Critical Distance Status Featured

Find out more

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.

Find out more

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 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

Andreann Asibey (Drea) is a Ghanaian-British-Canadian curator, cultural producer, and educator known for her people-centered practice. Her work bridges the gap between community engagement, public programming, and cultural production, grounded in her three guiding principles: community, culture, and conversation. Drea’s practice reflects a deep commitment to amplifying systematically marginalized voices and fostering spaces where pluralistic stories and perspectives are recognized and can thrive. She has curated and produced a wide range of multidisciplinary projects, from immersive events such as Para Juntar at The Africa Centre, Building Our Collective Futures at Wellcome Collection, and A Journey through Otherworld at the Art Museum at the University of Toronto which was awarded Best Public Program 2025 by Ontario Galleries. Drea’s exhibitions include Lusophonic Hapacities for the Malangatana Heritage Project featuring Henrique…Find out more