Since 2006, German artist Verena Stenke, and Venetian artist, writer, and curator Andrea Pagnes have been working together under the name of VestAndPage. Working with performance art, film, visual art, writing, and as independent curators, they have presented across Europe, Asia, and the Americas. Playing with themes of precariousness, transformation, liminality, and authenticity, their practice examines the fragility of the individual in private, social, and environmental spheres. VestAndPage strive to explore the capacity of human beings and give birth to places that don’t yet exist. Their performances are process-based, psychogeographic responses to architectures, environments, and historical sites. VestAndPage often collaborate with international theatre companies and humanitarian organizations in their productions and pedagogical work. They also teach workshops that focus on memory; awakening a person’s inner library for creative use.

Website

Participation

2013

Charlene Vickers is an Anishinaabe artist living and working in Vancouver, BC. Born in Kenora, ON, and raised in Toronto, Vickers’ art explores her ancestry through the mediums of painting, sculpture, performance and video, often exploring memory, healing and embodied connections to ancestral lands. Her work has been exhibited across Canada and the United States and can be seen in the permanent collection of the Museum of Anthropology (Vancouver). Trained as a painter, Vickers graduated from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design (1994), attained a BA from Simon Fraser University in Critical Studies of the Arts (1998), and holds an MFA from Simon Fraser University (2013). In 2025, Vickers made the Sobey Award Long List.

Website

Participation

2015

See Archive

Participation

2007

Daina Warren is from the Akamihk (Cree) Nation in Maskwacis (Bear Hills), AB. She has a BFA from the Emily Carr University of Art and Design (ECU, 2003) and an MA from University of British Columbia (2012). Daina was awarded the Emily Award from ECU (2015) and was selected as one of six Indigenous women curators to participate in the International First Nations Curators Exchange that took place in Australia (2015), New Zealand (2016), and Canada (2017). Daina has won the Hnatyshyn Foundation Award for Curatorial Excellency (2018) and the Manitoba Arts Award of Distinction (2022). Over the past twenty-five years, Daina has worked in programming roles at institutions such as grunt gallery, National Gallery of Canada, Urban Shaman Contemporary Aboriginal Art, and the Institute of American Indian Arts. She is currently Executive Director, Indigenous Initiatives at Emily Carr University.

Participation

2021

Weeks & Whitford make complex psychologically, emotionally and physically intense participatory durational performances involving evolving installations, specific soundscapes, and choreographies of interrelated actions and improvisations in response to context, site and audience. Liveness is central to their work which addresses many themes including alcoholism, childlessness, caring, ageing, disability, the grind of labour, love, sex, gender, jealousy, infidelity, sin and repentance, despair, hope, faith, ritual, healing and magic.

Website

Participation

2015

See SUKA OFF

Participation

2013

Lee Wen was Singaporean multimedia artist and a pioneer among a generation who defined and shaped performance art in Asia. Together with his peers, Lee shifted the foundations of academic art towards a more socially engaged practice that centred more ephemeral, time-based, and process-focused methods. Wen’s work was strongly motivated by social investigations as well as inner psychological directions using art to interrogate stereotypical perceptions of culture and society. Lee often worked collaboratively; in 1989 he joined The Artists Village (TAV) founded by Tang Da Wu, and was a part of the collective Black Market International for a number of years. He co-founded Future of Imagination Festival in 2003 and his artist-run space Independant Archive in 2012. Formerly named the Independent Archive & Resource Center, the institution consists of a reference library and a collection of archival material pertaining to art in Singapore and the neighbouring regions. Lee studied at City of London Polytechnic from 1990 to 1992, and finished his Master of Fine Arts at LASALLE in 2006. In 2005, he received the Cultural Medallion.

Participation

2009

Yasmine Whaley-Kalaora is an interdisciplinary artist who works as a writer and critic, as a studio assistant for Tom Burrows, and in archives for artists and artist-run organizations. Her practice encompasses video, experimental audio, performance, writing, sculpture, and curating CLAM—an intermittent series pairing short films with performance art, readings, and the occasional supper club. Yasmine has a Bachelors in Art History from the University of British Columbia (2021). Recent writings can be found in online and in print, including in The Capilano Review, ReIssue, Le Sigh, C Magazine and Momus. Yasmine lives and works between the unceded territories of the xwməθkwəy̓ əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples in Vancouver and the lands of the K’ómoks First Nation on Hornby Island, BC.

