Contribute to artist-in-residence Lucie Chan’s research during the month of August.

Schedule of Events: Residency and Exhibition

Residency:  3 August – 27 August 2022
Exhibition: 3 September – 1 October 2022

Open Studio:  12 – 13 August 2022 from 1:00 – 3:00 pm
Participant Interviews: 15 – 19 August 2022, scheduled

Oxygen Art Centre is thrilled to announce visual artist, Lucie Chan as artist-in-residence for the month of August. Chan was born in Guyana, and currently resides on the unceded and ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and səlilwətaɬ/selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations otherwise known as Vancouver, BC where she maintains a multi-disciplinary visual art practice and teaches at Emily Carr University of Art and Design.

While artist-in-residence, Chan will conduct research towards the creation of future work that explores the experiences of racialized violence. This work continues her interest in exploring race-related, immigrant experiences. The public are invited to visit Chan during her Open Studio sessions on 12 + 13 August 2022 from 1-3 PM. Volunteer participants are invited to engage with her in one-on-one interviews during scheduled sessions from 15 to 19 August 2022. In what Chan sees as a collaborative process, interviewees will be invited to draw, write, and make sound together. Interested participants can schedule an interview by emailing info@oxygenartcentre.org.

The artist will carry the stories gathered during the interviews into her practice, and the manifestation of new material. In considering the stories, Chan says, they “inspire, transform and give shape” to the development of the project. In this way her research and subsequent work become a visual conversation. Chan’s attentive listening to the stories of those she interviews forms a seminal part of her artistic practice. A practice that includes multi-layered drawings, photography, sculpture, text, audio, and video elements which she orchestrates into installations.

For Chan her interdisciplinary practice reflects the complexity of being human. Although a self-confessed shy person, Chan embraces what has been a “long career of interviewing strangers.” Chan goes on, stating “I am interested in these interactions when something is revealed that we don’t necessarily have every day like a sense of connection or intimacy.” For Chan this work is a way of honouring the individual who is often forgotten in the collective experience of being human, and of conjoining individuals through sharing stories around culture and identity.

The residency will then be followed by an exhibition of a previous body of work, How to Be 57 (2018), which includes drawings, text, and sculpture. The work is an example of a similar research and creation processes that Chan will employ during her residency.

In How to Be 57 the artist works intimately with two women who have radically opposing experiences with the police. One, a Dutch immigrant in France finds herself interrogated in her home despite her innocence. The other, an unarmed civil servant, suffers racialized violence when her apartment is mistakenly raided. The work considers dynamics of age and otherness and can be seen as a lens into systemic violence and injustice that are pervasive for diasporic communities in Canada.

How to Be 57 might be understood as a hypothetical guide to experiencing a precise moment of transformation in a stranger’s life, a reminder that living is an act of perpetual inscription. The work is a complex portrait, and a non-linear exploration at these common racialized narratives.

The public are invited to drop in during the Open Studios on  the 12th and 13th of August between the hours of 1:00 PM and 3:00 PM. Expressions of interest to take part in the interview process can be sent to info@oxygenartcentre.org by Wednesday, August 3, 2022 @ 5:00 PM PST. Please also share any specifics regarding your access needs or any questions.

How to Be 57 will be on view at Oxygen Art Centre from 3 September to 1 October 2022 on Wednesdays to Saturdays from 1:00 – 5:00 PM. Admission is free. Everyone welcome to attend.

Due to rising COVID cases in the province, we ask that all visitors to the space wear a mask during Chan’s residency. Maximum capacity is limited to ten persons at a time. Please contact the gallery with any questions about your visit.

