Airs artists 2025/26

Mishel is a mixed media artist with a BFA from KPU. Mishel is the co-curator

with APTPOP and runs Arrieta Art Studio in New West. She primarily focuses on teaching and curating art. In her personal practice she uses abstract methods to create engaging paintings and installations with a focus on community engagement and interaction. She aims to create pieces that speaks to the audience aesthetically while also being able to express memories, concepts and emotions through it.

Monica Cheema (she/her) is a filmmaker, facilitator, and community organizer working across multiple disciplines. Her films experiment with fiction and non-fiction to explore the politics of memory, labor, family, and public space. Her creative practice is informed by several years of work in classrooms and communities, where she invites young people to join her in examining the relationship between power, political landscapes, and each other. Monica was raised on the lands of the Katzie, Semiahmoo and Kwantlen Nations. 

Allison Chow is an artist and writer based in the surrendered ancestral lands of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, known colonially as Vancouver. A graduate of Emily Carr University of Art + Design, her practice draws from her studies of visual language, communications and a lifelong passion for immersing herself in literary worlds. Inspired by 4 years of working in a social innovation studio, she integrates tools such as ethnography and co-design into her practice, aiming toleverage curiosity and connection for systemic wellness and grassroots change. With a deep commitment to community-engaged art, Chow invites others to join her as fellow art makers, thinkers, and researchers through playful embodied practices. Her recent project, the "Communal Poetry Machine," examines different ways of uncovering the hidden narratives of familiar places through sensory exploration and documentation.

Whether it's in the classroom or her public works, Chow seeks to cultivate spaces that deepen our relationship with imagination and contribute to the creation of a more compassionate pluriverse where we all can belong.

Laura Cisneros is a mujer mestiza from the Caribbean Sea, born in Havana, Cuba. She is a practitioner of conscious dreaming, a community builder, and an art historian. Laura has studied dreaming and plant medicine practices under various traditional healers, and medicine women and men from the Amazon, Andes, Mexico, and Turtle Island. "I came to the unceded traditional lands of the Coast Salish people in search of freedom. I quickly learned that I was already free and that my true purpose here was to know my own roots. I like saying, 'I came to the North to learn about the South'." Through her conscious dreaming practice, medicinal plant teachings, connections with the Cosmos, and guidance from ancestors, these lands—where her children are growing up—have become an integral part of her daily life. Laura is the founder of Unfolding Senderos, Dreaming Circle (2019). In 2020-2021, together with Lori Snyder, she was an artist in residence at Hastings Community Centre, and they also co- created monthly moon circles and nature walks. Laura is currently part of a team of teachers

 with Earth Bites, a Vancouver-based School Gardens program. She is also a steward of the Native Welcoming Garden, Templeton Park & Pool, and Chenchenstway Garden (both in collaboration with Lori Snyder) in Vancouver. In 2024, she was Artist in Residence with AIRS at Mount Pleasant

Elementary School. Laura's art practices include eco-artistic and earth art projects that extend beyond traditional art- making forms, bringing together the realms of nature, community, creativity, and the de- commodification of art. She is interested in collective art-making to foster personal and regenerative expressions, embracing diversity and inclusivity within the community. Through inquiry, curiosity, and empathy, she invites exploration of the intricate relationship between art and nature. Much gratitude for being part of a circle of ensoñadoras y ensoñadores. It is an honour to do my work and to dwell in the unceded ancestral lands of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh people.

Aibhlin Fowlie is a multimedia artist that specializes in illustration and visual storytelling. They find the small momentsthat lead us through our daily lives enchanting and they focus on telling small stories. They use their practice to notice how the world changes and to visualize how we are affected internally by our daily lives. They use digital and traditional illustration and comic arts to tell these stories and their illustrations vary from straightforward and comedic to surreal and expressive depending on what tells the story best. 

They would like to spread a message of community and awareness of each other and also ourselves with each piece they create.

Jocelyn Gosling lives and works on the traditional and unceded territory of the xwməθkwəy̓ əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish), səlilw̓ ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), QayQayt First Nation, Kwantlen, q̓ íc̓əy̓ (Katzie), Semiahmoo, Tsawwassen First Nations, kwikwəƛəm (Kwikwetlem), and Stó:lō Nation. She is committed to ongoing learning and reflection in her role as an artist and educator on these lands.

Jocelyn is a visual artist with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Minor in Counselling from Kwantlen Polytechnic University. Her practice is rooted in intuitive painting and a deep emotional connection to animals and the natural world. Working primarily in acrylic, she layers vibrant colours to evoke feeling and reflection, often incorporating charcoal for bold, expressive mark making.

