Justine A. Chambers is a choreographer, dancer and educator living and working on the unceded Coast Salish territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. Her movement based practice considers how choreography can be an empathic practice rooted in collaborative creation, close observation, and the body as a site of a cumulative embodied archive. Privileging what is felt over what is seen, she works with dances that are already there – the choreographies present in the everyday. Her work has been hosted by galleries, theatres and festivals locally, nationally and internationally. She is Max Tyler-Hite’s mother. https://justineachambers.com/

Jody Chan is a writer, drummer, community organizer, and care worker based in Toronto/Tkaronto. They are the author of sick (Black Lawrence Press), finalist for the Lambda Literary and Pat Lowther Memorial Awards, and winner of the 2018 St. Lawrence Book Award and 2021 Trillium Award for Poetry. Jody is a performing and teaching member with RAW Taiko Drummers, an editorial board member of Midnight Sun Magazine, the 2023-2024 Artist-in-Residence at the University of Toronto’s Queer and Trans Research Lab, and the 2023 recipient of the Joseph S. Stauffer Prize in Literature from the Canada Council for the Arts. They can be found online at https://www.jodychan.com/.

Snack Witch Joni Cheung is a grateful, uninvited guest born—and knows she wants to die—on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm, Skwxwú7mesh, Stó:lō, and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh peoples. They are a Certified Sculpture Witch with an MFA from Concordia University (2023). She holds a BFA with Distinction in Visual Art (2018) from the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University. As a wicked #magicalgirl ✨ who eats art and makes snacks, she has exhibited and curated shows, off- and online, across Turtle Island. Her work can be found at https://www.snackwitch.ca/.

Erika DeFreitas’s interdisciplinary practice includes performance, photography, video, installation, textiles, drawing and writing. Placing emphasis on gesture, process, the body, documentation and paranormal phenomena, DeFreitas mines concepts of loss, post-memory, legacy and objecthood. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally including: Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery; Platform Centre for Photographic and Digital Arts, Winnipeg; Gallery TPW, Toronto; Project Row Houses and the Museum of African American Culture, Houston; Fort Worth Contemporary Arts; and Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita. DeFreitas holds a Master of Visual Studies from the University of Toronto.

Sameer Farooq is a Canadian artist of Pakistani and Ugandan Indian descent. Farooq foregrounds community-based models of knowledge production and an arrayof contemplative practices in order to suggest new ways of narrating our cultural histories. The result is often a collaborative work which counterbalances how dominant institutions speak about our lives: a counter-archive, new additions to a museum collection, or a buried history made visible. He has held exhibitions at institutions around the world including FonderieDarling, Montréal (2022); Susan Hobbs, Toronto (2022); Koffler Gallery, Toronto(2021); Patel Brown, Toronto (2021); Lilley Museum, Reno (2019); Aga KhanMuseum, Toronto (2017); Institute of Islamic Culture, Paris (2017) and the Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver (2016).

Ness Lee draws on history and personal narratives to create dreamy and surreal illustrations, paintings, sculptures, and installations. Exploring states of mind during incomprehensible stages of vulnerability, Lee’s work takes form as an effort in seeking comfort, forgiveness, and desire for an end of a self-perpetuated state. Often featuring their unique characters, Lee’s work approaches ideas of identity, culture, love, belonging, and oneness through their line work and novel use of media. Their work has been featured at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Art Gallery of Hamilton, as well as galleries in New York, Boston, San Francisco, and Toronto. Lee has also participated in mural festivals in Canada and internationally in Hyderabad, India, and Cozumel, Mexico. Their work can be found on http://www.nesslee.com/ 

Simone Schmidt is a multi-disciplinary artist, musician, and writer. Born and raised in the settler colony of Toronto to parents of Gottscheer, Irish and Scottish descent Schmidt is most widely recognized for their songwriting, and has fronted One Hundred Dollars, The Highest Order, and solo project Fiver. 

Jill Thorp-Shepherd is grateful to have worked in Toronto’s non-profit arts and culture community for over 25 years. She lives to make things with her hands, hike, identify birds and mushrooms, read, and cook for people.