Maqmikew Ohnè:ka
Meagan Musseau is a Mi’kmaw woman, artist, and dancer from Elmastukwek, Ktaqmkuk territory (Bay of Islands, western Newfoundland). Meagan nourishes an interdisciplinary arts practice by working with customary art forms and new media, such as basketry, beadwork, land-based performance, video and installation. She is the recipient of numerous awards including the Sobey Art Award, longlist (2021); the Atlantic Canadian Emerging Artist, Hnatyshyn Foundation (2018); Emerging Artist Award, VANL-CARFAC (2018); Aboriginal Arts Development Award, First Peoples’ Cultural Council (2016). Meagan’s work exhibits nationally and internationally.
Lindsay Dawn Dobbin is a Kanien'kehá:ka - Acadian - Irish water protector, musician, artist, storyteller and lifelong learner who gratefully lives, listens and creates in Wabanaki Territory. Dobbin's relational and place-responsive practice is a living process that follows curiosity rather than form with the intent of understanding and kinship—the way of water. Their transdisciplinary work in sound art, percussion, performance, sculpture, pedagogy and writing places wonder, listening, collaboration, play and improvisation at the centre of creativity. Through exploring the connection between the environment and the body and engaging in a sensorial intimacy with land and waters, their practice aims to bring attention to the world as witness, teacher and collaborator in learning—making visible and audible our interdependence with the larger web of living beings and systems in which human life is embedded.
Omote (面)
Miya Turnbull (she/her) is a multi-disciplinary visual artist of mixed Japanese Canadian ancestry. She graduated from the University of Lethbridge (Alberta) with a BFA and has been based in Kjipuktuk (Halifax) for over 20 years. She works with many different mediums but is primarily a mask-maker, and new to her practice is performance. She focuses on Self-Portraits, using her Photo-Mask technique to make life-like representations of her face, often distorting and manipulating her image in various ways, which she then wears as a 'false face' or 'second skin'. She has exhibited her masks, photos, and video in galleries such as Acadia University Art Gallery (Wolfville), Gallery 101 (Ottawa), JCCC Gallery (Toronto), Kishka Gallery (US), Maximiliansforum (Germany) and The Beaney (UK). Miya has been very fortunate to receive the support of Arts N.S. and the Canada Council for the Arts, which has allowed her artwork to flourish.
Shion Skye Carter (she/they) is a dance artist originally from Tajimi, Japan, who lives and dedicates time to her artistic practice in Vancouver, Canada as a guest on the unceded, ancestral lands of the Coast Salish peoples. Through choreography hybridized with heritage art forms that interact with digital and sculptural objects, Shion’s work looks inward to the facets of her intersectional identity as a lens to process the world around her. As co-founder of interdisciplinary duo 'olive theory' with musician Stefan Nazarevich, she collaborates at the intersection between embodied performance, installation art, and live sound. Shion has performed in cities across Canada, and interpreted the works of prolific artists such as Vanessa Goodman (Action at a Distance), Wen Wei Dance, plastic orchid factory, and Ziyian Kwan (Dumb Instrument Dance). She holds a BFA from Simon Fraser University, and is the 2022 recipient of the Iris Garland Emerging Choreographer Award.
Du néant / From Nothingness
Jalianne Li is a multidisciplinary artist with a focus in dance. Of mixed Chinese and Scottish heritage, she is based in Moncton, NB, located on the traditional unceded territory of the Wolastoqiyik and Mi’kmaq Peoples. After obtaining her BSc, she studied dance at Trinity Laban and apprenticed with Springs Dance Company in London, UK. She founded surFace Dance in 2012 and has presented work in the UK, the Netherlands, and the Maritimes. Through her company, Li has specialized in screendance, site-specific work, and the integration of facial movement with the body. After filming 200 site-specific dance improvisations on Instagram, Li co-created her first dance film Zénith Zenith with filmmaker Chris LeBlanc in 2020 and has been making screendances ever since. She was nominated as a finalist in the category of Dance Artist of the Year for Les Prix Éloizes in 2018, 2020 and 2022.
