Critical Distance Profile Type Co-presenter

Zoë Heyn-Jones is a researcher-artist, cultural worker and mother who grew up on Saugeen Ojibway land in Ontario, Canada and on Tz’utujil/Kaqchikel Maya land in Guatemala. Zoë uses artistic research and curatorial practice as tools for communal abundance, and convenes groups in order to weather the collapse of capitalism together.  She works with agroecology and food systems, convivial cooking and eating, compost and waste, vernacular architecture and embodied practices of solidarity in the service of decomposition and regeneration. Zoë lives and works in Tenochtitlan/Mexico City and Tkaronto/Toronto.Find out more

Amanda White (she/her) is an artist and researcher, living on unceded Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh territories. She is Canada Research Chair in Sustainability, Ecological Justice, and Climate action in Creative Practices (Tier II) at Emily Carr University, where she is currently building a kitchen-lab to support environmentally engaged work with a focus on plants and food. Her recent collaborative projects include co-author and producer for Ecologies in Practice (book and podcast); the Creative Food Research Collaboratory; and Shy Cat and the Stuff-the-Bus Challenge, a graphic novel for middle grade readers about food security (Second Story Press, 2026).Find out more

Jeneen Frei Njootli is an award winning artist and na’aa (mom) of two, living in Old Crow, Yukon. They are Vuntut Gwitchin with Czech and Dutch ancestry and are currently part of BUSH gallery, The ISHI Collective and helped form the ReMatriate Collective in 2014. With a love of the land and working with community, Jeneen has also exhibited and performed internationally, their most recent solo exhibition was at the prestigious Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery in 2025. They are represented by Macaulay & Co Fine Art in Vancouver.Find out more

Shira Leuchter (she/her) is a performance creator, actor, and researcher. She makes performances that invite audiences to imagine and rehearse new ways for us to be together. Shira is currently a PhD student in York University’s department of Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies. She is a parent to two very cool and funny people.Find out more

The Creative Food Research Collaboratory germinates collaborations at the intersection of art and food studies, exploring how the arts can imagine—and therefore help to achieve—food security, food sovereignty, and food justice in Canada. Our work includes academic research, public events, teaching and workshops, as well as fundraising for community food initiatives.Find out more