Discipline: interdisciplinary arts

auro moura

Auro Moura is a singer/songwriter, composer, and music educator who has been working in the field of music for nearly 20 years. He holds a Master’s in Music and a degree in Music Education from the Federal University of Paraná (Curitiba, Brazil) as well as a diploma in Audiovisual Production from the Institut Grasset (Montréal). Auro has a long and prominent career as a music educator. He is currently the co-founder of the program Les Brasileirinhos, and music director to the “Choeur Scénique Brésilien”, both in TioTia:Ke/Montréal. As a researcher, Auro has published in congresses and symposiums in Brazil, Italy, Canada, and in magazines specialized in education. He published the book “Making Music with Children”, currently in its 3rd edition. As a musician, he has composed and performed music for 4 albums, 1 EP and 1 DVD. Besides his personal projects, Auro also works as a composer of songs and soundtracks for children’s projects, short films, and advertising, among others.

Website: www.auromoura.com

emilio wawatie

Emilio Wawatie is an Algonquin-Anishnabe from Kitigan Zibi and Barrier lake, Quebec, and is a musician, filmmaker, researcher, and educator. Born in Maniwaki and raised throughout Anishnabe Aki in parc la Verendrye, Abitibi, and Gatineau; he now resides in Moniak, where he studies at Concordia University in Music and First People’s Studies. Emilio began his musical journey when he discovered playing the guitar at the age of 12 through the influence of his grandfather and continued his passion for music and classical guitar studies at the age of 22. It was at Cambrian College where he began to build his musical foundation and received training on the Classical guitar with Mathew Gould and Alan Yzereef, where he prepared, organized, and performed a graduating recital. In the last few years, Emilio’s work has been geared towards research and creation with strong focus on Algonquian music and artistic styles of both traditional and contemporary practices. He is currently undertaking work on his first EP as an artist with InPath and composes for the Classical guitar.

tam khoa vu

The PRIM Centre and the MAI have partnered to offer long-term joint support to an artist wishing to experiment, develop their skills and create work in the field of media arts. PRIM provides the artist with filming equipment and facilities for the production of a work in video art, documentary, fiction, and audio art. The selected artist will be offered the opportunity to present their work in the MAI spaces as part of the official program during the 23-24 season.

Tam Khoa Vu is an artist based in Tiohtià:ke / Montreal. His work challenges common representations and depictions of Vietnamese and Vietnamese-Canadian identity, while playfully opening up spaces of abundance, possibility, and nuance. Using various visual and digital art forms, his practice explores themes of production, manufacturing, power, representation, and identity by exploring the nuances of the “third space” resulting from the diasporic experience between Vietnam and Canada. Notable presentations of the artist’s works include MAI – Justice Project (2022), Montreal, QC (2022); ARTCH Emerging Artists Exhibition, Montreal, QC (2021), Eastern Bloc, Montreal, QC (2016). He has received grants from funding bodies and institutions such as OBORO (2022), Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec (2022, 2021), and the MAI (2022). In 2017, he completed his BFA at Concordia University in Design and Computation Arts.

f.k.a. art club

F.K.A. Art Club Collective Bio

Favielle Petit Clair, Kathleen Charles and Awa Banmana form the newly founded collective: F.K.A. Art Club. With a co-conspirator relationship, the artists trace similarities between Fav and Kat’s Haitian heritage and Awa’s Senegalese heritage. Together, they form a powerful artist collective focused on how multidisciplinary creative expression can be used to build community resilience and resistance in the face of systemic oppression, for individuals who live at the intersection of racialized and homophobic violence.

Born in France, Spanish-Senegalese artist Awa Banmana’s is an Queer Afropean emerging artist. Their work is centered around multidisciplinary. In 2020, Banmana was involved in the creation of the Black Lives Matter mural «La Vie des Noir.e.s Compte» and was selected to be in residence for Moebius magazine. Banmana’s video clip «KICKER», co-directed with musician Kaya Hoax, was also featured in the Melbourne Midsumma Festival 2021.

Favielle “Fav” Petit Clair, is a Queer woman from Haitian descent. Having grown up in such a rich and crowded city her proximity to people and the social bonds she formed tainted her approach to art. With an Afrocentric artistic practice, Favielle obtained her first exhibition in 2017 for FOVA during Black History month. 