Image Credit: Lucie Chan, How to Be 57, drawing and watercolour, 2018

Artist Biography:

Lucie Chan (b. Guyana) teaches at Emily Carr University of Art and Design. She holds a BFA with distinction from the Alberta College of Art and Design and a MFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University with a specialization in drawing. She has shown nationally in various group and solo exhibitions and has undertaken artist residencies at ARTerra in Lobão da Beira, Portugal; the Ross Creek Centre for the Arts in Canning, Nova Scotia; Banff Centre for the Arts in Banff, Alberta; Museum London in London, Ontario; the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia and Mount Saint Vincent University Art Gallery in Halifax, Nova Scotia; and the Foreman Art Gallery in Sherbrooke, Quebec. In addition to receiving numerous provincial and national grants,  including the Canada Council for the Arts, she has been long-listed twice for the Sobey Art Award (2005, 2010) and was a recipient of the  VIVA Award from the Jack and Doris Shadbolt Foundation (2020).

DIG A HOLE IN THE GARDEN OPENS AT OXYGEN ART CENTRE 11 JUNE 2022     Oxygen Art Centre is excited to announce the opening of dig a hole in the garden, a duo exhibitionfeaturing artists Shannon Garden-Smith (Tkaronto/Toronto) and T’uy’t’tanat-Cease Wyss (Skwxwu7mesh/Sto:Lo/Hawaiian/Swiss) on Saturday 11 June 2022.   Taking its name from Yoko Ono’s CLOUD PIECE (1963), dig a hole in the garden is an exhibition that explores plant collection as a material and cultural practice, with an interest in plant uses for pleasure, community resilience, and healing. The exhibition features works by artists Shannon Garden-Smith (Tkaronto/Toronto), and T’uy’t’tanat-Cease Wyss (Skwxwu7mesh/ Sto:Lo/ Hawaiian/ Swiss), as well as a temporary library presented both online and in person that will be linked with an online reading group.   The exhibition features Garden-Smith’s pigment-stained gelatin lamp shades, “In a hare’s form” (2021), and a new site-specific gelatin installation that will shift throughout the exhibition’s duration. Through a form of alchemy, Garden-Smith transforms plant materials from detritus to sculptural blossoms. Theresa Wang describes the decorative light fixtures as suspending “various dried and pressed flora collected on the artist’s walks over the seasons, bringing (once) living things into the living milieu.  In this way, these works consider ornamentation as not only a way to confound the passage of time, but also as a record of the durational and interspatial acts of foraging, gathering, and conserving” (2022).   Artist, ethnobotanist, educator, and activist T’uy’t’tanat-Cease Wyss will develop an herbarium during their time in the region. The herbarium will feature plant matter Indigenous to the region, as well as printed takeaways for visitors to create their own herbarium at home. In addition, Wyss transforms the small garden bed outside Oxygen’s facility, extending the exhibition outdoors.   In writing about Wyss’s permaculture space in “x̱aw̓s shew̓áy̓ New Growth《新生林》” (2019), Oscar Domingo Rajme observes that it “is a space where alternative forms of working and being together are not only made possible through the garden’s intention of being a communal place, but especially through what its existence implies. For a moment, it has broken the city’s colonial architectural desire to normalize the theft of land and to erase the histories and traditions of the Coast Salish peoples” (2020).   dig a hole in the garden also features a temporary library in the gallery space featuring texts that will be discussed through a reading group that will meet all five Wednesdays throughout the exhibition. Notes from the reading group discussions, as well as access to readings will be available on Oxygen’s website and on site.   The exhibition isco-curated by Greta Hamilton and Julia Prudhomme, andwill be on view from 11 June – 16 July 2022. Oxygen Art Centre is an artist-run centre located at #3-320 Vernon Street, Nelson, BC via alleyway entrance. The exhibition will be open to the public Wednesdays to Saturdays from 1:00 – 5:00 PM. Prior to your visit please review Oxygen’s COVID-19 prevention protocols on their website.   This exhibition is generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the British Columbia Arts Council, and Columbia Kootenay Cultural Alliance.         Image Credit: Shannon Garden-Smith, In a hare’s form (series), pressed plant clippings, watercolour pigment, gelatin, wire, lamp cord, lightbulb, 2021   Press Contact: Julia Prudhomme Executive Director Oxygen Art Centre info@oxygenartcentre.org   Artist Bios:   T’uy’t’tanat-Cease Wyss Skwxwu7mesh/Sto:Lo/Hawaiian/Swiss   T’uy’t’tanat-Cease Wyss is an interdisciplinary artist who works with digital media, writing, performance and land based remediations as her multi-disciplinary arts practice. She is a community engaged and public artist and ethnobotanist. Her works range over 30 years and have always focussed on sustainability, permaculture techniques, Coast Salish Cultural elements and have included themes of ethnobotany, indigenous language revival, Salish weaving and digital media technology. Cease has focussed on connecting her Polynesian roots to her Salish roots through weaving and digital media projects and on raising visibility towards land based works.   Her collaboration with Anne Riley with “A Constellation of Remediation” and “For the Radical Love of Butterflies” have been tremendous examples of how indigenous communities need to unite through a cultural lens in order to raise awareness about sustainability and protecting species at risk, as well as recognition of our part in the colonial destruction as well as the potential remediation and restoration of ecosystems. Anne and Cease were long-listed for the 2021 Sobey Art Award for their work on “A Constellation of Remediation” and “For the Radical Love of Butterflies”. Cease dedicates time to the IM4 Lab at ECUAD as both an advisor and developer, where she has been expanding her practice of animation and Futurisms projects, building on AR [Augmented Reality] development using Blender, Unity and Spark AR.   Shannon Garden-Smith   Shannon Garden-Smith (she/her) is an uninvited settler of Scottish, Irish, and British heritage and an artist living and working between Tkaronto/Toronto and Stratford, Canada. She completed an MFA at the University of Guelph (’17) and a BA at the University of Toronto (’12). Working primarily in sculpture and installation, Garden-Smith’s recent projects focus on the surfaces that clad contemporary built space and their material-social impact. She has recently shown work with The Bows (Mohkínstsis/Calgary, AB), Franz Kaka (Toronto, ON), Gallery TPW (Toronto, ON), Christie Contemporary (Toronto, ON), Pumice Raft (Toronto, ON), Modern Fuel (Kingston, ON), and TIER: The Institute for Endotic Research (Berlin).

