Andrew Donnelly:(https://andrewdonnelly.art/) To The Grave Andrew will create 4-5 sculptures that preserve abstract remnants of anonymous secrets through charcoal rubbing, image transfer, and resin-casting techniques. A true secret can be heavy or light, ordinary or extraordinary, fleeting or persistent, but it is always known only to one. It leaves traces through actions and words without ever fully revealing itself. The sculptures subvert the traditional notion of confession, acting as a fossilized record of personal interest and highlighting the quiet profundity inherent in the solitude that secrecy affords. Aniqah Rahman:(https://www.instagram.com/byaniqahrahman) Textile Collage Zine Aniqah will fabricate an eight-“paged” hand-sewn zine out of linen and cotton to explore materiality, intimacy, and friendship. This zine is a means of honouring processes of making art and being-in-relationship that prioritize taking one’s time, putting in the extra effort, and the deliberate pursuit of inconvenience in a culture that increasingly isolates us by devouring our time with work, consumerism, and oppression. llfatoull:(https://www.instagram.com/llfatoull/) The Living Frame llfatoull will create a 3D-printed lightbox where animated light creates a living presence, making the frame a portal. Animations will play like pulsing patterns that look like something is trying to reach out to the viewer. The piece explores the realms of whimsy, mystery, and the unknown, and the audience is encouraged to come up with their own idea of what the story could be of the animation sequences. Ghislan Sutherland-Timm:(https://www.ghislan.com/) of another kind Ghislan will make a 5-minute short film following the POV of a space rover surveying black, ambiguous “aliens” on an uncharted planet. Shot on analog film, the project incorporates the process of burning and scanning film to create a constellation-like aesthetic that overlaps and transforms the recorded visuals. The project reflects on how the depiction of aliens in sci-fi draws on Black experiences and cultures, including the Atlantic slave-trade and colonization, to reimagine narratives of prejudice, xenophobia, and cultural identities. Janine Ilya:(https://www.instagram.com/janine.ilya/?hl=en) perhaps, in the midst of my rest. Janine will develop a large-scale, multi-layered installation that weaves together textiles, light, and shadow to explore themes of grief, hope, recovery, and the evolving contours of identity. The work gives form to the quiet, internal practice of hope—allowing light to press through the obscure moments that accompany healing and loss. Rather than concealing these experiences, the installation acknowledges their weight and complexity, offering them space to exist not as fragments or broken remnants, but as integral layers of the self. KIVRA:(https://kivramusic.com/) Mindscape: The Introduction KIVRA will record 5-6 alternative R&B songs exploring themes of self discovery, intimacy, and escapism through melody, lyrics, and atmospheric production. Songs will investigate the tension between vulnerability and strength, love, transformation, and self discovery that reflects the artist and her journey of growth as an artist and woman, and will result in a cohesive body of work that feels intimate and otherworldly. Lensoflicia:(https://www.instagram.com/lensoflicia) A TDot Throwback: Basement Jams Alicia will create a photoshoot celebrating early 2000’s Toronto dancehall culture, inspired by Sean Paul’s Get Busy, capturing the energy, style, and community that defined a generation. Through staged photoshoots and portraits, the project will highlight the rhythm, fashion, and attitude that shaped this era, emphasizing how music and style forms identity and belonging within the city’s Caribbean diaspora. The work explores themes of cultural memory, nostalgia, and the long-lasting influence of early 2000s dancehall on Toronto’s music and fashion today. Midyan Samson:(https://www.instagram.com/midyansamson/) Ajokhi  Midyan will produce five family portraits in traditional Eritrean attire, along with brief video interviews and b-roll. The project reflects on ajokhi, a Tigrinya expression of calm and encouragement with no direct English translation, but similar to “don’t worry” or “you’ve got this.” The intention is to highlight moments of connection, resilience, and familiarity within the Eritrean community. Mio Muyoboke:(https://readymag.website/u3015637474/miomuyoboke/) Mio