Naomi Skwarna
Naomi Skwarna is a National Magazine Award-winning writer and artist. As a journalist, Naomi has written for The New York Times, Vulture, Hazlitt, The Walrus, The Globe and Mail, Toronto Life, The Believer, and others. Since 2019, Naomi has been producing slow fashion and soft sculpture under the name Casual Clowne.
Tala Kamea Berkes
Tala Kamea Berkes is an artist and maker who works most prominently with textile and sound as her media. She holds a Master of Arts in Fashion from Ryerson University. Tala works as a costume designer in film, as a fashion designer and stylist, and as a textile artist.
Rajni Perera
Rajni Perera was born in Sri Lanka in 1985 and lives and works in Toronto. She explores issues of hybridity, futurity, ancestorship, immigration identity/cultures, monsters and dream worlds. Her subversive aesthetic counteracts antiquated, oppressive discourse, and acts as a restorative force through which people can move outdated, repressive modes of being towards reclaiming their power.
Memory Work Collective
Memory Work Collective is a community of artists and writers. Concerned equally with the relational and the imaginary, the collective engages in the mutual recounting and reconstruction of lived experience to contemplate possible worlds. Their research-based practice creates material for meditation, critique, and new ways of living — negotiating ethical and moral imperatives across (past, […]
Valeroo
Aspiring socialite, Valeroo loves music, dancing, and events! Uhm,,, DJing seems like a fun way to take part, and maybe look cool? Hello. Hopefully a reputation for bringing energy and moving bodies will stick also? Hmm,,, from Toronto, insert reference name drops here: _____ lol… Soul, disco, house, techno, woowoo! Let’s go partying with Valeroo!!! […]
Sophie Jones
Specializing in bringing it to you every time, and ensuring the fun and flirtiest of feels, Sophie Jones is a prominent queer DJ who has graced stages at Osheaga, Pride Toronto and AGO Massive, to name a few. This genre non-conforming DJ prioritizes effervescent positivity to set the mood on the dance floor to ensure […]
DJ Karim Olen Ash
Karim Olen Ash is a Toronto born and raised DJ and multidisciplinary artist who has worked on numerous projects aimed at providing space for the BIPOC + LGBTQIA community. He is the co-creator of the Pep Rally raves alongside Chippy Nonstop. [Soundcloud] [Instagram]
Danah Rosales
Danah Rosales (She/Her/Siya) is a Tkaronto based queer millennial; second-generation Canadian-Filipinx; a daughter; a dawta; a sister; a sis; a cis; a mother of two little humans; a motha of a kiki house; and an artist in which her work encompasses teaching, collaborative and interdisciplinary choreography and performance. She is a graduate of the School […]
Double Happiness
Architects and educators Joyce Hwang and Nerea Feliz are the collective, Double Happiness. Based out of Buffalo, NY and Austin, TX respectively, their works seek to make visible the under-acknowledged world of the non-human, as active participants of urban life, by attracting and magnifying their presence in shared urban spaces. Joyce Hwang [Website: antsoftheprairie.com/] [Instagram: […]
Lisa Jackson
Toronto-based Lisa Jackson is an Anishinaabe filmmaker (Aamjiwnaang) whose documentary and fiction films and VR work have garnered two Canadian Screen Awards, been nominated for a Webby, broadcast widely, and screened at top festivals including Sundance, Tribeca, SXSW, Berlinale, and HotDocs. Indictment: The Crimes of Shelly Chartier won best doc at imagineNATIVE and is one […]
The Walk Productions
The Walk Productions is a not-for-profit company created to present very large scale participatory public art that tries to face some of the world’s biggest challenges by dreaming big and acting boldly. Through their work, they bring disparate communities together to celebrate art and each other, to rethink the world and to try to inspire […]
Red Pepper Spectacle Arts
Red Pepper Spectacle Arts was founded in 2002 to provide a multidisciplinary arts facility with diverse production capabilities. They design and facilitate small and large-scale engagements in a wide variety of media. Red Pepper is the producer of the Annual Kensington Market Winter Solstice, now in its 34th year.
