SA Smythe
SA Smythe is a critical theorist, multi-instrumentalist, and transmedia storyteller whose work conjures black belonging and thriving relations beyond borders. Rooted in this antecartographic practice, Smythe weaves together poetics, performance, interactive light sculptures, soundscape compositions, monoprints, and archival ephemera. Their transmedia works have been featured internationally in solo and collaborative performances, film and multimedia installations, anthologies, and festivals. They currently work as Associate Professor of Black Studies & the Archive at the University of Toronto, where they direct the Collaboratory for Black Poiēsis, a multidisciplinary hub and collaborative atelier dedicated to Black Studies research and Black⇌Indigenous aesthetic interventions.
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Lara Arabian
Lara Arabian is a trilingual Toronto-based artist by way of Beirut, Lebanon, upstate NY, and Paris, France. A Dora nominated actor, she’s worked with companies across Canada including: Citadel Theatre, Modern Times, Outside the March, Aluna Theatre, Neptune Theatre, Canadian Stage, Theatre Passe Muraille, TfT, Studio 180, Pleaides Theatre, Cahoots, Pandemic Theatre, Nightswimming. She completed her acting training at the Banff/Citadel Professional Theatre Program. Most recently she remounted her one-woman show, Siranoush, (which she also wrote) at the Next Stage Theatre Festival in Toronto. Recent TV/Film credits include: Saint Pierre, The Handmaid’s Tale, Kim’s Convenience, Assassin’s Creed, Jazz Ramsey K-9 Mystery, Improtèine, Rabbit Hole, Paris, Paris, Ghostwriter, Murdoch Mysteries, Taken, Dark Matter. Upcoming Film/TV: Foreign Tongue, 11h11 As a writer,…Find out more
Amy Wong
Amy Wing-Hann Wong (b. 1981, Toronto, she/they) is an angry Asian feminist disguised as an oil painter. Her practice ranges from painting-based installation to collaborative projects that explore the politics of making noise and thinking through together. She is an Assistant Professor at OCAD University. Often inverting private and public spaces, Wong asserts ways in which a leakiness and messiness of things can aspire towards intersectional feminist and anti-colonial ways of being. Their practice oscillates between varying systems of representation to evoke non-linear, personal narratives. They often work with what they consider a bad idea or a cliché to redefine them on their own terms. Wong’s current research explores mother work as methodology and as cultural transmission. Wong completed her BFA at Concordia University in Montreal, MFA…Find out more
Embassy Cultural House
The Embassy Cultural House (ECH) is non-hierarchical and inter-generational, which paves the way for inclusive and open opportunities for artists, writers, cultural workers and other cultural advocates. Our most recent publication is Not/For the Money, launched January 22nd, 2026, is an extension of our online exhibition of the same title. In 2024, the ECH published an anthology, An Alternative Cultural History of London, Ontario: Art & Activism. This anthology introduces important and essential cultural material to a generation that has not had access to such documents. Since January of 2021 the ECH has published 10 publications.
Wang Zi
Wang Zi 王紫 (born in Nanjing, China) is a Tkaronto/Toronto-based artist-educator whose interdisciplinary practice spans print-based installation, performance, sound, and socially engaged art. Her research draws on domestic archives and diasporic experience to explore cultural memory, object-biography, and mistranslation as methods of inquiry. Wang has exhibited at the Ontario Legislative Assembly, Métis Space (HK), and Art Bank Canada, and facilitated programs with the ROM, CAMH, and public libraries across Ontario. Her work is supported by SSHRC, the Toronto Arts Council, and the Ontario Arts Council. She is also a recipient of the Guggenheim Bilbao Scholarship.Find out more