Needs A Win Mio will write and illustrate an autobiographical 20 page comic about being in your mid-20’s with no drive, exploring themes of finding yourself, transitioning in life, and community. This comic asks what is drive? In your mid 20s, what should I be doing? Who am I actually? What do you do to explore these questions to get an answer IF you get one? The finished comic, while not giving any concrete answer, is going to do one thing: show that yes, someone else feels this way too. Mirza Sarhan:(https://www.instagram.com/mirzasarhan) mohsin Mirza will shoot a 5-minute experimental short film exploring how friendship evolves under shifting political and ideological pressures, incorporating Shakespearean language and poetic storytelling. Set largely in a tea shop, the film follows two friends as they reunite against India’s rising right-wing climate, reflecting the tension between loyalty, identity, and morality. Inspired by Malcolm in Macbeth, the protagonist returns from Canada to a changed homeland, confronting both his past and the challenges of displacement. Myuri Srikugan:(https://www.instagram.com/myuri.s?igsh=bHMzb3BxdXlzNzd6&utm_source=qr) A fleeting moment held close Myuri will shoot a portrait series of Tamil women in Scarborough, captured through analog film and digital photography, exploring the beauty of a self-loving diaspora. The portraits will embody duality: memory and modernity, fragility and strength, home and displacement, and the project asks: How do Tamil women carry love across borders (for both themselves and others)? How is beauty expressed in care, memory, and resilience? What does it mean to create home in Scarborough while living in diaspora? Nia O:(https://www.nia-o.com/) UnDoings Nia will compose an environmental ambient soundscape collection that explores climate anxiety, mindfulness, and the reclamation of African ancestral wisdom. Each track will involve a layered combination of environmental sounds, instrumental elements, and guided meditation. Themes include reconnecting with ancestors, lineage and going deeper into the interconnectedness of nature and precious human life. The intention is to weave ecological, ancestral and mindful presence into each soundscape, creating a place for home to be rediscovered in the sounds and within. Nina Bloom:(https://ninabloommmmmmm.weebly.com/) Worst Case Scenario Nina will record a five-track indie rock EP about experiencing life in your 20s during a time of instability and uncertainty, and the loss of hope in a better tomorrow. Through the use of intricate melodies, interesting instrumental parts, clever key changes, and various arrangements, the EP will approach themes like the lack of community in our generation and how the decisions of past generations have affected our lives, in addition to talking about feeling powerless when it comes to universal/ systemic injustices.  ROSHANAK:(https://www.instagram.com/roshanakmusic_) Dollhouse Diaries ROSHANAK will record an original four-song dark pop EP that explores themes of mental health, survival, resilience, and identity through lived experiences as a queer Iranian woman and autistic artist. Musically, the EP blends dark pop, indie pop, and jazz pop influences, creating a cinematic sound world that feels like stepping into a music-box: haunting, layered, and theatrical. The EP is both a testimony to both what the artist has endured, and an invitation for listeners, especially young people, to feel seen in their own struggles. Rubiat Fusigboye:(https://www.rubiatfusigboye.xyz/home-creative-technology) Out of Orbit Rubiat will fabricate two multimedia sculptures using physical computing to explore how emotions and control shape our experiences of time through interactive, abstract clocks.  