Website

Participation

2021

See DRIL

Participation

2011

Rachel White is an artist based in Vancouver, BC, the unceded traditional territory of the Indigenous Peoples of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Informed by an interest in polyvagal theory, Rachel’s art practice seeks to activate the theoretical “social engagement system” within herself and others, providing reprieve for systems overfamiliar with long-term trauma responses: fight, flight, and freeze. Committed to her focus on co-regulation, collaboration, and sustainable communities, Rachel makes works of art with fellow NSCAD University graduates Dylan McHugh, Ian Prentice, and Leisha O’Donohue under the name DRIL Art Collective.

Participation

2021

Iwan Wijono is an artist and activist born in Central Java, Indonesia. While studying international law in Jogjakarta, Wijono became active in the pro-democracy movement against the Suharto regime. He eventually enrolled in the ISI (Indonesian Art Institute), where he began looking for a practical form of art that would express his political ideals. His practice has spread from performance art activities in public to local and international art events, including: ASIATOPIA Performance Art Festival (Thailand, 1999, 2002, 2005, 2007), NIPAF / Nippon International Performance Art Festival (Japan, 1999, 2004, 2010), Novena Muestra Internacional de Performance (Mexico, 2000), Havana Biennale (Cuba, 2001), 7a*11d International Performance Art Festival (Canada, 2002), RIAP / Recountre Internacional Arte de Performance (Canada, 2004), In The Context Of Art–The Differences, (Poland, 2006), FOI / Future Of Imagination (Singapore, 2003), and PAN ASIA ’10 (Korea, 2010).

Participation

2007

Willem Wilhelmus is a performance artist and curator of experimental live art events. Born in the Netherlands, and living in Finland, Wilhelmus is active internationally. With a preference for using very simple materials, Willem’s work often focuses around themes of transcultural identities, seen in projects like the Fake Finn Festival, New Art Contact and Mother’s Tongue.

Website

Participation

2015

Sophia Wolfe is a queer, Japanese-Canadian independent artist, the Organizational Director of Recorded Movement Society, and the founder of F-O-R-M (Festival Of Recorded Movement).

Participation

2019

See Theatre Replacement

Participation

2007

Sakiko Yamaoka is a Japanese multimedia artist. She graduated from the Musashino Art University in 1984 as an oil painter, but in 1991, her interests turned to performance and drawing. Since the early ’90s her work has been presented at international festivals and events in Japan, Korea, Singapore, Poland, Germany, Ireland, Slovakia, Indonesia, Israel, Canada, and Thailand.

Website

Participation

2011

Lan “Florence” Yee (余承佳) is a visual artist and cultural worker based in Tkaronto/Toronto and Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang/Montréal. They collect text in underappreciated places and ferment it until it is too suspicious to ignore. Lan’s work has recently been exhibited at the Art Museum at The University of Toronto (2024), and the Textile Museum of Canada (Toronto, 2023-24), among others. They obtained a BFA from Concordia University and an MFA from OCAD University. They are a recipient of the William and Meredith Saunderson Prizes for Emerging Artists (2023). Lan writes and curates as a member of JIA Foundation.

Website

Participation

2023

Lin Yilin has been a key figure in the rise of the Chinese avant-garde since 1980s. His works were included in the 10th Biennale de Lyon (2009), Documenta 12 (2007), the 50th Venice Biennale (2003), Big Tail Elephant (Kunsthalle, Bern, Switzerland, 1998), Cities on the Move (Vereinigung bildender Künstler Wiener Secession, Austria, 1997) and China Avant-Garde (Haus der Kulture der Welt, Berlin, Germany, 1993). In 1990, Lin co-founded the legendary Big Tail Elephant, an art group that was later joined by other internationally acknowledged artists, such as Zheng Guogu and Hou Hanru, to provide an open space for artists to explore issues associated with urban development. He is known for utilizing hand built brick walls in installations and performances, exploring the relationship between sculpture and architecture, addressing the problems caused by the ongoing massive transformation and urbanization.

Website

Participation

2011