellence in Contemporary Art. She curated Mark Lewis’ project, and was part of the curatorial team for Isuma, presented at the Canadian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (in 2009 and 2019 respectively). 

Naomi Johnson, Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) Bear clan from Six Nations, has worked in the arts for over eighteen years as a curator, arts administrator, professional artist, and community arts facilitator.  Naomi served as Artistic Director for seven years and then as Co-Executive Director (2018) of the Woodland Cultural Centre, where she curated and programmed annual exhibitions and performance art events. In June 2019, Naomi accepted the position of Associate Director for imagineNATIVE – the world’s largest Indigenous media arts festival. In June 2020, Naomi assumed her role as Executive Director of imagineNATIVE, leading the organization through the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Naomi continues to serve as the administrative lead for imagineNATIVE, whose mission is to showcase, promote, and celebrate Indigenous filmmakers and media artists globally. In 2023 Naomi was honoured by the Toronto Arts Foundation with the Margo Bindhardt and Rita Davies Award, celebrating an individual artist, creator, or administrator who has demonstrated creative cultural leadership in developing arts and culture in Toronto.   

Ilana Shamoon (she/her) is Deputy Director & Director of Programs at the Toronto Biennial of Art. She oversees all aspects of the Biennial’s public and learning programs, as well as TBA publications. She joined the Biennial Curatorial Advisory Group in 2016 and subsequently led the Curatorial Framework research for the inaugural curatorial team. Prior to joining the Biennial, Ilana was curator at the Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain in Paris (2006-15) where she curated numerous exhibitions including Native Land, Stop Eject, and regularly commissioned artworks, events, and performances. Upon her return to Canada, Ilana ran the public art program at Waterfront Toronto from 2016-17 and has worked as an independent curator for institutions including The Image Centre, Toronto. 

Alana Traficante is an arts organizer, writer/editor, and curator based in Toronto, where she has been the Executive Director of Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography since 2018. She provides leadership within a collaborative board/staff/member structure, stewarding Gallery 44’s mandate to support artists in the research, production, and dissemination of their work at all stages of their careers and present thoughtful and rigorous exhibitions by diverse artists. Before Gallery 44, Alana worked in her hometown Hamilton, in curatorial and administrative roles at the Art Gallery of Hamilton and as the Administrative Director at Hamilton Artists Inc., as a curatorial committee member and Vice President of the Board of Directors of Supercrawl, and a founding contributor to Critical Superbeast, a collaborative artist-led art writing and criticism platform that lived on Tumblr from 2016-2018. She credits Hamilton for her underground, collaborative, DIY spirit, which still fuels her passion for facilitating networks in the artistic community with an interest in civic engagement, capacity building, and mentorship. Her independent research and writing follow entangled research threads around networks, nature, nightlife, community, introspection, and interconnection. Alana holds an MFA in Criticism and Curatorial Practice from OCAD University (2016) and a BA in Art History from the University of Toronto (2004). 

Matthew Fava is a Toronto-based musician and arts administrator who currently serves as the Executive Director at the Music Gallery. Previously, Matthew worked as Music Director and then Program Manager at CHRY 105.5 FM campus-community radio. He served as Director of Ontario Region at the Canadian Music Centre where he reshaped the workshop and programming profile of the CMC, and also acted as Executive Director at the Tranzac, a multi-purpose venue in Toronto.

Matthew was a founding organizer of the Toronto Creative Music Lab (2015-2019) which presented an annual international music-based workshop with an emphasis on peer-learning, less hierarchical models of composer-performer collaborations, and active engagement with anti-oppression training as a component of artistic virtuosity.

Artist and activist Trina Moyan Bell is nehiyaw iskwew (Plains Cree) from the Frog Lake First Nation in Alberta. She began her career as a writer and producer for the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) and co-produced and directed the National Aboriginal Achievement Awards (now Indspire) for CBC Television. Moyan is a co-founder of Toronto-based Bell & Bernard, a First Nations consulting firm dedicated to including the histories and current realities of Indigenous peoples within urban planning projects, and has spoken widely on Indigenous inclusion and empowerment. Moyan is also a muralist, a traditional dancer and a University of Toronto alumna.