Inspired by personal feelings of time’s instability, from moments of grief dragging endlessly to joyful moments that vanish in an instant, the work explores cultural differences in perceptions of time as linear or fluid. By merging art and technology, this project seeks to illustrate time as a living, unpredictable experience shaped by bodies, feelings, and cultural insight. Trey Robinson:(https://www.instagram.com/trevauntheartist/) SURROUNDED Trey will create a large-scale visual art piece deeply rooted in Ojibwe culture. The vision behind this piece is to celebrate Indigenous artistry while fostering a connection between adversity, community, and resilience, reflecting themes of identity, heritage, and the interconnectedness of all that the artist has had to overcome. By merging vibrant acrylics, professional graffiti paint, markers, and spray paint, the painting will embody a contemporary twist while honoring ancestral techniques, sparking conversations about the evolution of Indigenous art in today’s world. We were also able to invest in the artistic development the following artists: • Berhano (https://www.berhano.com/)- a photographer and filmmaker • Calypso (https://www.instagram.com/maria.guard?igsh=dnVobTc0cGVmbnFn&utm_source=qr)- a spoken word and multidisciplinary artist • celinee (https://www.instagram.com/mf.celine/)- a musician • Kari (https://karigachugu.com/)- a filmmaker and product designer • Maryam Mohamed (https://www.instagram.com/maryammohamedart/)- a visual artist and dressmaker • Waawaasmokwe (https://www.instagram.com/waawaasmokwe/?hl=en)- a singer and songwriter

Ace Kazkayasi:(https://www.instagram.com/acekazkayasi/) Acceptance Ace will produce Acceptance, a 5-minute short film that will explore the emotional and psychological challenges faced by a man with Bipolar I as he navigates love, shame, and the impact of living with Bipolar 1 in society. The story follows a man who, after falling for a coworker, feels pressured to hide his diagnosis to appear "normal”. Cave Pearls:(https://www.instagram.com/cave_pearls/?hl=en) Forgotten Icarus Cave Pearls will explore disenfranchised grief by re-imagining the story of Icarus through the construction of wings and a bronze breastplate. The costume will then be fully realized in a photographed self-portrait series. Jasmine Yiweza:(https://www.instagram.com/jasmineyiweza/) Un Petit Bout Jasmine will write and direct Un Petit Bout, a 5-minute short film that invites viewers to sit in on a conversation between a daughter and her mother. Set during the final stretch of a long drive to the airport that will see the daughter leave for university, the film will make a private conversation public, intimately exploring relationship dynamics, cultural influence, and generational patterns. Kinu Patel:(https://www.instagram.com/queerbrownnaturalist) Dos Energías Kinu will produce Dos Energías: an autobiographical short film scraping together vlogging footage & field notes, as windows into the artist’s life, gathered on their second solo backpacking trip through Central America. The film aims to serve as a practical resource for transmasculine folks to more confidently travel abroad, in the tropics. It also offers personal reflections, from weathering unforeseen storms in solitude, to tensely navigating border control & diffusing awkward-at best bathroom debacles, ultimately challenging the concept of “transitioning” on a physical, social & spiritual basis. Maryam Mohamed:(https://www.instagram.com/maryammohamedart) Labour Labour Labour Maryam will create Labour Labour Labour, an artistic work taking the form of a dress and apron that can be both worn and also shown as a sculpture or performance piece. The project intends to make a commentary on gender roles in Indo-Guyanese culture, specifically with regard to women in the domestic sphere. The title repeats to reference domestic labour, paid labour, and childbirth. Melly Davidson:(https://mellypoetry.com/) CLOSE ONE! Melly will create CLOSE ONE!, a queer poetic investigation of scars as a counter-archive, as a memory map, as the anti-icloud. Merging interviews, poetics, collaging, and photo-documentation, this multi-modal zine explores queer storytelling and identity in relation to the body, time, and memory. Priscilla Williams:(https://www.instagram.com/goodlooksartistry) Inner Landscapes: A Winter Exploration Priscilla will craft Inner Landscapes: A Winter Exploration, a collection featuring three large, bold sterling silver jewellery pieces each inspired by the textures, forms, and feelings evoked during winter. Through this project, they will delve into how the cold season, with its lack of sun and dormant landscape, impacts both the external world and our inner lives. Middle:(https://www.instagram.com/middlemadeit/) Bring Me to My Knees Middle will self-record and produce Bring Me to My Knees, an audio exposure-therapy exploration that observes the emotional landscape of emerging from isolation. The track is a direct confrontation of social anxiety and self-doubt, and will blend genres, drawing from the artist’s Caribbean roots