Category: Directory

Birdie creates “soft body horror” – a mythology of monsters that live on the “Body Farm.” Using mixed media images and sculpture, Birdie pieces together a Mad gaze: a way of seeing that encompasses what some might call a combination of autism, gender dysphoria, and PTSD. This lens of “Madness” reframes Birdie’s experiences with awe, humour, and hope in a way that exists outside of medical models, and affirms that Madness is not a pathology, but an invitation to pursue unexpected futures.

“Body Farm” is a multi-sensory experience that can also be explored in physical spaces though touch and audio. Accessibility features such as tactile sculpture and audio description are intrinsic to the world of the “Body Farm,” affectionately asserting that, like Mad-positivity, accessible arts practices are a doorway to vibrant new worlds.

Birdie lives in Hamilton, Ontario, and is a 2017 graduate of Visual and Creative Arts at Sheridan College. In 2019, Birdie was awarded the Won Lee Fellowship and the Intergenerational LGBT Artist Residency, and exhibited Birdie’s first solo show, “Body Farm”, with Tangled Art + Disability. Birdie will be a participant of Centre3’s 2021 Emerging Artist Residency and will show a new solo exhibit of “Body Farm” at Hamilton Artists Inc. in spring of 2023.

---

M.C Cruz a.k.a Chris is a child of Chilean immigrants. Who was born, raised and currently based in Toronto but has also lived in in Chile and more recently did an Artist Residency in Morocco and Spain. They attended Etobicoke School of Arts and majored in Visual Arts before moving to Vancouver to study film and video production at Capilano University. They facilitated filmmaking workshops for marginalized communities as part of Fright Film Academy and Fright Film School. They have written, directed and produced several live action and animated short films including “Vampyric PSA”, “La Llorona” and “Root Causes”. “Root Causes” screened at Rendezvous with Madness film festival with a special invitation to be part of the filmmakers panel. It has also screened at OCAD for a special preview screening by Artist Health Alliance.

Their painting series “Refuge From Home” has been showcased at the University of Toronto and Toronto City Hall this past October 2019. It is currently being shown at TMAC and virtually (due to the pandemic) as part of the juried art exhibition “Being Scene” by Workman Arts.

Their goal is to keep on creating art and telling stories that challenge the status quo, always with meaning and passion.

---

Lisa Anita Wegner is a filmmaker, performer, curator, producer and instructor at the haus of dada. She is the creative producer of Mighty Brave Productions, a small award-winning multi-media production company and a founding member of the Akhilanda Collaborative. Her work has been shown at the Phoenix Art Museum, Art Gallery of Ontario, Mayworks Festival, Nuit Blanche, ReelAsian Film Festival, Long Winter, Workman Arts, Gallery 1313, Toronto Art Fair, Buddies in Bad Times, The Black Cat Artspace and NXNE Festival. Her ventures into large-scale performance installations include the 26-foot “Queen Of The Parade,”; a 10-foot version of The Queen was commissioned by Partners in Art, for ARTrageous In Motion. Lisa is pushing further with live performance performing Anandam’s Body Break at Theatre Passe Murielle, PROCESS at Artscape Youngplace, Buddies in Bad Times and Rendezvous with Madness to name a few. Lisa exhibited writing and a photography in Yoko Ono’s ARISING exhibition at The Phi Centre in Montreal. Lisa is proud to be affiliated with Tangled Art + Disability.

---

I just started painting over a year ago. Now I am using pouring techniques and resin art.

---

Recent work

Since August 2019 have been exhibiting at Show Gallery.

Emily Gillespie is an author, activist and daydreamer. She has an MA in Disability Studies. Dancing with Ghosts (2017) is her first novel. She is currently working on her second book. Her writing appears in several anthologies.

---

Website

facebook.com/Gillespie.Em

Deaf artist, model, actress, Deaf Interpreter, ASL coach and infamous dynamic personality, Gaitrie “Natasha” Persaud, was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario. Her family lineage hails from Portuguese, Brazilian, Guyanese, and Indian backgrounds. Before becoming a mom to three beautiful children, Gaitrie lived in New York State where she was able to meet Deaf BIPOC artists and was given an opportunity to collaborate on events as a model, artist, and promoter with Def Familia. Currently, Gaitrie is a musical performer for MDL CHLD, LAL and international singers. She is also working on her own Deaf BIPOC television series in American Sign Language (ASL) and the play “The Two Natashas” with Natasha Bacchus. Gaitrie recently performed with her group at Buddies in Bad Times for Pride. She is currently building her empire Phoenix the Fire. Her company is a theatre community hub providing workshops, resources, facilitating partnerships to leverage QTIBPOC Deaf Artists & their endeavours.

---

Recent work

• PRIDE Performance
• Live Streamed The Two Natashas
• Canadian Improv team Eh! on Facebook livestream

I am Natasha Cecily Bacchus. I am an athlete and artist, passionate about mental health, deaf advocacy, fitness and physical expression. Throughout my life, I have nurtured my passion for fitness by competing as a professional athlete and securing medal positions in both the Deaf Olympics and Pan Am Olympics as well as many other competitive sporting events. While running was my first passion and a means of emotional release, I used acting as a mode of physical expression and found theatre and film to be the preferred spaces for me to thrive as an actor. I have participated in a number of theatre and film productions and have a strong desire to continue to grow and develop as an artist in these industries, expanding representation to include differently-abled persons and empowering Black Deaf women in Canada to shine on and off the stage.