Sonia Sakamoto-Jog (she/her) is an experienced cultural leader and administrator with an extensive career in Toronto’s arts sector and a strong commitment to fostering diversity and representation. Most recently she served as Festival Producer at Luminato Festival Toronto, where she co-led the Programming and Production department. Prior to Luminato, Sonia served as Executive Director of the Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival, Board Chair of the Regent Park Film Festival, and Manager of Logistics at the Art Gallery of Ontario, where she oversaw installation and logistics for notable projects including Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors. She has participated as a jury and committee member for the Toronto Arts Council, Toronto Arts Foundation, Ontario Arts Council, Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre, and the City of Ottawa.

Roland Gulliver​ (Chair) is the Director of the Toronto International Festival of Authors, taking up  the position in February 2020. With over 12 years’ experience at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Roland Gulliver is one of the leading international figures in the literature  sector. In addition to the August Festival, he has led, alongside a fellow programme  director, on the development of a year-round programme of residencies, mini festivals and  standalone events working with a range of communities to offer access and empowerment  through the arts. From graphic novel and hip-hop projects with school students, prison  visits with authors, to producing a Muriel Spark celebration for 2000 people in 2019. At the  British Council in Brussels (2000-2006) he created and delivered a range of multilateral  programmes exploring Britain’s role in Europe with projects, festivals and commissions  engaging British, Belgian and European artists and organisations. This included European  conferences on science, politics and arts, and high-level bilateral conferences involving  ambassadors, business leaders and the UK & Belgian prime ministers. 

Jennifer Alicia (she/they) is a queer, mixed Mi’kmaw and settler (German/Irish/Scottish) multidisciplinary artist originally from Elmastukwek, Ktaqmkuk (Bay of Islands, Newfoundland), now residing in Toronto. She is a two-time national poetry slam champion and her work has been featured in Canthius Magazine, NOW Magazine, CBC and imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival. Jennifer Alicia co-edited an Indigenous poetry anthology titled The Condor and the Eagle Meet and has a debut chapbook titled Mixed Emotions. She is a current participant in the Animikiig Creators Unit through Native Earth Performing Arts, working on her debut play titled To Go Home.

Kristyn Dunnion is a fiction author whose books include “Stoop City” (Biblioasis), “Tarry This Night” and “The Dirt Chronicles” (Arsenal Pulp Press), and young adult titles including “Mosh Pit” (Red Deer Press). Her work has been celebrated by the ReLit Award, the Acker Award, the Metcalf-Rooke Award, and as a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award. She earned a B.A. at McGill University and an M.A. in English at the University of Guelph. A multi-disciplinary artist by nature, Dunnion continues to integrate mixed media and musical/theatrical performance with her writing. Born and raised in the southern-most tip of Canada, she now resides in Toronto, where she works in the field of community mental health support.​

Tanya Turton is an award-winning entrepreneur, author, speaker, and known for her powerful storytelling and dedication to mental health advocacy. With a passion for amplifying intersectional stories, Tanya creates spaces where Black and queer communities feel heard, seen, and validated. Tanya is the author of Jade Is a Twisted Green, a compelling coming-of-age novel that delves into Jamaican Canadian identity, love, passion, grief, chosen family, and the rediscovery of life’s pleasures after loss. Her writing extends to the academic sphere, with a chapter in the textbook Reframing Trauma Through Social Justice titled Collective Care for Collective Trauma, which examines the impact of narrative therapy and collective care on marginalized communities. Her work has also been featured in Shameless Magazine and AllLitup.com. Driven by the belief that storytelling is a powerful tool for healing, Tanya is committed to creating spaces where narratives become a source of strength and connection.