and love of experimental soundscapes. Shulamit Sappire:(https://shullyspace.my.canva.site/) a year(ish) in grief Shully will create a year(ish) in grief, a zine combining visual and written content reflecting on the artist’s journey following the loss of their father. The project will explore the messiness of grief, mourning in distance, and the complexities of a family death, serving as a creative outlet to process emotions and foster a sense of connection with others who have faced similar losses. Steffi Ng:(https://www.instagram.com/steffitung) Letters Home 回家 Steffi will create Letters Home 回家, a series of digital self-portraits capturing the artist moving through an installation of photos printed on large organza panels of family and landscapes from the artist’s life in Hong Kong. The project will explore newcomers’ evolving recollections of homeland and kinships with long-distance family and friends. Tiara Chutkhan:(https://www.instagram.com/bookwormbabee/) A New Home for Sumintra: A Story of Caribbean Indenture Tiara will write A New Home for Sumintra, a 20-page children’s book that introduces the concept of Caribbean indenture to young readers. The illustrated book follows Sumintra, a young girl whose family decides to leave their life behind in rural India for what they hope will be a better life in the Caribbean. X Ali Khan:(https://www.instagram.com/x.alikhan9) Patience I X Ali Khan will create Patience I, a piece about learning that what is meant to happen will happen, and always in its own time. That we cannot sidestep our way to healing. A piece that teaches the artist about acceptance and love in the face of disability and housing/welfare violence. Patience I is comprised of 3 pieces of furniture that have travelled with the artist through 9 moves across 3 provinces in 4 years. The furniture will be reclaimed via paint and collage and recreated into a 3D mixed media art installation. Yahn Nemirovsky:(https://www.yahnemirovsky.com/) Forms of Devotional Ephemera from Outer Space Yahn will develop Forms of Devotional Ephemera from Outer Space, a 2-minute stop motion animation film featuring handmade 2D paper and textile figures. Capturing a spirit of devotion to that which is temporal and transient, these abstract forms, accompanied by fragmented stitched text, will be pictured in movement and change—billowing, expanding, shrivelling, interacting, and disappearing. We were also able to invest in the artistic development the following artists: • Abdu Aljahma (https://www.instagram.com/abdualjahma/)- a photographer, filmmaker, and zine-creator • Angel Time (https://www.instagram.com/wontbehereforever)- a photographer and multidisciplinary artist • Fatima Mohamed (https://www.instagram.com/llfatoull)- a VFX artist, visual artist, and YouTube content creator • Karen Cheung - a zinemaker, visual artist, and multidisciplinary creator • Shyla Gray (https://www.instagram.com/shylagray_/)- a singer and songwriter

Ace Kazkayasi:(https://www.directedbyace.com/) Breath Ace will produce "Breath", an impactful 3-minute experimental short film which seeks to shed light on the often-hidden struggles of abuse survivors. The project's primary motivation is to challenge common misconceptions about abuse and its survivors while humanizing their experiences. Bisma Jay:(https://www.bismajay.ca/) Stolen Suppers Bisma will create a photography series exploring the impact of rising food costs, which forces many people to steal basic food items. They will gather anonymous testimonials from youth who have been caught shoplifting, and shoot a series of five photographs capturing the youths’ stolen food items. Damon Couto-Hill:(https://www.instagram.com/damond.liver) Unfolding Damon will produce a series of 3-4 life-sized portraits painted on folded and sewn canvas to interrogate colonial imaginations of ideal and grotesque bodies. He will use photography, digital collage, and other collage methodologies to satirize the emergence of white supremacist, patriarchal, ableist ideologies from Western collective consciousness. Jasmine Yiweza:(https://www.instagram.com/jasmineyiweza/) Kiss Your Friends on the Mouth Jasmine will produce a short documentary as a love letter to friendship. The film will be a collection of interviews, camcorder footage, and archival materials exploring the excitement that comes from knowing others and being known- choosing to give them your time and energy and knowing that they have