Michelle Bunton is a transdisciplinary artist/curator/derby jammer currently residing as an uninvited guest in Katarokwi-Kingston. They are one-quarter of the micropress Small Potatoes, one-half of the artist-duo Tear Jerkers.
Prioritizing femi-queer science, SF (speculative fabulation/science fiction) and diffractive pedagogy, they aim to embody a collaborative praxis that centres queer kinship. Bunton playfully embraces the potential of failure, uncertainty and decay in their practice, often taking up sport and science as framework for their multi-media installations. Their recent work turns to slime mold/lichen/fungi and their attendant characteristics of collective action, decentralized organization and abject re-composition of matter.
GHY Cheung is a Hong Kong-born artist and writer. He works with video, installation and text to examine how queer folx make sense of the world through aesthetics, everyday practices, lexicons and citational fields. His work has been presented locally at Union Gallery, Modern Fuel Artist-Run Centre and Agnes Etherington Art Centre. His recent projects consider cruising as a spatial, social and mnemonic practice, both from a historical perspective and as future-oriented propositions.
GHY is one-half of artist duo NO and NO with Kyle Vingoe-Cram, and one-half of artist duo Tear Jerkers with Michelle Bunton.
Frank DeSa's works explores the relationship between mind and body, the tools we create to sculpt our realities and notions of deja vu and jamais vu.
Zakary-Georges is a transfeminine, non-binary, francophone, and Cree individual. As an artist, organizer, volunteer, and educator, she aims to create conversations about the wellbeing and realities of gender, sexual, and culturally diverse people in hope of building and supporting resilient communities.
She's been able to do this work on a national scene through public speaking, curriculum development, photography, illustrations, and collaging, while bringing forward topics she most cares about, including indigenization, gender disruption, and interconnectivity.
Erin Kennedy is an eccentric robotics inventor and Mars analogue astronaut. She is the founder of Robot Missions, which develops low-cost robots to address environmental challenges. One of which, Bowie the robot, collected plastic on a beach alongside a solar powered workstation for an entire summer in Ottawa. She completed studies at the International Space University, and brought home a gold medal for Canada at the RoboGames (aka robot Olympics).
Leisa Rich is an experimental visual artist who transforms materials in unique ways via dyeing, painting, melting, sculpting, embroidery, 3D printing, laser cutting, resin and more.
Rich has Master of Fine Arts, Bachelor of Fine Arts, and Bachelor of Education in Art degrees, and has exhibited in notable museums and galleries. She is a published author. Rich has taught art for 48 years. She has won numerous awards.
Rich’s works are in the permanent collections of Delta Airlines Inc., Hilton Hotels, Inc., Emory Healthcare/Women’s Health, Kamm Foundation, Dallas Museum of Art, University of Texas, and in international private collections.
Haley Sarfeld is a singer, songwriter, poet, playwright, composer, collager, cruciverbalist, voice actor, and theatre critic living in Katarokwi/Kingston. She’s been described as having “a melodic and pleasurable way of saying things that are actually really sad,” which she applies to art and life in equal measure. Haley’s playwriting and musical theatre compositions have recently appeared in the Shortwave Theatre Festival 2022 (Half Past Lunchtime) and the Watershed Festival’s New Works Showcase 2023 (The Lindworm’s Cabaret). Lately, Haley has been writing theatre reviews for the Kingston Theatre Alliance blog and creating crossword puzzles for neighbourhood newspaper the Skeleton Press.
Vince Ha - curator
Vince Ha is a writer-director who captures fragmentary moments and uses them to challenge issues of race, class, gender, and representation. He is pursuing his PhD in Screen Cultures and Curatorial Studies at Queen’s University, centering his research on two core themes: diasporic identities and queer archival methods. Currently, he is investigating transnational media and its relationship with queer diasporic sociality, with special attention to homoerotic representation in Asian cinema. His work has been presented locally at Scotiabank Contact Photography Festival, Gardiner Museum, Buddies in Bad Times, The ArQuives, and Hot Docs Rogers Cinema—and internationally in China, Denmark, Germany, Japan, Thailand, United Kingdom, the United States, and Vietnam.