Haqq Brice Adéoyé is from Benin and has been living in Acadia for more than 7 years. After completing his university studies in computer science, he became passionate about everything related to interpretation and results. He then took his first steps in his native Benin with the Éléganss agency, where he devoted himself to creative interpretations. Consequently, he decided to take acting classes at the Capitol Theater in Canada. He continued his studies at the Satellite Theater for three years. Amidst all his studies, he decided to teach himself photography and videography. He began with the idea of wanting to showcase his vision of fashion and now combines fashion, poetry, and emotion to tell stories. Today, he is a multidisciplinary artist whose art and creativity have enabled him to express his vision.
Cumulus
Sam Penner is an independent contemporary dance artist, currently living and working in Kjipuktuk/Halifax. After training at the School of Contemporary Dancers, she performed and worked extensively in Manitoba for many years, with Winnipeg’s Contemporary Dancers and Gearshifting Performance Works, working with choreographers such as Peggy Baker, Johanna Riley, Brent Lott, and Jolene Bailie. Her choreographic practice encompasses collaborative projects and partnerships for stage and screen, as well as community-based work. Recent creative highlights include: performing in Where Dance & Music Meet (2023) by Susanne Chui; leading Porifera 2.0, a community circle discussion of choreographic practice; and writing, directing, and performing in her first short film Cumulus (2022).
Scored by Time
Nicola Hawkins is a choreographer, visual artist and since 2019 a filmmaker. Her first film was screened on CBC Gem. She has since directed 8 short films including two that she also produced. Her films include one theatrical silent film, four music videos and a short experimental documentary. Five of her short films were made with DOP Duncan De Young including Scored by Time (2022) which had its world premier last year at Festival Internacional de Cine Silente México (Ganador) and its Canadian premier at Le FIFA 2023, Montreal. To date in 2003 her work has screened at 13 film festivals in Canada and beyond including four films at this year's Nickel. She is currently in post – production on a short documentary Ba Baa Shangri-La. The film charts the shepherding of sheep via a small boat to a small island near her home on the Avalon's Southern Shore.
The Web
Millefiore Clarkes is an award-winning filmmaker who dedicates herself to the craft and community of media arts in Epekwitk/Prince Edward Island.
Tanya Davis is an interdisciplinary artist based in rural Epekwitk/Prince Edward Island. She is P.E.I.'s current Poet Laureate.
Woodlight: Green Moss Meadow
Erin Donovan is a versatile multi-instrumentalist, composer and creator of interdisciplinary work as the Artistic Director of Hear Here Productions. Collaborations with Susanne Chui include a series of outdoor films entitled Woodlight (also with Mahone Bay-based poet Alice Burdick), Burnwater (East Dover, NS) Burnwater Alchemy (Ship’s Company Theatre, Alderney Landing and the Osprey Arts Centre) and Burnwater Arrival (Pier 21 Immigration Museum) and Becoming Old Growth (with poet Basma Kavanagh).
Susanne Chui became Co-Artistic Director of Mocean Dance in 2012, she is a central figure in Halifax’s contemporary dance community. With Mocean, Susanne has developed roles in works by Heidi Strauss, Serge Bennathan, Tedd Robinson, Lesandra Dodson and Claire French, and co-created Burnwater: Alchemy with Erin Donovan.
Alice Burdick (https://poetryinvoice.ca/read/poets/alice-burdick) lives in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia. She is the author of many chapbooks, pamphlets, folios and four full-length poetry collections. Alice's poetry has been described as playful, surreal and imagistic. Alice and Erin have collaborated on three films in the Woodlight series, live performances at the Sound Symposium (Trail Reports at the MUN Botanical Gardens), and Filament for Bridgewater's night festival Luminato.