Critical Distance Media body / performance-based practices

In spring of 2022, Dena Davida — along with Tawny Andersen, Barbara Scales, Victoria Carrasco, Barbara Scales, and Yves Sheriff — initiated the biannual publication TURBA: The Journal for Global Practices in Live Arts Curation. a seminal journal for the study, theory, and praxis of curatorial strategies in live arts. TURBA offers a platform for the exploration of ideas, concepts, constraints, expectations, and contingencies which guide and drive curatorial practices in these artistic fields. This collection of essays and conversations, by and for live arts curators, fosters a community of critical discourse about curation across traditions, genres, communities, generations, cultures, disciplines, artistic expressions and aesthetics.

Dena Davida, an artivist curator living in Montreal, is also an ethnographic researcher, dance teacher, dancer, editor and indexer. She completed her doctorate at the Université de Québec (2006) where she taught improvisation, composition, creative dance pedagogy, dance aesthetics and anthropology. She co-founded and curated the Tangente dance presenting space (1980-2019) and the Festival international de la nouvelle danse (1985+). Her writings on dance and culture are widely published. In 2022, she initiated the biannual TURBA: The Journal for Global Practices in Live Arts Curation. a seminal publication for the study, theory, and praxis of curatorial strategies in live arts.

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.

Dallas Fellini is a curator, writer, and artist living and working in Tkaronto/Toronto. Their practice is invested in the dissolution of boundaries between different art forms and arts communities, trans and queer histories and futures, community practice, and the intersections of art and popular culture. Dallas is a member of curatorial duo Crocus Collective and a cofounder of Silverfish, an arts publication devoted to interdisciplinary collaboration, skill-sharing, and cultivating ongoing dialogues between emerging artists and writers.