Genesis Báez
Genesis Báez is an artist based in Brooklyn, NY. Born in Massachusetts, Báez grew up in both the Northeast U.S. and Puerto Rico. Working primarily with photography, her work considers how people relate to place, community, and imagination. Báez holds an MFA in photography from Yale University, and she has exhibited her work internationally. She […]
Alex Sheriff
Alex Sheriff is a Canadian artist. His work deals with recognizing, blurring and erasing the gap between natural and human history as a way to suggest new viewpoints and meaning in the time of the Anthropocene. He received a BFA from OCAD University, and an MFA from Parsons School for Design, The New School. His […]
Leeroy New
Leeroy New (b. 1986, General Santos City, Philippines) is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice overlaps and intersects with different creative industries: costuming, filmmaking, theatre, public installations, product design, and performance. This inclination to move across different modes of creative production has become the spine of his practice, driven by concepts of world building, hybrid myth-making, […]
Renee Castonguay (she/her)
Renee Castonguay is an arts and cultural programmer and artist passionate about community-building through collaboration, creative expression, and inclusive placemaking to foster vibrant public spaces. With a decade of experience producing community-engaged public art, studio art programs, and curatorial projects, her work is rooted in relationality and care, and championing representation and accessibility in the […]
Alice Moores-Rodgerson (she/her)
Alice Moores-Rodgerson (she/her) loves the writing, reporting, researching, and relationship-building that comes with her day-to-day as Associate, Fundraising & Partnerships. Her interest in the development sector is informed by her Bachelor of Arts degree in Geography and Sociology from McGill University and her previous work at the Toronto-based non-profit, Good Foot Delivery. She is excited […]
Celeste Davis Meledath (she/her)
Celeste is an engineer, explorer, and advocate of sustainability strategies across modern supply chains. She comes to The Bentway with a background in construction project engineering and her academia includes a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Post-Graduate certifications in Environmental Projects and Supply Chain Management. Her research work addresses innovations in city planning that can drive […]
Josh Harskamp (he/him)
Josh is a registered architect in the UK and the EU with experience delivering international cultural projects across a variety of scales. He holds a Diploma from the Architectural Association in London, where he lived and worked for 10 years prior to joining The Bentway. Josh’s primary focus as a professional has been the adaptive […]
Ann Bowman
Retiring as vice chair with RBC, Ann’s experience reflects a broad range of executive leadership roles over 25 years, including Head Private Banking Canada, VP/Head Strategy for Canadian Banking, Channel strategy, Technology transformation and Sales Strategy. In the earlier part of her career, she held a range of roles in Commercial and Corporate banking. Ann […]
Stephan Lamoureux (he/him)
Coming to the Bentway team from a background in landscaping and ice operations, and with a wealth of experience in customer service roles, Stephan likes the fact that no workday is ever the same in our park. He enjoys achieving ambitious tasks together with the small but mighty facilities team, as well as getting to […]
Tessa Chan (on parental leave)
Tessa Chan is an experienced arts administrator with a passion for building relationships within the community. In her role as Director, Finance & HR, she works to ensure programs and outdoor events at The Bentway are produced in the most cost-efficient manner without sacrificing artistic integrity. Tessa began her career at CIBC Mellon, where she […]
Anna Gallagher-Ross (she/her)
Anna Gallagher-Ross (she/her) is a curator and arts leader with 15 years of experience shaping transformative artistic experiences across public spaces, festivals, museums, and theatres in Toronto and internationally. From 2017–2021, Anna served as Co-Artistic Director & Curator of the acclaimed Fusebox Festival, presenting interdisciplinary artists from Austin, across the U.S., and around the world. […]
Jessie Farewell (on parental leave)
Jessie learned a long time ago that a paycheck, while essential, is not enough to motivate her to do her best work. She knew she needed to work for something greater than herself, something that contributes positively to her community and beyond. Combining this drive with a passion for writing and building relationships, she has […]