 SUMMER EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES AT OXYGEN ART CENTRE

EMPLOYMENT DETAILS: RESEARCH ASSISTANT (CSJ)

$16.00/hour
8 week contract, 30 hours/week
Position duration: July 4, 2022 – August 26, 2022

Oxygen Art Centre is an artist-run centre located on the tum xula7xw of the sn̓ʕay̓ckstx (otherwise known as Nelson, B.C.) engaging communities throughout Nelson and the West Kootenays, and wider audiences regionally and nationally.

Oxygen Art Centre provides space and programming for artists and the public to engage with the creation, study, exhibition, and performance of contemporary art in all disciplines. Oxygen Art Centre’s activities include: Exhibition & Residency Program, Adult Arts Education, Children and Youth Arts Education, and a Presentation Series which consists of literary, film, music, and theatre events.

We are currently looking for a Summer Research Assistant to add to our dynamic team.

JOB DESCRIPTION

Reporting to the Executive Director, the Research Assistant will assist with day-to-day arts administrative duties, as well as conduct contemporary art research to support the Education program and assist with the production, promotion, and communications of the Fall 2022 and Spring 2023 Education program and adjunct educational materials.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Research Assistant will conduct the following tasks and responsibilities both remotely and in person (if applicable), utilizing their personal computer to access online platforms such as Gmail, Google Drive, and Zoom, as well as digital platforms such as Word and Excel, of which will be provided by the organization. The Research Assistant will also have access to the Centre’s facilities and equipment, if applicable.

This position is funded by Canada Summer Jobs (CSJ). Additional administration through the CSJ portal will be required at the beginning and end of employment contract. Candidates are required to state their eligibility for the CSJ program in their Cover Letter and/or email.

