Valerie Carew, (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist in Toronto who explores human relationships with land using fibre craft and mixed media. Embodiment and role-play are combined with rug making to express dwelling, identity and the self. Memories of land and home are harnessed for new world building, made from a desire for connection and escapism. Her sculptural works are designed for the human body, then animated using photography, video, performance and mechanical motors. As a collection, these pieces transport the viewer to Canadian dreamscapes and shorelines. Carew hopes to re-wild and unsettle the colonial footprint, and connect inside and outside worlds through art.

Carew is an award winning graduate from the Interdisciplinary Master’s in Art, Media and Design Program at OCAD University, where she received two scholarships and the 2016 Outstanding Exhibition award for her thesis Enclosure Movement: Comparative Dwelling and Embodiment (2016). She is a recipient of grant funding from Canada Council For The Arts (2020), and exhibits and delivers art talks internationally. She has been featured in Fibre Art Now Magazine (2021) and shows her work at The Craft Ontario Gallery and Shop.

Canadian ecosystems in Ontario, Quebec and coastal areas in Newfoundland are referenced in her work. These areas are the contemporary and ancestral territories of the Algonquin, Mississaugas of the New Credit, the Haudenosauee, Annishnaabe, Huron-Wendat, Mi’kmag and Beothuk Nations.

In August 2024, Laura Millard joined an invited group of artists and scientists to circumnavigate the Svalbard archipelago, sailing to the pack ice at 82 degrees north, through the Arctic Circle Alumni Residency. Grappling with imagery that reflects the dramatic effects of the climate crisis, Millard’s works depict retreating glaciers in Svalbard, the fastest-heating place on earth.

While the International Territory of Svalbard has never had an Indigenous population, it was settled for coal extraction in the early 1900s. This industry is now being replaced with tourism, further threatening ecological decline—more going in circles. Seeking ways to move landscape imagery beyond the sublime, the elegiac, and the grand, Millard’s work contends with the role visual art might play in our engagement with the climate crisis.

Laura Millard has exhibited in artist-run, commercial and public galleries across Canada and internationally; including Where Where Exhibition Space, Beijing, China, Doris McCarthy Gallery, University of Toronto, Glenbow Museum Calgary, Sookmyung Women’s University, Korea and St. Lawrence University Art Gallery, New York, the AGO in Toronto and she is a member of Red Head Gallery artist’s collective.An artist, writer and educator, Laura Millard is currently an Associate Professor at OCAD University. She received a BFA from NSCAD University Art in 1983 and her MFA from Concordia University in 1992. Millard has done several artists residencies including the Banff Centre, NSCAD University, Brucebo Studio in Sweden and Red Gate in Beijing, China, the Klondike Institute of Art and Culture in Dawson City and the Arctic Circle Residency,Svalbard Norway.

Stacey Sproule is a multi-disciplinary artist. Her work has included performance, painting, drawing, florals, video, audio, installation, and textiles, she is currently working primarily in traditional animation. Her practice explores questions of the numinous and investigates the place of ritualized acts and mystical practices in art-making. Her fascination is with the liminal, the ephemeral, and the magical, and the more-than-human. Her most recent work, Sojourn, is an animated short centred around Prince Edward County’s South Shore, a place of significant biodiversity as well as a high density flight path for migratory songbirds. The conservation of undeveloped lands is crucial to the overall health of this planet and all its inhabitants, and yet the rapid development of the County and Ontario at large are jeopardizing green space. Sojourn is a meditation on access to nature, land, and temporary stays.

Stacey holds a BFA from OCAD in Drawing and Painting, and has exhibited regionally across Ontario, including Forest City Gallery in London, 7a*11d International Performance Art Festival in Toronto, and the Art Gallery of Mississauga. She has attended residencies in Victoria (MAVN Layaway), Vermont (Vermont Studio Centre) and Prince Edward County (The Drake Devonshire). She has received funding from the Ontario Arts Council.

Victoria Taylor, landscape architect and principal of VTLA Studio based in Picton, practices as an explorer, investigator, grower, builder, and experimenter operating at the interface of built form and natural systems to make precise design moves. Combining artistic expression with functionality, public safety and infrastructural enhancement and using the materials of the trade, her work dives deep to reveal new and hidden potentials to bring each site to life. Victoria also explores design as a community engagement tool to bring meaning to the outdoor spaces we share. She is a volunteer member of the Natural Cover Working Group, a citizen group advising the Environmental Advisory Committee in their recommendations to Council regarding the conservation, preservation, stewardship and restoration of plants and wildlife habitat. Learn more at vtla.ca and @vtla_studio

Jaiya appreciates art’s capacity to connect people across place and time, its ability to inform, disrupt, comfort, to inspire. She returned to Toronto after living out west for 18 years, working as a sessional lecturer with the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD). Jaiya is currently writing her doctoral dissertation in art history and visual studies, focusing on portraiture in the spaces of cultural encounter between Italy and the Islamic world. Before embarking on this journey nearly six years ago, Jaiya worked as a writer, editor, and content producer for several organizations involved with the arts, design, and architecture.