chosen you back. Lilah Hill:(https://www.instagram.com/sentient.pansy) Community Care is Punk Lilah will create a zine that acts as a love letter to the disabled community, who have continued to show each other care and compassion throughout the ongoing pandemic, even in the face of government abandonment. It will explore the idea of care as a radical act of resistance, celebrate those who are already participating, and encourage those who aren't to join in. Marcella Driver-Moliner:(https://marcellamoliner.myportfolio.com/) Critter Persona Marcella will create a 60-second computer-generated animation (CGI) that employs satire and metaphor to depict a world inhabited by insects to explore the themes related to the convoluted search to represent and honour identities. Miracle Trigger: Project Sparky Miracle Trigger will develop “Project: Sparky," an engaging 2.5D, turn-based digital RPG game. "Project: Sparky" unfolds a captivating journey in the digital gaming world, emphasizing storytelling and stunning visuals. Nailah Renuka:(https://nailahrenuka.com/) Threadbare Nailah will create a contemporary aerial hoop act that explores the delicate balance performers face between pursuing technical perfection and expressing their authentic, vulnerable artistic voice. Threadbare aims to lead the audience through an artist's journey as they navigate their way into the powerful embrace of vulnerability and learn to celebrate the beauty found in imperfection, urging the audience to reflect on their own relationship with authenticity Niya Ahmed Abdullahi:(https://www.instagram.com/intenti0) Sabti Yaam Niya will create a single channel video and projection, short diasporic film that will take viewers into the world of a young girl from Scarborough with roots in Harar. Set during a found-family get together over boon (coffee), the film emphasizes how these gatherings keep us grounded and allow us to remember what is important. noonjeem: Orchids Are Blooming! noonjeem will create a 4-song EP called Orchids Are Blooming! The EP will be approached from a techno-spiritual lens, weaving together sound synthesis, field recordings and the human voice to unearth the sacred and the profane in the everyday. Phoenyx:(https://www.instagram.com/phoenyxreads) A Rose Is Still a Rose Phoenyx will deliver a mixed-media zine project exploring how Black women and femmes experience desirability. Through short-form essay, interviews, and digital collage, the zine will explore how Black women and femmes, LGBTQIA+ and heterosexual alike, seek out their physical and emotional pleasure in this landscape. Sun:(https://www.instagram.com/lilsun.draws) Nama Ooru Thai Pongal Sun will create and present large-scale paintings surrounding themes around Thai Pongal, a celebration of the harvest and the beginning of the month of Thai, the first month in the Tamil Solar calendar, and a time to show gratitude for the land, for nature, and for community. The paintings will explore reflections on the relationship with the ritual as a 1.5 generation Tamil Immigrant. Wura Sol:(https://www.instagram.com/wurababyy) New Year, New Sound Wura will write, record, produce, mix, and master new music to be released in Spring 2024. Through meticulous writing and an improved sound, Wura’s goal is to write and release quality music with an elevated sound. We were also able to invest in the artistic development the following artists: • Bhuchung Kata-(https://www.instagram.com/bhuchungkata) a storyteller and filmmaker that shares Tibetan stories • Dizzy Ricamara-(https://www.instagram.com/directordizzydinero/) a filmmaker, creative director, and founder of Friends from the Endz • Hyunsun Park-(https://www.hyunsunillust.com/) a emerging illustrator and painter specializing in gouache • jefferydraws-(https://www.jefferydraws.ca/) a multimedia 2D animator and storyboard artist • kiwimii-(https://vincylim.format.com/) a multidisciplinary artist, cartoonist, illustrator, and workshop programmer • Maryam Mohamed-(https://www.instagram.com/maryammohamedart) a textile artist and dressmaker who explores Indo-Guyanese themes • Meïdy Grégoire-(https://www.instagram.com/momatedad/) an art director, producer, and curator • Veeda Tanwir-(https://www.instagram.com/veedazzzz/) a textile artist and visual artist who explores her Tajik and Afghan roots • Yunguava-(https://www.instagram.com/yunguava/) a weaver, performance artist, costume designer, stylist, and creative director