TASKS AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Oxygen’s Research Assistant will develop skills in arts administration, contemporary art research, and exhibitionary contexts. This project involves independent work and research with the opportunity to collaborate with artists, instructors, and experts in the field. The Research Assistant will be able to focus the project to best suit their interests, aspirations, and background.

Arts Administration

The Research Assistant will assist with day-to-day duties at the Centre including gallery hosting, arts writing, communication, and outreach. The Research Assistant will directly engage with the research and production of Oxygen’s Education program including the forthcoming Fall 2022 and Spring 2023 semesters.

Contemporary Art Research

Contemporary art research regarding artists and topics explored in Oxygen’s Education and Events program will form the foundation by which the Research Assistant will conduct this project. Developed with the Executive Director, theoretical texts, lectures, and artworks will be determined as a “reading” list. Research will be guided by the candidate’s interests and future career aspirations.

Final Report

A final report will summarize their research findings. This report can include creative and/or interactive aspects, should this be applicable to the project and candidate.

Communication

The Research Assistant will be responsible for communication with their supervisor, as well as liaising with fellow employees, artists, and mentors in their field of enquiry.

This position will be multi-faceted and offer experience throughout all aspects of Oxygen Art Centre under the supervision of the Executive Director.

Due to the pandemic aspects of the position have been altered to ensure a safe working environment for the employee. The Research Assistant will be responsible for working in a hybrid fashion, which includes working from home, tracking hours and workplans, maintaining Google Doc files and documentation, virtual and phone meetings with supervisors, and facilitating digital administration from a far, as well as conducting on site labour (if applicable). Necessary alterations will be made to the employee’s workplan should pandemic restrictions alter during the employee’s contract.

NATURE AND SCOPE OF THE POSITION

Reporting to the Executive Director, the Research Assistant will develop arts administration skills and conduct research into contemporary art practices.

QUALIFICATIONS

The ideal candidate:

• Is enrolled in a post-secondary program in Art History, Art Education, Curatorial Studies, Visual and/or Media Arts, Museum Studies or a related discipline;
• Demonstrates a keen interest in contemporary art and/or museum practices;
• Is responsible, hard-working, enthusiastic, and dynamic;
• Has a proven ability to communicate effectively.

The Research Assistant position is dependent on funding from Canada Summer Jobs program.

Candidates for the position must:

• Be legally entitled to work in Canada;
• Be a Canadian citizen nor a permanent resident, or have refugee status in Canada (unfortunately, non-Canadian students holding temporary work visas or awaiting permanent status are not eligible);
• Be between 16 and 30 years of age at the start of employment;
• Intend to return to full-time studies in the fall of 2021.

EMPLOYMENT DETAILS

$16/hour
8 week contract
30 hours/week, 240 hours total
Position duration: July 4, 2022 – August 26, 2022

APPLICATION DEADLINE 

24 May 2022, by 5:00 PM PST

Please submit a Cover Letter and Resume to info@oxygenartcentre.org with the subject line: “ATTN: Research Assistant Application.”

Please include confirmation of your CSJ eligibility.

Oxygen Art Centre is an equal opportunity employer. We thank all applicants for their interest, however only those selected for an interview will be contacted.

Learn more information about Oxygen Art Centre by visiting our website, www.oxygenartcentre.org and social media.

SUMMER EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY AT OXYGEN ART CENTRE

EMPLOYMENT DETAILS: GALLERY ASSISTANT (YCW)

$17.00/hour
9 week contract, 30 hours/week
Position duration: June 20, 2022 – August 19, 2022

JOB DESCRIPTION

Reporting to the Executive Director, the Gallery Assistant will assist with day-to-day arts administrative duties, as well as conduct contemporary art research to support the Exhibition & Residency program and assist with the production, installation, and implementation of exhibitions, catalogues, residencies, and adjunct educational materials.