Cheryl Duvall (Chair) has established herself as one of Canada’s foremost contemporary music interpreters, immersing herself in a wide variety of compositional aesthetics and collaborative endeavours. Her lucid sense of contour, evocative sonic and emotional presence, and boundless versatility make her both a dynamic soloist and in-demand collaborator. Duvall has been presented as a solo performer by the likes of Innovations en concert, Suoni per il Popolo, The National Arts Centre, Bang On A Can, MTU Cork School Of Music (Ireland), University of Huddersfield (UK), and has toured and performed throughout Canada, Japan, Europe, Argentina and the U.S. In 2016, Duvall’s artistry was recognized with a nomination for the KM Hunter Award.

She co-founded the “adventurous and smartly programmed” (Musicworks Magazine) chamber group Thin Edge New Music Collective alongside Ilana Waniuk in 2011. Since their inception, they’ve commissioned over 80+ works, mounting lavish multidisciplinary productions while collaborating with leading performers like Charlotte Mundy, Jason Sharp, Ensemble Paramirabo (with whom they recorded an album.) TENMC was awarded the 2020 Friends of Canadian Music Award from the Canadian League of Composers and the Canadian Music Centre for being ‘an important musical innovator, working creatively across disciplines with an unwavering commitment to diverse and equitable programming’. 

In January 2020, she released her debut solo piano album Harbour, a highly acclaimed recording released on the Redshift Record Label featuring the music of Canadian composer, Anna Hostman. Harbour was chosen as the #1 Modern Composition Recording of 2020 by UK’s ‘The Wire’ Magazine and was nominated for a Juno for Classical Composition of the Year. Her next solo album, Intimes exubérances will be released in April 2024 on the Redshift record label. Duvall was appointed the Artistic Director of the Chamber Music Society of Mississauga in February 2022 and was also the interim-co-artistic director of the Oakville Choir for Children and Youth for the 2021-2022 season. She operates a full private teaching studio, is a member of the College of Examiners with the Royal Conservatory of Music, and adjudicates piano competitions across Canada.

Andrew Adridge is a graduate of the University of Toronto holding both a Bachelor of Music Performance in Voice and a Master of Music in Opera. He has been featured as an ensemble soloist both at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto and the Kennedy Centre in Washington, D.C. Andrew has participated in several young artist programs including The Chautauqua Institution Voice Program, and the Banff Opera program. Andrew is an avid writer, having contributed to both Opera Canada and Ludwig Van Toronto, and continues his pursuits through his personal blog and through spoken word bringing to light issues around artistry, identity, and race.

Andrew has worked as an arts administrator with such organizations as the Association for Opera in Canada where he was a member of the first Portfolio Artist Collective, Tapestry Opera, Against the Grain Theatre, and now works as the Executive Director of the Toronto Consort. In 2022, Andrew was granted a prestigious Metcalf Foundation Performing Arts Internship in Artistic Planning. He has a passion for educating young artists and the next generation, working as the Artistic Producer for the Banff Centre Opera in the 21st Century program and co-founding the national arts education collective Opera InReach. Andrew’s recognizable commitment to EDIJA advancement in the arts sector has made him sought after as a panellist, consultant, and outlet contributor.

Kathleen Allan. Artistic director of the Amadeus Choir, Kathleen Allan, is in high demand as a conductor, composer, and clinician and is equally comfortable working in early, contemporary, and symphonic repertoire. Until 2019, Ms. Allan served as the Director of Choral Studies and Associate Conductor of the Symphony Orchestra at the Vancouver Academy of Music and was the Associate Conductor of the Vancouver Bach Choir. She was the 2016 recipient of the Sir Ernest MacMillan Prize in Choral Conducting. In 2015, Ms. Allan made her Asian debut conducting Handel’s Messiah and Bach’s Christmas Oratorio in Japan. She is also a founding co-Artistic Director of Arkora, an electric vocal chamber consort dedicated to blurring lines between the music of our time and masterworks from the ancient repertoire.