Inspired by her upbringing around horses, Jocelyn explores the emotional and spiritual bonds between humans and animals. Her abstract works reimagine traditional depictions of the horse and the human form, shifting the focus away from physical representation and toward internal states of being. Through curiosity, emotion, and memory, Jocelyn’s process becomes an exploration of how experiences feel rather than how they appear. She brings this same intention to her community-engaged work, emphasizing process over final product and inviting students to be curious, take creative risks, and reflect on their own perspectives. She is especially passionate about creating inclusive, supportive spaces where young people feel safe to express themselves authentically and discover new ways of seeing and making. For Jocelyn, the most meaningful art experiences have come from the connections and insights learned along the way.

Nellie Gossen is an interdisciplinary artist based on the unceded territories of the Musqueum, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh first nations. Working through the media of fashion, costume, textiles and performance, Nellie uses clothing as a tool to think and feel through social systems. Considering the many truths of industrial labor and consumption, her work explores the material of mainstream fashion as a vehicle for study, spaciousness, social action, rigorous love practice and phenomenological inquiry. Drawing on one background in fashion design and another in religious studies, Nellie is particularly interested in the space that is created when clothing and contemplative practices meet.
Nellie has presented her work at Kunsthalle am Hamburger Platz (Berlin), Altes Finanzamt (Berlin) and Ku’damm Karree (Berlin). As a costume designer and textile collaborator, Nellie has worked with artists such as Nancy Tam, Steven Hill, Francesca Frewer, Erika Mitsuhashi, Alexa Mardon, Elissa Hanson and Lexi Vajda. Nellie holds degrees in Fashion Design from Kunsthochschule Berlin Weißensee, as well as in Religion, Literature and the Arts, from the University of British Columbia. She is currently studying contemplative end of life care with the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care.

Zhuohan Yin, who usually goes by Grace, currently lives in Burnaby, BC. She was born in Shanghai, China, but moved to Canada shortly

after. Wherever she visits, she hopes to be a polite guest. She graduated in 2022 with an HBA from the University of Toronto, completing the Visual Studies Studio Specialist program as well as a minor in Art History.

Presently, Grace volunteers at Burnaby public elementary schools doing all sorts of odd jobs and fun things: leading lessons, helping

with large art projects, translating for students, and organizing a school-wide student art exhibition. Throughout the past year of volunteering, she has noticed that there is a severe lack of support for all things art in elementary schools—especially visual art. Students didn’t have a safe space to create, and there were never enough opportunities for kids to contribute and express themselves through

art. Despite having barely any sort of plan, she decided to try to bring art back into elementary experiences, with the student exhibition as one of the first steps. Grace likes to draw. Although most of her drawings are pencil on paper, she also uses acrylic paint on scrap plywood, digital art programs, video editing software, and words (incorrectly) to draw. These drawings are about everything and nothing, but mostly have to do with herself, and having fun.

Rebecca is a community-engaged artist, author and educator. She received a MFA from the Tufts University/SMFA program in Boston. She has taught photography and photojournalism courses at several universities. After completing an undergraduate degree in Psychology, Rebecca studied documentary photography at the International Center of Photography in NYC.  She began working as a newspaper photographer in the 1990s and continues to do freelance work. However, in recent years Rebecca has become involved in the use of photography for pedagogical documentation in early childhood and primary school settings. She is currently engaged in graduate work with the Faculty of Education at SFU.  Rebecca has been working with AIRS since 2017, bringing experiences with nature and wonder into Vancouver public schools. In both her own art practice as well as her studio work with children, she seeks to create spaces in which dialogue and artistic modes of expression can flourish.

fanny kearse, a Black-Queer-Jewish-Disabled human, is a recovering people-pleaser & overachiever. A late bloomer, dreamer & community tender, their art explores themes of self-reclamation & connection to land, grief as a guide, pain as a portal to the divine and the joy of unbecoming. In 2021 they won the Harold Green Theatre Monologue Competition. In 2023 fanny published their first book of poetry & prose. She holds an AIRS residency, sits on the Curtain Razors arts board & curates multidisciplinary art experiences.

  Isabelle Kirouac is a transdisciplinary artist, choreographer, educator and mother living in Vancouver, on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations. Informed by over twenty years of practice in dance improvisation, somatic practices, site specific installations, immersive performances, contemporary circus, as well as more recent explorations into the realm of olfactory art, her artistic research is often inspired by sensory inquiries and ecological relationships, connecting humans and more-than-humans. In collaboration with mycologist/artist Willoughby Arévalo, she created The Art & Fungi Project, developing artistic work and experiential activities inspired by fungi and how they help to shape and connect our world. Isabelle has been facilitating art projects with young people of all ages for over two decades, often leading to the creation of performance work or exhibitions in collaboration with the students. Isabelle shared her artistic work across Canada, the USA, Mexico, Colombia and Europe. She holds an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts from the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University.

