We would like to thank Yukon University for their support of the Northern Fellowship 2021 and Xrtist Link-Up programs, as well as and our IBPOC Fellowship community partner Creative Lab North Society. Partnering to promote these programs and helping to ensure the participants have access to resources needed to take full advantage of these programs.
K.P Dennis a Black, Arawak, non-binary, multi-disciplinary artist, director, producer, and activist based on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. They were the 2016 Youth Poet Laureate of Victoria, the 2017 recipient of the VACCS Community recognition Award, and in 2020 they received the Witness Legacy Award for Social Purpose and Responsibility Through Art. Their work explores future building through a queer afro-surrealist lens, using magic and fantasy to explore what we will have to do and who we have to become, to liberate our futures.
Raven John, artist, involuntary comedian and two-spirit activist, is of Coast Salish and Stolo Nation decent. This Two-spirit Trickster is a BFA graduate from Emily Carr University of Art and Design, with a major in visual art and minor in social practice and community engagement, as well as a graduate of the North West Coast Jewelry Arts program at the Native Education College. Raven is a visual artist, cultural consultant, mediator, storyteller, photographer and sculptor. A jack-of-all-trades (and master of a few), their practice covers a wide array of mediums from provocation and humor, puppet making, ceramics, dressmaking, interactive electronics and indigenous technologies. Should you wish to participate in direct action regarding Truth and Reconciliation and/or the ongoing colonization/genocide of the indigenous peoples of Canada, feel free to visit their following website to directly wire them money for coffee, comic books and/or art supplies. www.ravenjohn.com
Racquel Rowe is an interdisciplinary artist from the island of Barbados currently living and working in Sackville, New Brunswick. Her work takes the form of video, performance and public intervention. Throughout all her video’s colour is formally and symbolically employed, reminiscent of the vast Caribbean landscapes. Rowe’s research process often starts with an action or experiment. Action and then causation are a common method for working through concepts for her; essentially working backwards. After a performance, rather than before she finds herself uncovering deep rooted memories of home that become stronger the more a performance is repeated.
Lorena Torres Loaiza was born in Bogota, Colombia, and grew up in Canada. She works in comics, illustration, theatre design, and fiction. All her work has a quirky visual style and some fantasy elements. She’s interested in flawed characters solving problems, and hope as an active process.
Lorena has a Creative Writing certificate from the University of Toronto. Several of her short stories have been published in Syntax and Salt, AntipodeanSF, POMEgranate magazine, and the Toronto Comics: Yonge at Heart and Wayward Sisters comic anthologies. She has recently developed a comics-based art installation, with the support of the Theatre Centre exploration residency and the 2021 CAMINOS theatre festival. She can be found @lszian on Instagram and Twitter.
From Northern Alberta Shaun has been an artist for 27 years from Film to a professional musician and now recently Shaun has delved into the world of Virtual Reality designing worlds in Altspace and has experience with Blender. Shaun is working on a project involved with University of Frasier Valley Called & (WAMP) Western Arctic Moving Pictures named “Forum Theatre” a program to fight oppression through movement.
As a descendant of the Tagish nation and having been immersed in the IT industry for 10 years, Joseph William Hays has had a close relationship with culture and technology. In 2021, Joseph was given the opportunity to join Outpost 31, an ambitious young production company aiming to be the first animation studio based in the Yukon.
Joseph aspires to bring tools and solutions to the extended reality space that help communities come together today for our children tomorrow. Joseph sees a future where communities across the nation can leverage XR tech to collaborate in teaching cultural practices.
With the time he spends in physical reality, Joseph can be found tinkering with machines, riding motorcycles with his family or likely hanging out with the nearest dog (though his best friend Tuk, usually takes priority, don’t tell the other dogs!)
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