---

Recent work

• 2019 – Deaf Performer for Deaf Queer First Event under Deaf Spectrum in Toronto
• 2019 – Pioneer Actress “The Black Drum” SoundPepper Theatre, Toronto, Ontario
• January 2019 – Deaf Interpretation Theatre for Fringe Festival
• July 2019 – Deaf Actress for The Black Drum Festival Clin D’Oeil in Reims, France
• August 2019 – Theatre In&Out “The Good Host” Assembly Deaf Arts Accessibility Discussion
• September 2019 – MDL ASL music

Hanan Hazime is a multidisciplinary artist, creative writer, community arts educator, and writing instructor living in Tkaranto/Toronto. She also identifies as a Lebanese-Canadian Muslimah Feminist and Mad Pride Activist. Through her intersectional and interdisciplinary artwork, Hanan aims to push boundaries, question arbitrary binaries, dispel stigmas, and shatter stereotypes. Her primary mission as an arts educator is to provide accessible arts education to marginalized communities with a special focus on crafting safe, empowered spaces for Muslims, individuals with mental health challenges, folks with disabilities, and BIPOC youth to discover and enhance their writing and art skills. When not writing or creating art, Hanan enjoys reading fantasy novels, over-analyzing things, photo-blogging, dancing with faeries in the woods, and drinking copious amounts of tea.

---

Acadian artist and art teacher Ysabelle Vautour started out working in the mental health and disability support sector.

She began painting two years ago when she decided to paint and create art every day for a year. Ysabelle uses a contemplative approach to her portraits. She has ten years of experience in both improv and swing dancing, so it’s not surprising that she paints intuitively and enjoys the process of creating things in the moment as they are happening.

In 2019 after a few months into her 365 art everyday challenge, she was invited to speak at Artslink’s Short and Sweet Speaker Series, participated in a few live painting competitions, and started teaching at Serenity Wellness, the NBCCD Craft Library, as well as private classes. Her art was featured at the Fredericton Public Library, Art Kitchen, and CBC New Brunswick. Ysabelle’s work was also selected for a juried exhibition at the Nails on the Wall Gallery in Metuchen, New Jersey. Being no stranger to trying new things, she ended the year by doing some arts writing for Grid City Magazine.

Art brought so much joy and excitement to her life that she decided to keep the momentum going. She is sensitive to light, so she learned that Plein air painting on a sunny day was not the best thing for her. Ysabelle’s artwork and photography tend to be close up, bringing a sense of intimacy to the viewer and is a better view for the legally blind painter. While she always had an interest in the arts, she stayed away from painting, thinking it was not for her as she is colour blind and wouldn’t be able to tell if the colours looked muddy. It wasn’t until she tried art as therapy that she was able to focus on how it feels making the art as opposed to how it will look at the end.

In 2020 Ysabelle became a board member at Connexion Artist Run Center. She was featured in the Shediac Artist Village, Ami télé, and Created Here Magazine. She was recruited to give a public talk to NBCCD Craft College art students and was the artist in residence at the Fredericton Arts Alliance. Ysabelle received a micro-grant for her self-directed Alone Together residency from NBCCD Craft Library.

Ysabelle had two solo exhibitions in 2021, the first at the Penny Gallery in Fredericton and the second at Corid’art Gallery in Shediac. She was awarded a creation grant from Arts NB for her project “Bodies in Motion,” where she will delve into a more figurative painting style that is larger in scale, during her residency at Connextion Artist-Run Center in December.

This year she was featured on Global News, Thirdspace Gallery Podcast, Halifax’s Art of Disability Festival and as a live painter on the national stage at the Disability Without Poverty August Roundup event. A graduate of Artslink’s Catapult arts and business accelerator program Ysabelle is being mentored by the feminist painter and rug hooker Alexandrya Eaton.

Ysabelle is currently working on Atlantic Canada’s first Disability Art Symposium. The project is in collaboration with Theatre New Brunswick and the JRG Society for the Arts. 

As for 2022, look out for her tv appearance on 100% Passion and her solo exhibition at Leon Leger Gallery in Grand Barachois. Finally, she is planning the New Brunswick Disability Art Collective’s first show group at the Fredericton Playhouse Gallery in January. 

---

Megan Bent is a New England-based artist and teaching artist. She received her MFA and Graduate Certificate in Disability Studies from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa in 2012. She received her BFA from the School of Visual Arts, NY, in 2004. Through photography, she explores disability culture and identity.

Her artwork has been exhibited widely across the United States in exhibitions at The Vera Project, in Seattle, WA, The East Hawaiian Cultural Center/HMOCA in Hilo, Hawai’i, Flux Factory in Long Island City, NY, El Museo Cultural, Santa Fe, NM, The Foster Gallery, in Dedham MA, Soho Photo Gallery in Tribeca, NY, and the Austin Central Library Gallery in Austin, TX.

She has been an artist in residence at the Nobles School in Dedham, MA and at the Honolulu Museum of Art, HI. She has presented her work at The Pacific Rim International Conference on Disability and Diversity in Honolulu, HI, at Other Bodies: (Self) Representation, Disability and the Media at the University of Westminster in London, U.K., and at Critical Junctures at Emory University in Atlanta, GA.

---