Kevin Jesuino is a Portuguese-Canadian multi-disciplinary performer, performing arts educator, movement coach, arts facilitator, LGBTQ+ activist and community organizer. His work is oftentimes collaborative, site-specific, participatory,
Natasha (Tasha) Lavdovsky is a neurodivergent artist & amateur lichenologist, who grew up in Traditional Tsawout First Nation unceded territory (in so-called BC). In 2009
sirenscrossing is an international, collaborative umbrella for a transdisciplinary site-specific practice. We think of humans as only one node of liveliness in the interweave of the living Earth. Through creating audience experiences in everyday spaces, we deepen into the lived reality of humans (even those in cities) and their sympoietic mesh with nonhumans, landscapes, and Earth systems. sirenscrossing seeks to enliven individual human’s awareness of their spiritual, biological, ecological, social, and technological entanglement in multispecies and hybrid bio/geo/techno processes. All of this has become increasingly urgent, on a planet in crisis. We hope to contribute to a tidal surge of momentum for change. Commissioned artist for Coventry UK City of Culture (2021-2022).
My art creations go from finding materials, to repurposing my own garbage into the pieces as these WATER discs are made from found wood, photos of manhole covers that say WATER and then I collage to make a mosiac using milk cartons. I have always been interested in repurposing materials as I also design bags, pouches, yoga bags and pants using repurposed or recycled textiles.
Drouin’s diverse photographic artworks examine the evolving definitions of landscape, and the often contentious relationship between human modifications and natural ecosystems.
Tina M Pearson is a composer, media artist, performer and facilitator. Her projects invite stretched modes of time, perception and attention, in composition, field recording, performance, and facilitating, and often occur in community-based settings, outdoors, and within/through online platforms. Her work is increasingly focused on linking biospheres, ancestral memory, and technologies, uncovering connections that have been minimized, forgotten, or unimagined. Current projects include “Root Blood Fractal Breath” with Toronto’s ContaQt ensemble; “Displacement and Drift”, a mixed reality machinima and virtual installation; and “Tree Sing”, a long term approach for woman-identified vocalists and dancers to embody languages, sounds and movements directly from trees. Pearson’s work has been commissioned for presentation in concerts, installations, choreography, broadcasts, and video in centres through North America and Europe. She was editor of Canada’s Musicworks magazine, and taught Sound Studies at OCAD University in Toronto. She is director of LASAM Music, a member of the global Avatar Orchestra Metaverse collective, and a certified Deep Listening® practitioner through Pauline Oliveros. Pearson is a first generation Canadian of Nordic / Slavic descent, and lives on the unceded lands of the Lkwungen peoples on Vancouver Island.
Hemispheric Encounters: Developing Transborder Research-Creation Practices brings together scholars, artists, activists, and community organizations from across the Americas to explore hemispheric performance as an artistic practice for addressing social and environmental justice. The Ecologies cluster considers site-based performance strategies that address politics of land (and agencies of its more-than human inhabitants), as well as spatial politics of occupying public spaces. We delve into legacies of transnational resource extraction and land politics.
Starr Muranko is a dancer, choreographer and Mother to the most amazing little boy. She is Co-Artistic Director with Raven Spirit Dance – a contemporary Indigenous dance company based in Vancouver, BC on the the unceded and Ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. As a choreographer she is most interested in the stories that we carry within our bodies and Ancestral connections to land that transcend time and space. Her choreographic work has been shared both locally and nationally across Canada including presentations at the Dance Centre, Talking Stick Festival, Coastal Dance Festival, Dancing on the Edge, Weesageechak Begins to Dance (Native Earth Performing Arts), Impact Festival and InFringing Dance Festival. Featured work includes ‘before7after’, Spine of the Mother and Chapter 21.
Jen Yakamovich (she/her) is a drummer, multi-instrumentalist, improviser, environmental researcher, and educator currently living and working as a settler on Coast Salish territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations. Her musical approach tends towards the embodied, textural, and hidden worlds of multispecies collaboration. Jen performs as drummer on a number of projects ranging from folk, experimental, sound collage, R&B, and creative & improvised music. Her solo project is called “Troll Dolly”. She received her Master’s in Environmental Studies in 2020.
The Climate Art Web (CAW-WAC) is a grassroots network that brings together climate artists living in northern Turtle Island (Canada).