Her compositions have been commissioned, performed, and recorded by ensembles throughout the Americas and Europe and have been featured at two World Symposiums on Choral Music. Her collaboration with Labrador youth choir Ullugiagâtsuk was featured at the National Arts Centre celebrations for Canada 150 on July 1, 2017. Ms. Allan is published by Boosey and Hawkes, Cypress Choral Music, and is a MusicSpoke composer. Also an accomplished soprano, she has appeared as a soloist with the National Broadcast Orchestra, Berkshire Choral Festival, and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. In addition to freelancing regularly in Canada and the US, she has performed with the Vancouver Chamber Choir, Early Music Vancouver, the Arnold Schoenberg Chor (Vienna), Skylark Vocal Ensemble (Atlanta), and the Yale Schola Cantorum. She holds a bachelor’s degree in composition from the University of British Columbia and a master’s degree in conducting from Yale University.

Paolo Griffin is a composer and curator whose work explores contextual ontologies, and non-hierarchical forms of action/interactions between processes and systemic organizations. In 2018, Paolo founded Freesound, a contemporary classical music performance collective that emphasizes collaboration and experimentation, and which operates as a non-hierarchical collective, with all members acting as curators, performers, and commissioners. As a curator with Freesound, Paolo organizes concerts and events and collaborate with artists from different artistic disciplines around Canada. Paolo is also an advocate of accessible arts and disability inclusive practices. He works as the Managing Director of Xenia Concerts, a charity that focuses on presenting accessible concerts and musical events for neurodiverse and disability communities. In this role, he helps to design neurodiversity-friendly, accessible concerts for those who might otherwise not have access to such events due to a variety of systemic and social barriers. Paolo holds degrees in music composition from the University of Toronto and the Royal Conservatoire of the Hague, where he studied with Peter Adriaansz, Martijn Padding, and Gary Kulesha (Canada). Paolo sits on the board of Musicworks Magazine. His work and research are supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Canadian New Music Network.

Olivia Shortt is a weirdo, noisemaker, video artist, wannabe fashion icon, curator, and troublemaker. Shortt’s work is inspired by their love of camp, drag, and gender expression and its relation to Indigeneity. Shortt was featured in the 2020 Winter edition of Musicworks Magazine. Career highlights include Shortt’s world premiere performance (Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC) of ‘For Olivia Shortt’ Pulitzer Prize Composer Raven Chacon (as part of Chacon’s series ‘For Zitkala-Ša’ as featured at The 2022 Whitney Biennial); their Lincoln Center (NYC) debut playing percussion in 2018 with the International Contemporary Ensemble; their film debut in Atom Egoyan’s 2019 film ‘Guest of Honour’; and recording an album of Robert Lemay’s music two kilometres underground in the SnoLAB, a Neutrino laboratory in Sudbury, Canada. Recent projects and works created over the last few years include commissions from the Blueridge Chamber Festival (Vancouver), Long Beach Opera (California), the JACK Quartet (NYC), and Din of Shadows (Toronto). Shortt is working on a new site-specific opera about museum repatriation/rematriation, ‘The Museum of the Lost and Found: gaakaazootaadiwag.’ Shortt was a finalist for the 2021 Toronto Arts Foundation Emerging Artist Award, winner of NUMUS’ 2019/2020 Emerging Curators Competition and was named and awarded one of the 2020 Buddies in Bad Times Emerging Queer Awards. They were also a 2020 cohort member of Why Not Theatre’s ThisGEN Fellowship in Sound Design, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre’s 2020 Emerging Creators Unit, Musical Stage Co.’s 2021 RBC Apprentice Program in Sound Design and Generator’s 2021 Artist-Producer Training Program. Shortt studied at the University of Toronto and Dartmouth College (USA). In 2023-24 their positions include: Artist-in-Residence at Carleton University’s Music Department and the University of Toronto Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies, as well as Indigenous Artist-in-Residence at Hamilton Arts Inc. 