This position is funded by Young Canada Works (YCW). Additional administration through the YCW portal will be required at the beginning and end of employment contract. Candidates are required to state their eligibility for the YCW program in their Cover Letter and/or email.

TASKS AND RESPONSIBILITIES
 
Oxygen’s Gallery Assistant will develop skills in arts administration, contemporary art research, and exhibitionary contexts. This project involves independent work and research with the opportunity to collaborate with artists and experts in the field. The Gallery Assistant will be able to focus the project to best suit their interests, aspirations, and background.
 
Arts Administration
 
The Gallery Assistant will assist with day-to-day duties at the Centre including gallery hosting, exhibition and facility maintenance, arts writing, communication, and outreach. The Gallery Assistant will directly engage with the production of an exhibition catalogue for Angela Glanzmann and Stephanie Yee’s exhibition (April 2022), assist in the run of a group exhibition entitled dig a hole in the garden(June – July 2022), and prepare and research for the forthcoming residencies and exhibitions with Lucie Chan (September – October 2022) and Tyler Wright (December 2022 – January 2023).
 
Contemporary Art Research
 
Contemporary art research regarding artists and topics explored in Oxygen’s Exhibition & Residency program will provide inspiration for the Gallery Assistant’s contemporary art research project. Developed with the Executive Director, theoretical texts, lectures, and artworks will be selected as a “reading” list.
 
A final report will summarize the Gallery Assistant’s research findings. This report can include creative and/or interactive aspects, should such formats be applicable to the project and candidate.
 
Communication

The Gallery Assistant will be responsible for communication with their supervisor, as well as liaising with fellow employees, artists, and mentors in their field of enquiry.
 
QUALIFICATIONS
The ideal candidate:

• Is enrolled in a post-secondary program in Art History, Art Education, Curatorial Studies, Visual and/or Media Arts, Museum Studies or a related discipline;
• Demonstrates a keen interest in contemporary art and/or museum practices;
• Is responsible, hard-working, enthusiastic, and dynamic;
• Has a proven ability to communicate effectively.

 
The Gallery Assistant position is funded by the Young Canada Works program. Candidates for the position must:

• Be legally entitled to work in Canada;
• Be a Canadian citizen nor a permanent resident, or have refugee status in Canada (unfortunately, non-Canadian students holding temporary work visas or awaiting permanent status are not eligible);
• Be between 16 and 30 years of age at the start of employment;
• Intend to return to full-time studies in the fall of 2022.

 Application deadline: 16 May 2022, by 5:00 PM PST
 
Please submit a Cover Letter and Resume to info@oxygenartcentre.org with the subject line: “ATTN: Gallery Assistant Application.” Please include confirmation of your YCW eligibility.
 
Oxygen Art Centre is an equal opportunity employer. We thank all applicants for their interest, however only those selected for an interview will be contacted.

Learn more information about Oxygen Art Centre by visiting their website, www.oxygenartcentre.org and social media.

OXYGEN WELCOMES ANGELA GLANZMANN AND STEPHANIE YEE AS ARTISTS-IN-RESIDENCE

Oxygen Art Centre is excited to welcome artists Angela Glanzmann and Stephanie Yee as Artists-in-Residence from April 10^th to the 23^rd to create an installation for their forthcoming exhibition entitled EAT IT UP.

Expanding on their own histories, ethnicities, and social positions, Glanzmann and Yee invite viewers behind the scenes into the weird and obscure world of competitive cooking reality TV.

Their installation takes place on the set of a fictional show EAT IT UP, complete with a presentation table, competitor’s kitchen stations, and pantry/food storage. Constructed out of common household supplies, food sculptures speak to the culinary resourcefulness and resilience of their ancestors as they had to adapt to new cultures and customs.

