Critical Distance Media archive / collections-based practices

Bushra Junaid is a multidisciplinary artist-curator, author, and arts administrator based in Toronto. Born in Montreal to Nigerian and Jamaican parents, and raised in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Junaid is best known for exploring history, memory, cultural identity, and placemaking through mixed media collage, drawing, and painting. Pivoting on Paul Gilroy’s concept of the “Black Atlantic” and reflecting on John Akomfrah’s Vertigo Sea (2015), Junaid’s landmark curatorial project, What Carries Us: Newfoundland and Labrador in the Black Atlantic was presented at The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery (2020) and included video, mixed media, mural, and photo-based works by Canadian and international artists, as well as rare archival items.

Oluseye is a Nigerian-Canadian artist. Using “diasporic debris” — a term he coined to describe the artifacts he collects on his trans-Atlantic travels — he traces Blackness through its multifaceted migrations and manifestations. These transformational objects are recast into sculpture, performance, and photography; their explorations invoke his personal narratives within a broader examination of Black and Diasporic identity, migration, and African spiritual traditions. Oluseye has exhibited at the Museum of the African Diaspora, San Fransisco (2024), Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto (2024), Southern Guild Gallery, Cape Town (2023), and the Gardiner Museum, Toronto (2023), among others.

Ernesto Cabral de Luna is a Mexican lens-based artist working in Toronto. Working through analog and digital processes, he utilizes his own photographs, archived imagery and documents to create still images and short animations emphasizing the multi-dimensionality and materiality of the image.

Since the mid-90s, Shani K Parsons has pursued a multidisciplinary practice focused on exhibition-making — initially through the lenses of architecture, urban planning and public arts administration, then installation, graphic, and environmental design, and most recently through research, writing, curation, and collaboration. She is the Founding Director of Critical Distance Centre for Curators (CDCC).