Vanese Smith. For over a decade and a half, Vanese Smith has been composing mostly instrumental music that seamlessly blends deep machine soul, experimental hip-hop and heavy hitting, genre-bending cinematic dub. Pursuit Grooves is the long-running musical project of Vanese Smith. She’s an alum of the 2008 Red Bull Music Academy in Barcelona, and since has released material on numerous labels including Rush Hour, Tectonic, Brownswood, Deepblak and her own label What Rules. She has officially remixed the Swedish art duo The Knife, and been described as “eternally underrated” by FACT Magazine. She has been covered by Musicworks Magazine, NOW, Exclaim, Wax Poetics Japan, and Afropunk. In 2018, she released her twelfth album, Felt Armour, to great acclaim. The following year, she released Bess, a tribute to the first Black American female pilot Bessie Coleman, filled with narrative titles and historical interludes. Smith has performed with her trusty hardware gear at festivals such as Australia’s Inner Varnika, Barcelona’s Sonar, Austria’s Elevate, Detroit’s Movement and Montreal’s MUTEK to name a few. She has co-founded and run the TAC and CCA grant supported music producer organization Loop Sessions Toronto since 2019, where she hosts monthly workshops and interviews Canadian musicians such as Shad and queen of Canadian hip-hop, Michie Mee. In 2020/21, Smith served as consultant and instructor for the Disney film Spin about young DJs and electronic music creators.

Michael Sinclair, Chair is the General Manager of Obsidian Theatre Company Inc., Canada’s largest culturally specific theatre company.  Prior to assuming the position at Obsidian, he was very active in the theatre community, being a professional stage manager for over 20 years, a job which took him across the country from PEI to Vancouver and internationally to Barbados.  In that time, he worked in commercial, festival, large regional and local theatres, and touring internationally, nationally, regionally and schools but working mainly in the Toronto area.  A graduate from Concordia University majoring in Accounting, Michael worked for a Chartered Accounting firm before branching out into the theatre business, but always had a love for the theatre as he was involved in community theatre while still pursuing his accounting career.  He is on the board of Stage Managing the Arts (SMArts), and a member of Canadian Actors Equity Association (CAEA), Stage Management Committee.

Naz Afsahi (she/they) is a 1.5 generation West Asian-Canadian theatre arts manager with over a decade of experience in Tkaronto, supporting artistic creation and operations. Naz deeply values the unique mission that Nightwood champions and was delighted to be appointed as the Managing Director in February 2022 after six seasons with the company. Prior to joining Nightwood, Naz spent five seasons with Theatre Direct in a variety of roles, and has served on Juries at the Ontario Arts Council, the Toronto Arts Council, and at the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts for the DORAs. Naz holds a Masters of Arts in Media Studies from the University of Western Ontario, and an Honours B.A. (double major) from Queen’s University. Naz believes in community engagement and volunteering: they are the past Chair of the Board of Directors for Paprika Theatre Festival (2019-2022) and currently serving as the Treasurer of the Board; they sit on the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres’ (PACT) Finance Committee and Labour Negotiations team; and they have been a decade-long volunteer editor with Shameless Magazine and shortly shifting to become a Board Member. Naz is also a core team member for OPEN DOOR/RISING TIDES, a new initiative to fill a gap in the national performing arts sector in supporting and training emerging/developing IBPOC administrators and managers, specific to the needs of this community.

Jonathan Heppner is a Toronto-based producer and arts manager. He is currently Executive Producer at Soulpepper Theater Company. Prior to joining Soulpepper, he was the Managing Director of Factory Theatre, where he worked since 2011/12 (first joining as Associate Producer). Prior to Factory, he has held producing and administrative positions with Dusk Dances, Crow’s Theatre, Across Oceans Collaborations in Contemporary Arts, Prologue to the Performing Arts, and Theatre Gargantua among others.

Monique Mojica (Guna and Rappahannock nations) Actor/Playwright/Dramaturg is passionately dedicated to a theatrical practice as an act of healing, of reclaiming historical/cultural memory and of resistance. Spun directly from the family-web of New York’s Spiderwoman Theater, her theatrical practice embraces her artistic lineage through mining stories embedded in the body in connection to land and place. Monique has taught Indigenous Theatre in theory, process and practice at Brown University, the University of Illinois, the Institute of American Indian Arts, McMaster University and is a former co-director of the Centre for Indigenous Theatre. She has lectured on land-based embodied research and taught performance workshops throughout Canada, the US, Latin America, New Zealand and Europe. She was most recently seen onstage in the role of Aunt Shadie in Marie Clements’ The Unnatural and Accidental Women, the inaugural production of the new Indigenous Theatre department at The National Arts Centre, with the National Arts Centre Orchestra in the European tour of I lost my Talk as part of the Life Reflected series, Izzie M.: The Alchemy of Enfreakment written by Monique with a diverse artistic collaborative team and in Tara Beagan’s Honour Beat for Theatre Calgary. Upcoming projects include the role of dramaturg for Kaha:wi Dance Theatre’s Sken:en created by Santee Smith. She is the founder and Artistic Director of the Toronto-based Chocolate Woman Collective.