Augusta has an ongoing practice in textiles and apprenticed as a shoemaker in 2015 in Krakow, Poland. She holds a degree in Industrial Design from Emily Carr University of Art and Design graduating in 2020 with a focus on craft and design research. In 2025 Augusta graduated from The National Theatre School of Canada in set and costume design. Her approach to design is rooted in context, material exploration, and narrative, with research and playing a central role in her practice.

Christine Mackenzie, Kwakiutl Nation, a First Nation Artist and Facilitator. Her mother was born in Bella Coola BC is a part of the Eagle clan. Her mother was part of the Sixties Scoop and because of that Christine hard time trying to find her culture and identity, but through resilient and training she found a way back to her indigenous roots. She find’s inspiration in the natural world and in the eyes of people willing to learn and share cultural ideas. Christine works with traditional/contemporary design and with multiple mediums. She been doing art all her life, but as a professional Artist and Facilitator since 2009 and mentored by Anastasia Hendry, Haida elder, she was an Artist and Facilitator for 30 plus years and has since retired. Christine now helps others in their journey to self-identity and educating others about Indigenous culture, artwork and protocols. Speaking to only my teachings and life experience to support others in better understanding of empathy when learning about Indigenous culture. 

With her second Master's degree in Art Education from the University of British Columbia, complementing her BA in Visual Communication and MA in illustration, Sholeh is passionate about the ways in which we can situate ourselves as active participants living in the world aesthetically and take action to uncouple from the familiar to activate the potentialities of learning and growth. Sholeh explores working with materials as lingering in generative spaces that can inspire wonder and meaning making. Composing the studio practice, Sholeh invites students to explore how their unique ways of making can be shared, borrowed, transformed, and cultivated through reflective participation and also experience the infinite capacities of their attentive presence for thinking, making, and acting differently. Her research interest focuses on the experience of being a maker with a special emphasis on upholding the traditions of craftsmanship. 

Master printmaker, Julie McIntyre studied at the Banff Centre and holds a BFA from Queen's University. She has had solo shows in over 22 public galleries in Canada and participated in over 60 juried exhibitions, including 25 international credits. Julie has taught workshops across Canada for over 30 years and has been a popular Artist in Residence with the Vancouver School Board and ArtStarts for over a decade. Julie’s passion is to revel the magic of printmaking and its serendipitous nature that encourages experimentation. She uses ordinary materials and a wide range of transfer techniques to create professional results. Her goal is to have students delight in the playfulness of the repeated image, develop a greater appreciation for qualities of paper, deepen their appreciation for surface treatment, and above all, surprise themselves.

Born, raised, and practicing in Vancouver, Canada, Vanessa Mercedes Figueroa is a Latina artist exploring identity politics, and critical theory, especially considerations of varying degrees of labour through a diaristic lens. Her goal is to create a visual response and evaluation of how current events and lived experience affect herself and marginalized groups she is a part of to set the tone for the sociopolitical period we are in, to allow for reevaluation and critical reflection. A graduate of Emily Carr University of Art + Design, and a Master of

Fine Arts candidate at the University of British Columbia, Figueroa has

exhibited and presented her work across Canada and her practice has

been supported by SSHRC, among others.

Maggie Milne Martens is a community engaged artist and long-time art educator. She has a BFA in printmaking, and an MA in Art History.  She and has taught both studio art and theory at the post-secondary level and is currently working on a PhD in Arts Education at SFU. 

Her passion for art making with children began 30 years ago in Camden New Jersey, running arts programming for risk kids in the inner city.   Since then she has created community engaged art projects for elementary schools across the lower mainland and other community groups. Maggie's practice interweaves material expressions with collaborative and embodied processes to create multilayered works that allow students into felt connect with themselves, the stories of other and the beauty and complexity of the natural world.  Maggie is co-founder of the Artist in Residence Studio program and continues to  support, mentor and  hold space for artists to share their art practice with children in schools. 

Marzieh is a doctoral candidate in art education at The University of British Columbia. Her research focuses on artful and pedagogical ways of Making-Place and cultivating a sense of place through art making and walking. Holding both an MFA and BFA in visual arts, her artistic practice entangles material and digital engagements as modes of visual and textual storytelling. Marzieh is curious about how places influence one's ways of art-making and how one can make (a) place(s) through the art-making process. In her teaching and making

practices, she prioritizes care-oriented, slow, intentional, and invitational ways of thinking through art-making and meaning- making. Marzieh seeks to create conditions for co learning and collective creativity, valuing each learner's lived experience while encouraging collaborative exploration.

