Artist Biographies:
Roya Akbari was born in Tehran, Iran and she lives and works in Toronto, Canada. She is a media artist and the director of two short films: Dancing Mania (2012) and Only Image Remains (2014). Rooted in documentary as a form, her work creates resonances between visual art and cinema. Her interdisciplinary practice has been presented in both gallery and cinema settings. Her recent video essay Dropping Off the Face of The Earth (2015), a 5-channel video installation was recently exhibited at University Toronto Art Centre. Other recent screenings include Edinburgh International Film Festival in Scotland, Bristol Radical Film Festival in UK, TIFF Cinematheque in Toronto and International short film festival Oberhausen in Germany. Akbari received a Master of Visual Studies in Studio from University of Toronto and holds bachelor of Fine Art from Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver.
Find more of his work online at royaakbari.com.
Francisco-Fernando Granados is a Toronto-based artist. His multidisciplinary critical practice spans performance, installation, cultural theory, digital media, public art, and community-based projects. He has presented work in galleries, museums, theatres, artist-run centres and non-traditional sites since 2005. These venues include the Art Gallery of Ontario, Mercer Union, Art Gallery of York University, Doris Gallery TPW, Trinity Square Video (Toronto), Vancouver Art Gallery, Darling Foundry, MAI – Montreal arts interculturels, Neutral Ground (Regina), Third Space (St. John), Hessel Museum of Art (NY), Defibrillator Gallery (Chicago), Voices Breaking Boundaries (Houston), Ex Teresa Arte Actual (Mexico City), Kulturhuset (Stockholm), and Theatre Academy at the University of the Arts (Helsinki). He completed a Masters of Visual Studies at the University of Toronto in 2012, and is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art at OCAD University.
Find more of his work online at francisco-fernando-granados.blogspot.com.
Lesley Loksi Chan’s multidisciplinary works have been exhibited internationally and often explore the ambiguous ways in which the personal connects to wider cultural meanings through everyday objects and imaging technologies. Her eclectic practice is a constellation of inquiries that look into the ever-changing concepts and experiences of identity and hybridity. Chan has led several community-based educational projects, typically with a soft focus on the hand-made and the analogue. Her work as an artist and educator has been supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. Chan was born in Hamilton and lives in Toronto.
Find more of her work online at lesleyloksichan.com.
Nathaniel Donnett lives and works in Houston, Texas and studied at Texas Southern University. Donnett is the founder of the website blog “Not That But This” that focuses on discussing issues on art and culture of the Africa diaspora through traditional in experimental ways that was funded by a 2015 Idea Fund /Andy Warhol Foundation Grant, 2017 Houston Arts Alliance Individual Artist Grant, 2015 Houston Downtown Vehicular Wayfinding Signs Project public art commission. Donnett has also received the 2014 Harpo Foundation Grant, 2011 Houston Arts Alliance Individual Artist Grant, 2011 Idea Fund/Andy Warhol Foundation Grant, 2010 Artadia Award. He’s exhibited at The American Museum, Washington, DC, The Kemper Contemporary Arts Museum, Kansas City, MO, The Theresa Hotel, Harlem, NY, Harvey B Gantt Art Center for African American Arts and Culture, Charlotte, NC, The Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury CT, The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Houston, TX, Project Row Houses, Houston, TX, Texas Southern University Museum, Houston, TX, The New Museum, NY, NY, The National Museum in Lima, Peru and The Modern Museum of Peru.
Find more of his work online at nathanieldonnett.com.
Insoon Ha is an multidisciplinary artist who works in sculpture, installation and video. She holds both a BFA and MFA from the University of Seoul in Sculpture, and a second MFA from the State University of New York at Buffalo in Fine Arts. Her work has been exhibited throughout Korea, the United States and Canada at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art and A Space Gallery in Toronto, McMaster Museum of Art in Hamilton, Big Orbit Gallery, Albright-Knox Art Museum and Art Space & Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center in Buffalo, “X Industria: CAFKA 05” in Kitchener, 621 Gallery in Tallahassee, FL., and LA CENTRALE Gallery Powerhouse in Montreal.
Find more of her work online at www.insoonha.ca.
Hitoko Okada is a fibre artist and craft maker based in Hamilton, Ontario. Over 10 years, Okada had worked as a props maker and costumer in professional theatre in Vancouver, British Columbia and throughout Southern Ontario, including The Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario, The Grand Theatre in London, Ontario, and Mirvish Productions in Toronto, Ontario. Her early artistic practice emerged from working in community arts in Vancouver, British Columbia, with various arts organizations, including The Public Dreams Society, as well as and independent collaborative projects working to create artistic spaces for marginalized youth living in East Vancouver. Since 1999, Okada has been a practicing artist, working primarily with paper, for installation and sculptural work in Vancouver, British Columbia; Toronto and Hamilton, Ontario. In 2009, she launched a limited production clothing and accessories line, under the label hitoko.o, that merges her fibre craft artisan skills and lineage with political and cultural narratives.