During their residency the artists invite the public to “Open Kitchen” to take part in the artistic process and create a favourite dish of their choice in papier mâché or clay on Saturday, April 16 and Saturday April 23 from 1:00 – 3:00 PM. Contributed food sculptures will be included in the exhibition, on view from 27 April to 28 May 2022.

Join us on Saturday, April 30 at 1:00 PM (PST) for an online artist talk to learn more about the residency, exhibition, and artists. Admission is free or by donation, everyone welcome to attend. To register, visit EventBrite: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/artist-talk-angela-glanzmann-stephanie-yee-tickets-301494878297 or Oxygen’s website for more information.

Oxygen Art Centre is an artist-run centre located at #3-320 Vernon Street, Nelson, BC via alleyway entrance. The exhibition will be open to the public Wednesdays to Saturdays from 1:00 – 5:00 PM. Prior to your visit please review Oxygen’s COVID-19 prevention protocols on our website, https://oxygenartcentre.org/about-us-2/covid-19-prevention/.

Artists Angela Glanzmann and Stephanie Yee are Oxygen Art Centre Artist-in-Residence from 10 – 23 April 2022. The public are welcome to take part in the “Open Kitchen” on Saturday, April 16 and Saturday April 23 from 1:00 – 3:00 PM. The exhibition, EAT IT UP, will be on view from 27 April to 28 May 2022 on Wednesdays to Saturdays from 1:00 – 5:00 PM.

This exhibition is generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts.

–       30   –

Image Credit: (L) Angela Glanzmann; (R) Stephanie Yee, Courtesy the artists

Artist Bios:

Angela Glanzmann is an artist, cultural worker and professional beekeeper currently based in her birth place of Tkaronto (Toronto). Her institutional education includes a BFA from NSCAD University and an MFA from the University of British Columbia. Her artistic and writing projects address settler relationships to land, queer possibilities, jokes about critical theory and the connection between violence and cuteness. Glanzmann’s work has appeared in galleries, publications and artist-run centres both nationally and internationally. She is currently reading lots about pollinators in preparation for spring. 

Stephanie Yee is a second-generation Chinese Canadian artist and cultural worker based in Kjipuktuk (Halifax), the unceded territory of the Mi’kma’ki. Her education includes a BFA in Intermedia from NSCAD University where she began her exploration into community and identity. With a practice rooted in storytelling, her work manifests as gatherings, performance, writing, installation, video and playing with food. Often beginning with familiar imagery, processes, and materials, Yee playfully interjects as a means of exploring and questioning preconceived notions. She has participated as an artist, facilitator and curator in artist-run centers, festivals, residencies and galleries both locally and internationally.

JOIN US FOR AN ONLINE TALK WITH WRITER AND POET BILLY-RAY BELCOURT ON QUEERER TIMES

Guest Speaker 3: Billy-Ray Belcourt

April 14, 2022, 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM PST

Register via EventBrite

Admission is free. Everyone welcome to attend.

Oxygen Art Centre launches the second phase of an online youth arts education program entitled freezer cheese. Generously supported by the BC Arts Council Pivot Program and Osprey Community Foundation, the second phase offers an online youth workshop series and public speaker series throughout March and April 2022. Part one of freezer cheese, here.

Led by researcher and curator Hanss Lujan Torres, the freezer cheese: queerer times series presents weekly workshops and visiting speakers to explore alternative ways of thinking about time and the ever-changing present moment. Rooted in 2SQTBIPOC experiences, these events will engage with broader timescapes like pandemic time and colonial time and try to make sense of the “queerer” times we are all experiencing.

The third and final online public event features Billy-Ray Belcourt, writer and academic from the Driftpile Cree Nation. He is an Assistant Professor in the Creative Writing Program at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of three books: This Wound is a World, NDN Coping Mechanisms: Notes from the Field, and A History of My Brief Body. His fourth book, A Minor Chorus, will be published in the fall of 2022 by Hamish Hamilton (CAN) and W.W. Norton (US).