Andrea Vagianos is Managing Director of Tarragon Theatre, a role she assumed in April of 2018. Over the past twenty-five years, she has held a variety of positions in the cultural sector on both the producing and funding sides of the industry. In the early ‘90s, Andrea spent several years creating and running arts education programs for the Shaw Festival and the Canadian Opera Company. She moved to the Laidlaw Foundation in the late ‘90s, where she was Arts Programme Coordinator and facilitated its province-wide funding of new works in the performing arts. Andrea moved into management roles at the start of the century and spent six years as Administrative Director of Dancemakers (2000-2005), during which time she negotiated and managed the company’s move to and leasehold improvements of the Centre for Creation in Toronto’s Distillery District. She worked in the public sector as Acting Arts Education Officer at the Ontario Arts Council (2006-07), and was General Manager of The School of Toronto Dance Theatre (2007-09) before moving on to become Managing Director of Toronto Dance Theatre (2010-2018). Throughout her career, Andrea has volunteered on juries at all levels of government and on numerous arts boards, including Canadian Dance Assembly, and seven years on the board of the Toronto Alliance of the Performing Arts (TAPA), the last three of which she served as President. She is currently on the Centennial College Arts Management’s Program Advisory Committee.

Annemieke Wade, Executive Director of Roseneath Theatre, has been with the organization since 2016, after serving a year as the General Manager for Theatre Direct Canada. Prior to her time at Theatre Direct, she spent four seasons with Tarragon Theatre as the Company Manager. In 2010, she concurrently held the positions of both the Artistic Director of Toronto Youth Theatre and the Production Manager for the Lower Ossington Theatre. In addition to her years of experience in the administrative side of the industry, Annemieke toured TYA across the US and Canada as a performer between the years of 2000-2007. During this time, she performed over 7,000 shows, and in one particularly exciting summer traversed over 26,000 kilometers. Theatre, and especially Theatre for Young Audiences has been an integral thread woven into the fabric of her identity. She holds a MBA from Champlain College, an HBA from the University of Toronto in Theatre & Drama Studies, and a diploma in Acting from Sheridan College. In addition to her extensive managerial experience, Annemieke brings a strong background in performance, producing, and educational touring. For the past seven years, she was on the Toronto Alliance for Performing Arts (TAPA) board and was the acting Secretary for three of those years. She is one of the founding members of Royal Porcupine Productions and continues to be quite active in the Ontario art scene administratively and artistically. Originally from St. Albans, Vermont, she has made Canada her permanent home since 2007.

ted witzel (he/him) is a queer theatre-maker, curator, and arts leader who has worked in theatres across canada, as well as in the UK, germany, and italy. ted recently finished up four years as artistic associate and laboratory director for the stratford festival, where he oversaw the festival’s research and development initiatives. In 2019, ted was an artistic leadership resident at the national theatre school and a member of the banff centre’s cultural leadership cohort.  he has been artist-in-residence at buddies in bad times, harbourfront centre, and the institut für alles mögliche. ted was in the inaugural cohort of york university/canadian stage’s MFA in directing and holds a BA from the university of toronto. Recent directing credits include: every little nookie (stratford festival), just a trick (TO live online), susanna fournier’s what happens to you happens to me (canadian stage CSgrid), elizabeth rex (theatre@york), the scavenger’s daughter (buddies/paradigm) and LULU v.7 // aspects of a femme fatale (buddies/red light district).