Bios
Allyson Mitchell
Allyson Mitchell is a maximalist artist. Maximum politics. Maximum mediums. She works in sculpture, performance, installation, drawing, music and film. Her ongoing Deep Lez project has resulted in a coven of lesbian feminist sasquatches, a menstrual hut cinema, a performance troupe called Pretty Porky and Pissed Off and several short crafty animated autobiographical films and videos. She is an associate professor of Gender and Women’s Studies at York University in Toronto.
Recently Mitchell has collaborated with Deirdre Logue to present Killjoy's Kastle: A Lesbian Feminist Haunted House. This project was conceived as a way to subvert hell houses built by radical evangelical groups that aim to frighten “morals” into its visitors. The Kastle has been represented in Toronto (2013) London (2014) and Los Angeles (2015). Allyson and Deirdre also co-founded FAG (Feminist Art Gallery) in 2010. FAG is based in Toronto and also spins in satellite spaces internationally. In order to build community to grow sustainable feminist/queer art, FAG has enabled art exhibitions and provided opportunities for emerging and invisible artists. Mitchell is an Associate Professor in Sexuality Gender and Women’s Studies at York University.
Sean Martindale
Sean Martindale is an internationally recognized interdisciplinary artist and designer currently based in Toronto, Canada. His interventions activate public and semi-public spaces to encourage engagement, often focused on ecological and social issues. His playful works question and suggest alternate possibilities for existing spaces, infrastructures and materials found in urban environments. Frequently, Martindale uses salvaged goods and live plants in unexpected ways that prompt conversations and interaction.
Martindale’s projects have been featured on countless prominent sites online, as well as in traditional media such as print, radio, broadcast television and film. His practice has a global following and has been written about in countries all around the world, and in multiple languages. Martindale was profiled for the first episode of the CBC’s Great Minds of Design, one of his lectures was filmed by TVO for their Big Ideas series, and his work was also included in the feature-length documentary This Space Available, released in 2011.
Dana Prieto
Dana Prieto is an Argentine multidisciplinary artist, activist and educator based in Toronto. She is passionate about ordinary materials and processes that embody constitutional stories of her cultural, class and gender identity. In her work, she repurposes mundane objects such as cakes and cloths in order to create immersive installations that propose uncanny experiences.
Dana moved to Canada three years ago and since then has developed a strong commitment to learn from and work with Toronto’s diverse communities at the intersections of art and social practice. She is the founder and coordinator of Critical Soup, an OCAD University interdisciplinary art initiative that opens a space for dialogue about the politics of food. She has a BFA from OCAD University’s Drawing & Painting program and has participated in several award-winning community art projects, performances and exhibits in Toronto, Halifax, Buenos Aires, Rawson, Quito and Belize.
Brandon Hackett
Brandon is an alumnus of the Second City National Touring Company, the award-winning sketch collective The Sketchersons, and the Bob Curry Fellowship, through which he was selected to showcase in Chicago at the NBCUniversal & Second City Breakout Comedy Festival. Brandon’s TV credits include: writing and performing on This Hour Has 22 Minutes (CBC), and appearing on Odd Squad (PBS) and The Other Kingdom (DHX, Nickelodeon). You may have even heard him once or twice on CBC Radio’s Because News. In 2015 Brandon was named one of the Toronto Star’s “Entertainment Rookies of the Year.”