Nadine Abdellatif (Deenz) is a multidisciplinary artist of Egyptian-Palestinian origins, currently based in Montreal. Her experiences growing up in the Middle East have shaped her as she strives to explore, critique, and tell stories of her past and cultural environment. Her work is invested in politics and representations of Arab culture and history. Through lens based and mixed media practices, she explores themes of home, displacement, politics, and the experience of womanhood in the Middle East by experimenting with portraiture and the body in relation to its surroundings.

Alice Cloutier-Lachance is a Montreal based photographer, interested in the notion of space and its influence on individuals, as well as the cohabitation of humans with their environment, particularly in remote regions of Quebec. She participated in a research-creation residency at Caravansérail artist centre in collaboration with the Darling Foundry. After graduating in photography from Concordia University (2023), she continues her photographic projects in Quebec’s regions. She’s currently working on her exhibition Récits de Traverses, which will be presented at Galerie 2112 in Montreal, in May 2024. She is currently participating in a research-creation residency at the Post Image Cluster, part of the Milieux Institute at Concordia University.

Oliver Hardinge’s work explores the medium of photography as a preservation tool, history creator, and a window into his own introspection. Through the documentation of his private life and working with family archives and artifacts, he investigates the notion of conservancy of the family and acts to preserve history, and to compose it into an autobiographical-photographic story. His work is saturated with color, contrasted, long exposed, and flashed. He uses archival documents, images, and his own photography to piece together a rich and complex legacy to leave behind.

Akiva Shannon’s familial history is the central focus of his research based approach to image making and visual story telling. He studies themes of displacement, identity politics, immigration, and intergenerational trauma through an examination of archival material relating to his grandfather’s survival of the Holocaust. Shannon’s recent work is concerned with investigating systems of power, utilizing archives to visually suggest an intended meaning and explore the discourse that occurs when that meaning becomes challenged.

Désirée Rochat is a community educator and transdisciplinary scholar. She holds a PhD in Educational Studies from the Department of Integrated Studies in Education at McGill University. Guided by an integrative approach connecting historical research, community archival preservation and education, her work aims to document, preserve, theorize and transmit (hi)stories of Black communities’ activism. Interested in the educational potential of stories and histories of community organizing, she has produced popular education material on the history of Caribbean communities in Quebec and is involved in various initiatives for the preservation and promotion of Black community archives. She was the Concordia University Library’s Researcher-in-residence for 2021-2022 and is now a postdoctoral fellow with COHDS and the Department of History at Concordia University.

Charles Ellison arrived in Montreal in 1975, emerging as a leading figure in music education and performance. Ellison served as Coordinator of Jazz Studies in the Department of Music at Concordia University where he is currently Associate Professor. His teaching, covering jazz improvisation, composition, and ensemble performance, earned him the Concordia Alumni Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1995. Recognized as a distinguished trumpeter and composer in Canada and the United States, Ellison has collaborated with notable artists and organizations, including Cannonball Adderley and the Montreal Symphony. Maintaining a balance between creativity and academia, Ellison leads musical groups like Positive Vibrations and Pipes, alongside directing brass and woodwind choirs. Ellison’s diverse contributions continue to shape the jazz community significantly in Montreal and internationally.