“freezer cheese” is derived from the fated piece of cheese—dairy or otherwise—that sits safely in the freezer, awaiting the moment it is needed for nutrition, for comfort, for enjoyment. These workshops and speaker series consider what lessons can be pulled from the theories of queer temporality and ask how we can use these to navigate moments of unease, pause, and disorientation brought on by the pandemic while also evoking a sense of play and curiosity.

Those interested in attending the speaker series are invited to register via EventBrite links above. All events are free and open to the public.

This project is generously supported by British Columbia Arts Council, Osprey Community Foundation, and Cowan’s Office Supplies Ltd.

–     30   –

Image Credit: Billy-Ray Belcourt

Bios:

About the Facilitator

Hanss Lujan Torres is an artist, curator and researcher from Cusco, Peru, working between the unceded territories of the Syilx/Okanagan Nation and Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang/Montréal. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Minor in Art History and Visual Culture from the University of British Columbia Okanagan and is an MA candidate in the Department of Art History at Concordia University. His research and curatorial practice consider subjugated archives, queer temporalities, and alternative futures in contemporary art. Hanss is the research coordinator for the Indigenous Futures Research Centre. In addition, he has worked with several arts organizations in British Columbia, including past president of the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art and a curatorial assistant at the Kelowna Art Gallery.

Instagram

About the Guest Speakers

Kama La Mackerel is a Montreal-based Mauritian-Canadian multi-disciplinary artist, educator, writer, community-arts facilitator and literary translator who works within and across performance, photography, installations, textiles, digital art and literature.

Kama’s work is grounded in the exploration of justice, love, healing, decoloniality, hybridity, cosmopolitanism and self- and collective-empowerment. They believe that aesthetic practices have the power to build resilience and act as resistance to the status quo, thereby enacting an anticolonial praxis through cultural production.

Kama has exhibited and performed their work internationally and their writing in English, French and Kreol has appeared in publications both online and in print. ZOM-FAM, their debut poetry collection published by Metonymy Press was named a CBC Best Poetry Book, a Globe and Mail Best Debut, and was a finalist for the QWF Concordia University First Book Award and the Writers’ Trust of Canada Dayne Ogilvie Prize for Emerging LGBTQ2S+ Writers.

Website + Instagram

Léuli Eshrāghi is a Sāmoan/Persian/Cantonese interdisciplinary artist, writer, curator and researcher working between Australia and Canada. They intervene in display territories to centre global Indigenous and Asian diasporic visuality, sensual and spoken languages, and ceremonial-political practices. Through performance, moving image, writing and installation, they engage with Indigenous futurities as haunted by ongoing militourist and missionary violences that once erased faʻafafine-faʻatane people from kinship and knowledge structures. As a curator, speaker and educator, Eshrāghi contributes to growing international critical practice across the Great Ocean and North America through residencies, exhibitions, publications, courses and rights advocacy. They are Curator of the 9th TarraWarra Biennial of Australian Art in 2023 at the TarraWarra Museum of Art, Curatorial Researcher in Residence (Blue Assembly) at the University of Queensland Art Museum, and Scientific Advisor (Reclaim the Earth) at the Palais de Tokyo.

Website + Instagram

Billy-Ray Belcourt is a writer and academic from the Driftpile Cree Nation. He is an Assistant Professor in the Creative Writing Program at the University of British Columbia. A 2018 Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Scholar, he earned his PhD in English at the University of Alberta. He was also a 2016 Rhodes Scholar and holds an M.St. in Women’s Studies from the University of Oxford and Wadham College. In the First Nations Youth category, Belcourt was awarded a 2019 Indspire Award, which is the highest honor the Indigenous community bestows on its own leaders. He is the author of three books: This Wound is a World, NDN Coping Mechanisms: Notes from the Field, and A History of My Brief Body. His fourth book, A Minor Chorus, will be published in the fall of 2022 by Hamish Hamilton (CAN) and W.W. Norton (US).

Website + Instagram
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