Find more of her work online at hitoko.ca.
Rodrigo Valenzuela, Santiago, Chile 1982. Lives and work in Los Angeles, CA. Valenzuela studied art history and photography at University of Chile (2004), holds a BA in Philosophy at The Evergreen State College and an MFA at University of Washington. Recent residencies include Core Fellowship at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (Texas), Skowhegan school of Painting and Sculpture (Maine), MacDowell Colony (NH), Bemis Center for contemporary arts (Nebraska), Lightwork (Syracuse) and the Center for Photography at Woodstock (New York). Recent solo exhibitions include Lisa Kandlhofer Galerie, Vienna, AU (2016), Ulrich Museum, KS (2016), Klowdenmann Gallery, LA (2016), the Frye Art Museum, Seattle (2015), Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, Santiago (2015), envoy enterprises, New York (2015) and Upfor Gallery, Portland, OR (2017). Rodrigo Valenzuela is an assistant professor at University of California, Los Angeles and the recipient of the 2017 Joan Mitchell award for painters and sculptors.
Find more of his work online at rodrigovalenzuela.com.
Mary Walling Blackburn has been working in Sofia, Bulgaria, San Juan, Puerto Rico, Wichita, Kansas, and New York City. In 2017, Blackburn’s sermon charts (secular diagrams) were interpreted by musicians at St. Mark’s Poetry Project and Triangle (by Che Chen and Hava Toobian).
A recent Art in General commission instigated a summer exhibition of these charts at SWIMMING POOL in Sofia, Bulgaria.
In the spring, a sermon chart, Tsipar a Xeh Ot (devised from a 1970’s spell concocted against rapists), was performed at Casa del Sargento, Beta Local, in San Juan, PR. While musicians Alexandra Buschman and Shanti Lalita were interpreting, an impromptu revival adjacent to the live performance necessitated that the musicians harmonize with and against the pastor’s sermon. Blackburn’s recent publications include Questiones Perversas (Pioneer Works, Brooklyn), co-written with Beatriz E. Balanta; Gina and the Stars published by Tamawuj, an off-site publishing platform for the Sharjah Bienniel 13 and Slowness, a performance text in the sound-based web publication Ear │ Wave │ Event.
Find more of her work online at vimeo.com/marywallingblackburn.
Shelley Niro was born in Niagara Falls, NY. Currently, she lives in Brantford Ontario. Niro is a member of the Six Nations Reserve, Bay of Quinte Mohawk, Turtle Clan.
Shelley Niro is a multi-media artist. Her work involves photography, painting, beadwork, and film.
Niro is conscious of the impact post-colonial mediums have had on Indigenous people. Like many artists from different Native communities, she works relentlessly presenting people in realistic and explorative portrayals. Photo series such as MOHAWKS IN BEEHIVES, THIS LAND IS MIME LAND and M: STORIES OF WOMEN are a few of the genre of artwork. Films include: HONEY MOCCASIN, IT STARTS WITH A WHISPER, THE SHIRT, KISSED BY LIGHTNING and ROBERT’S PAINTINGS.
Shelley graduated from the Ontario College of Art, Honours and received her Master of Fine Art from the University of Western Ontario.
Niro was the inaugural recipient of the Aboriginal Arts Award presented through the Ontario Arts Council in 2012.
2017 was an overwhelmingly gifted year. Niro received the Governor General Art Award for Visual Art, the Scotiabank Photography Award the Reveal Award awarded by the Hnatshyn Foundation and the visual arts award presented by the Dreamcatchers Foundation.
Niro continues to produce work reflecting herself and her community.
Curator Biography:
Sally Frater is interested in issues of space and place, migration, photography, and the art of the everyday. She has curated for the Art Gallery of Guelph, Ulrich Museum of Art, McColl Center for Art and Innovation, Glassell School of Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Justina M. Barnicke Gallery at the University of Toronto, Project Row Houses, and Centre[4]Arts. A former resident in the Core Critical Studies fellowship at the Glassell School at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Frater completed fellowships and residencies at the UT Dallas Centraltrak, Southern Methodist University, Project Row Houses and Art21. A recipient of grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, and the Toronto Arts Council, she is a member of the Association of Art Museum Curators and alumna of Independent Curators International.