Kathleen Charles is a queer Haitian writer, songstress, performer, therapist in training and community organizer. Their poetry explores the power that art has to heal communities. Their art, whether it be music or poetry is made to heal themselves and to heal others by providing validating imagery to move through the traumas of systemic oppression. 

sophia wright

Sophia Wright (she/her) is a dancer, choreographer, and creator based in Tio’tia:ke / Montreal and currently works in a collective with dance and theatre artist, Alida Esmail. Sophia’s artistic practice is fuelled by the desire to bring diverse practices and communities together. Originally hailing from Calgary, Sophia obtained her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Contemporary Dance from Concordia University and continued her studies in Cultural Mediation at the Sorbonne Nouvelle University in Paris, France. In Paris, Sophia became an active member of the collective La Main, a multi-disciplinary collective of artisans, artists, and technicians. It was also in Paris that she first engaged with the Deaf community through the arts, an intercultural and multilingual collaboration that she continues to this day. Parallel to her dance career, Sophia is developing her skills in metalwork with the goal of bringing elements of sculpture and set design into future projects.

Photo credit: Alexandre Quillet 

rouzbeh shadpey

Rouzbeh Shadpey is an artist and musician based in Tiohtiá:ke / Mooniyang / Montreal working through sound, writing, and performance. His practice and thought are shaped by an academic background in medicine, psychiatry, and music, the lived experience of a faltering body, and the deep kindness of his grandmother Nargues. His current artistic research explores decolonial grammars of illness and the whiteness of acousmatic listening. His music, under the identity GOLPESAR, has been released on Opal Tapes.

⇒ http://www.rouzbehshadpey.com/

noelia pacheco-bascopé

Based in Tiohtià:ke | Montréal, Noelia is an interdisciplinary artist who draws on personal and collective narratives to question the world in which she lives in. Rooted in a decolonial perspective, her work takes the forms of public installations, video art and performances, where she approaches questions of identity while taking into account the political and social contexts that are intrinsically linked to it. The relationship with what one has with another is a central element in their research. Recently, she had an interest in a subject on the migratory experiences of  people that recently immigrated to Quebec (since the 1970s). She is particularly interested in learning about disregarded immigrant populations and their migrant stories of resilience across time. Her interest in these stories stems from a profound quest for learning about identity in which she retraces the migratory trajectories of her ancestors. Within the framework of the Alliance program, Noelia wishes to investigate the political, social and personal contexts that form the conditions of marginalization and intersectionality in these plural experiences. 

lenore claire herrem

Lenore Claire Herrem is a multidisciplinary artist from Saskatoon-based in Tio’Tia:Ke/Montreal since 2013. She has training and a BFA in Theatre Performance from the University of Saskatchewan, and currently works in a variety of digital formats including animation, web series, portraiture, and graphic design. Precious Puppies is one of her larger current projects, encompassing an animated series, clothing brand, zines, stickers, and other hand-crafted merchandise. The series began as experimental mini-episodes in 2018, and in 2020 she produced the first full season of the show. She is currently in production of the second season, with the aid of MAI’s alliance program. The Sandy Bridges Show is another multi-faceted project of Lenore’s, produced as both a web series and live event. Sandy Bridges has been an alter-ego of hers since 2009- emcee, stand-up comedienne, lifestyle coach, and more. Lenore is also a community events organizer and co-founded Taking What We Need in 2015, which is a grassroots fundraising and community organization for Montreal’s low-income transfeminine community. Taking What We Need is an informal  volunteer-run community group dedicated to helping trans women, trans-feminine (AMAB) and two spirit people get what they need through discretionary funding.

Photo Credit: Sarah Rainville  

⇒ https://www.lenorech.ca/

hea r. kim

South Korean-born, Canadian immigrant Hea R. Kim explores overlapping technical art processes within fibers and sculptures. Visually inspired by her Korean heritage, Kim’s explorations share elements of childhood recollections and imagination. With her formal education in South Korea and her in-depth studies in material processes and contemporary art in Montreal, Kim aims to visualize the innocent period when days are filled with infinite possibility, indulgence, and mystery. Kim has exhibited her works across Canada and South Korea. She had a solo exhibition Vomiting Flowers at MAI in 2019. This exhibition will be presented again at Eastern Edge Gallery in St. John’s Newfoundland in March 2022.

atif siddiqi

Atif Siddiqi studied fashion design in Los Angeles and video production/performance in Montreal where they live currently. Their work revolves around gender identity, ecology, justice, notions of personal transformation and metamorphosis by incorporating elements of symbolism and iconography. Their artistic body of work includes the long form experimental documentaries, Solo (winner best documentary) and M! Mom, Madonna and Me. Audio recordings of Amethyst’s Universe, Firefly, and Tranie Tronic. Various other short form videos like Unique Mythology, Erotic, Exotic, and performances of Alienation are also part of their portfolio.

Photo credit : Eisha Marjara

⇒ http://www.atifsiddiqi.com/