New Hermitage
Ambient improvisational ensemble New Hermitage imagines a future in which the climate crisis has decimated the population of the Earth, and dangerously high levels of pollution have rendered the cities of the world uninhabitable. The surviving humans are forced to live in nomadic clans, wandering the sparse wilderness in constant struggle to claim what little natural resources remain. However, a few solitary people have returned to the cities. Armed with patience and tenderness, these new hermits balance technology with natural wisdom to work with nature to restore their environment. The music of New Hermitage is the soundtrack to their survival, incorporating what these individuals might hear among the crumbling cities they call home.
Anju Singh
Through audio and video recordings, Anju Singh has been exploring the sounds, currents, and textures of moving waters in Coast Salish Territories for the creation of new works of manipulated video/sound art pieces. The pieces intend to investigate her personal relationship with the moving waters and messages that they carry. Anju’s previous works include using instruments and sound sources to connect with and give new voices to natural landscapes, water, trees, and plants.
Maedeh Mosaverzadeh
Maedeh Mosaverzadeh is an Iranian Visual artist based in Calgary, Canada. She received her Master of Fine Arts at the University of Calgary. Maedeh creates illustrations and animations to discuss issues surrounding plastic pollution. She explores ways in which art can evoke emotions and bring awareness about environmental issues and problems caused in our troubled age. In pursuing her endeavor for increasing general awareness about plastic pollution and reaching out to more people, Maedeh has created a social media platform called A Yellow Land. In this platform, she shares her artistic practice and ideas.
Audrey Lane Cockett
Audrey Lane Cockett is a filmmaker, artistic director, spoken word poet, ecologist, and outdoor educator based in Treaty 7 Land. Their work is rooted in wild and they are a passionate advocate for mental health awareness, love, and intersectional care for community and the natural world.
They believe in art as an avenue for learning, healing, connecting and transforming.
David Borish
HERD: Inuit Voices on Caribou is a research-based film project led by Inuit from the Nunatsiavut and NunatuKavut regions of Labrador, Canada, with the goal of documenting, preserving, and sharing Inuit knowledge and experiences with caribou. Between 2016-2022, we talked with, filmed, and photographed over 80 Inuit from across 12 distinct communities in Labrador; we documented caribou and landscapes from various parts of Nunatsiavut and NunatuKavut; and we collected archival multimedia from decades in the past. As a result, we gathered over 100 hours of footage, thousands of photographs, and countless memories from knowledge holders who were involved in this work. More information, photos, and writings can be found at: www.herdfilm.ca
Marie-Soleil Provençal
Marie-Soleil Provençal is a visual artist from Québec, currently in Nova Scotia. Her work addresses the relationships that we have with our surroundings, an eco-system composed of humans and non-humans. She does so by integrating mundane materials such as concrete, hay, and second-hand furniture, into her sculptures and installations. She has been a studio assistant, a technician, and a professor in visual arts for the past few years from Québec to Newfoundland. More recently, she worked as a research assistant to repurpose plastic beach trash and explore alternative sustainable materials made from local resources such as seaweed, oyster shell, and wood ash.
Hitoko Okada
Hitoko Okada is an interdisciplinary fibre artist, curator, facilitator, and storyteller. Her work explores the politics and cultural significance of Japanese heritage textile folk crafts, fashion, gendered and racialized garment labour from historical, critical, and anti-capitalist perspectives. She engages ancient Japanese practices of thread-making and shifu weaving to commune with ancestral knowledge and relationship to cloth, plants, earth, and spirit. She works on an urban organic farm and is growing her first urban scale crop of Japanese indigo. Her work has been exhibited in various galleries and events in Vancouver, Toronto, Hamilton, and Burlington. She is the recipient of multiple grants and awards including Ontario Arts Council, Canada Council of the Arts and City of Hamilton Arts Awards.
Keaton Leier (Aritsts Climate Collective)
My name is Keaton Leier. I am originally from Saskatoon SK, and received my professional training in classical ballet at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School. I have now had a professional career as a leading dancer with the Atlanta Ballet for the past 5 years. I am currently transitioning back to my Canadian roots, and will be joining the ranks on the National Ballet of Canada this summer. I have taken a few courses in environmental studies and I am extremely passionate about the conservation of our earths ecosystems.
Anya Mielniczek
Anya Mielniczek combines traditional fine art training with street dirt mediums in both private and public spheres working as a mixed-media artist. Inspired by humanity, our consumption and the natural world she explores castaway materials, experimentation and emotionally responding to the time and environment she’s creating in while playing between a real and abstracted aesthetic. Her approach in using upcycled waste, waste paint, plastic bags or litter bits is to both re-energize and reorganize these unwanted materials in a way that can momentarily trick the eye, infusing these elements with beauty and intrigue. Ultimately Anya’s commitment to her practice is to paint with purpose by giving nature and social issues a voice while defining a conversation with the viewer that may inspire and bring awareness for sustainable change.
David Ellingsen
David Ellingsen is a Canadian photographer creating images that speak to the relationship between humans and the natural world. He works predominantly in long-term projects with a focus on climate, biodiversity and the forest.
Recent exhibitions include China’s Lishui Museum of Art, the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, Lithuania’s Kaunas Photo Festival and Canada’s Campbell River Museum. Ellingsen’s photographs are part of the permanent collections of South Korea’s Datz Museum of Art, China’s Photography Museum of Lishui, and Canada’s Beaty Biodiversity Museum and Royal British Columbia Museum.
