Biographies

Featured Artist: Jo + Petros

Jo Dahlbäck is a theatre maker, scenographer and costume designer based in Stockholm/Berlin, working in theatre and performing arts. Their practice is rooted in queer methodologies and collective processes, exploring how performance can challenge power structures and social norms. They are particularly interested in challenging normative understandings of time by proposing ecological and queer temporalities.

Petros Mandalos is a theatre-maker, writer, and interdisciplinary artist whose work unfolds through queer perspectives on performance, memory, and resistance. Moving between theatre, visual storytelling, and installation, he creates hybrid forms that expose the cracks between the private and the political.

Featured Artist: Lou Sheppard

Lou Sheppard works in interdisciplinary audio, performance and installation based practices. He has performed and exhibited across Canada, notably at The Art Gallery of York University, The Confederation Centre for the Arts, and at Plug-In ICA, and as part of the first Toronto Biennial, as well as internationally, at Kumu Kunstimuuseum in Estonia, in the Antarctic Biennial, and at Titanik Gallery in Finland. Lou has participated in numerous residencies, including the International Studio Curatorial Program in Brooklyn, NY., La Cité des Arts in Paris, and as participant and faculty at The Banff Centre. He has been longlisted for the Sobey Art Award in 2018, 2020 and 2021, and was the winner of the Emerging Atlantic Artist Award in 2017. Lou is a settler on the traditional and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq in Mi’kma’ki/Nova Scotia.

Featured Artist: Dorian Wood

Dorian Wood (b. 1975, pronouns: she/her/they/them) is an anti-disciplinary artist based in the U.S., whose practice seeks to “infect” spaces and ideologies in order to challenge traditions and systems of marginalization. Her performances, films and visual works have been presented worldwide, including at The Broad (Los Angeles), Museo Nacional Del Prado (Madrid), Teatro de la Ciudad Esperanza Iris (Mexico City), Museum Folkwang (Essen), and Paris Fashion Week. From 2019–2020, Wood toured internationally with XAVELA LUX AETERNA, a chamber orchestra tribute to Chavela Vargas. Subsequent works include LHASA (2022), a project honoring Lhasa De Sela; Mares Ocultos (2022), a compositional series centering on deconstructing male heterosexuality; Canto de Todes (2023), a touring 12-hour composition/installation; and a 2024 tour interpreting Sinéad O’Connor’s I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got for voice and piano. Wood is a recipient of awards that include an FCA Grants for Artists Award, a Creative Capital Award, a NALAC Fund for the Arts Grant, a COLA Individual Master Artist Project Grant, an LA County Performing Arts Recovery Grant, a Hildegard Commission Honorable Mention Award and an Art Matters Foundation Grant. Wood has also held residencies at MacDowell, Loghaven, Bemis Center, BOFFO, MASS Gallery and Building Bridges. She has released over a dozen recordings. An album version of her 12-hour composition Canto de Todes is scheduled for release in Spring 2026.

Featured Artist: Léuli Eshrāghi

Léuli Eshrāghi belongs to the Sāmoan clans Seumanutafa and Tautua, and the Persian diaspora, and lives and works in Montréal, Québec, Canada. Through their approach they prioritize Indigenous, Black and Asian sensual and spoken languages as well as artistic, ceremonial and political practices. Eshrāghi has presented major works at Tate Modern, Cinéma Moderne, the Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Frac des Pays de la Loire, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Galerie de l’Université de Montréal, and Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, among others. They have notably exhibited as part of the biennials, The National 4: Australian Art Now (2023), MOMENTA Biennale de l’image: Sensing Nature (2021), 22nd Biennale of Sydney: NIRIN (2020), and Sharjah Biennial 14: Leaving the Echo Chamber (2019). Their work is held in the Royal Bank of Canada and Fonds régional d’art contemporain collections, and in private collections in Canada, Australia, and Norfolk Island.

Featured Artist: Theo Cuthand

Theo Cuthand was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, in 1978, and grew up in Saskatoon. Since 1995 he has been making short experimental narrative videos and films about sexuality, madness, Queer identity and love, and Indigeneity, which have screened in festivals internationally, including the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City, Mix Brasil Festival of Sexual Diversity in Sao Paolo, ImagineNATIVE in Toronto, Ann Arbour Film Festival, Images in Toronto, Berlinale in Berlin, New York Film Festival, Outfest, and European Media Art Festival in Osnabrück. His work has also exhibited at galleries including the Remai in Saskatoon, The National Gallery in Ottawa, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, MoMA in New York, and The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. He completed his Bachelor of Fine Arts majoring in Film and Video at Emily Carr University of Art and Design in 2005, and his Masters of Arts in Media Production at Toronto Metropolitan University in 2015. He has made commissioned work for Urban Shaman and Videopool in Winnipeg, Cinema Politica in Montreal, VIMAF in Vancouver, and Bawaadan Collective in Canada. In 2020 he completed working on a 2D video game called A Bipolar Journey based on his experience learning and dealing with his bipolar disorder. In 2023 he finished his second video game Carmilla the Lonely, a lesbian vampire game about ethics. He was the Indigenous Artist in Residence at University of Western Ontario for 2024-2025 where he began work on a video game called Repatriate Me. He has also written three feature screenplays and has performed at Live at The End Of The Century in Vancouver, Queer City Cinema’s Performatorium in Regina, and 7a*11d in Toronto. He is a Whitney Biennial 2019 artist. He recently shot a short drama called POOR. He is the Queer/Trans Artist In Residence at the Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity at the University of Toronto where his current project is a documentary trilogy called Unsettled Climate, about transgender people who have been displaced or had to move because of climate change related disasters. He is a trans man who uses he/him pronouns. Cuthand is of Plains Cree and Scots descent, a member of Little Pine First Nation, and currently resides in Toronto, Canada.

Workshop Facilitator: Elian Mikkola

Elian Mikkola is a Finnish Moving Image Artist (of Karelian descent), currently based between Montréal (Tiohtià:ke) and Treaty 4, Saskatchewan, Canada. Mikkola is interested in the enigmatic areas between movement and light. Their work constantly transitions between different mediums, exploring themes such as trans futurism, counter-archiving, and spatial dependencies. Mikkola’s current interest lies in cross-disciplinary listening and collaboration. They have attended several artist residencies internationally and, over the past decade, showcased their performance and moving-image work at festivals including International Film Festival Rotterdam, Oberhausen, Queer City Cinema and the BFI London Film Festival. Mikkola has conducted extensive research on eco-processed film since 2017. They have taught ecoprocessing by facilitating workshops with arts and community organizations and academic settings in Canada and Europe.