Yasaman Moussavi is an artist and educator. She holds an MFA and a BFA and is currently pursuing a PhD in Art Education at the University of British Columbia. Yasaman has lived and worked in various countries, including Iran, the United States, and Canada. Her diverse lived experiences and teaching in different art programs have shaped her artistic vision and pedagogical approach. Yasaman is fascinated by how the immersive and embodied experiences of public spaces and site-specific art can inspire the imagination to overcome the alienation caused by precarity. Through her art-based research project, she aims to reclaim the embodied practices of mapping and placemaking as a means of fostering social bonding. Yasaman is passionate about community art and its potential to raise social awareness. Through her papermaking art practices, she uses recycled paper as a medium for collaborative and creative expression of identities, stories, and values. Her artwork has been exhibited in various venues across the world.

Tami Murray studied Fine Arts at Red Deer College’s Fine Arts Department and at Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design where she received her Bachelors degree in Photography. Tami’s personal work is an ever evolving exploration of techniques and fanciful ideas. Her Art has roots in personal narratives blending whimsy and visual poetics
. She has participated in numerous festivals and art events in Vancouver and Burnaby, most recently as part of the art and music collective Canvas of Light and Sound; performing an improvised live painting and musical experience at the closing events for the 2025 Stride Festival. Over the past two decades she has exhibited in various groups shows.

I am an interdisciplinary artist with a background in puppetry, originally from

New York City and currency completing my MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts at SFU. Working within an expanded and queered definition of puppetry, my practice orbits around the animation of objects, materials, sites, and situations. I create sculptures, drawings, puppets, installations, video, books, and performances. I am passionate about building with cardboard, newspaper, and paper mache – techniques I learned from my community of giant puppet makers back east. I am interested in how seeing things through the lens of puppetry can shift our awareness and attention, opening us up to perceive possibility, ask questions, and enact transformation. I hope to generate wonder around everyday experience – by defamiliarizing and celebrating what we take for granted, but also by questioning and challenging norms and expectations. One of my ongoing fascinations is with clouds, both as material and metaphor. A current project involves developing large-scale rope and pulley animation systems that are used to animate and compose hanging drawings of clouds. When working with students and in workshop settings, I value collaborative hands-on making and problem-solving, and hope to create the space for students to dream and build as a group, perhaps in the form of giant puppets, processional art, or site-specific installation. In the studio I aim to foster playfulness, silliness, seeing the potential in everyday materials, an appreciation for messiness and “mistakes”, and becoming okay with not knowing exactly what will happen.

Originally from Mexico City, filmmaker and digital media artist Yunuen Perez Vertti has over 20yrs of experience in the film and television industry. She has worked in various roles and projects and produced films for many public, private and non-profit organizations. Her short documentary "Aparajita" The undefeated was successfully screened at Tasveer Seattle South Asian Film Festival, Topanga Film Festival and Gulf Coast Film & Video Festival. She has been working as an artist in residency in the schools for the past five years. She is passionate about education through the arts and the importance of the arts as a fundamental tool for education. She believes teaching and introducing kids to all art disciplines as early as possible is essential to a healthy society.

Hân Phạm (Phạm Thụy Mai Hân) is an emerging artist and filmmaker from Sài Gòn, Việt Nam. Experimenting with video and film, photography, and soundscape compositions, Hân’s works think through the ephemerality of memory, language, and history in relation to the constantly changing and dislocated landscapes, rooted in the in-betweenness of distance as space for reflection.

Nisha Platzer (she/her) is a queer filmmaker and photographer living with disabilities in Vancouver, Canada. Drawn to vibrant shades, her films meld sounds and imagery that you can dream and drown in. Nisha’s short film, Vaivén (2020) won the best film award at aluCine Latin Film & Media Arts Festival and competed at festivals worldwide including Raindance, Festival Nouveau Cinéma, FIDBA, and Ji.hlava. Her award-winning feature debut, ‘back home’ was supported by Telefilm Talent to Watch and presented at the Docs-in-Progress Canadian Showcase at Cannes Film Festival. Nisha studied at the renowned Escuela Internacional de Cine y Televisión (EICTV) in Cuba and her work has been supported by Canada Council for the Arts, the BC Arts Council and the National Film Board of Canada. Nisha is a member of Vancouver’s Iris Film Collective, which promotes the creation and sharing of analog film and she often leads workshops in super8 and other experimental film techniques. Recently, she was artist-in-residence at the Klondike Institute for Art and Culture (KIAC) in Dawson City, Yukon. Her happy place is making art anywhere away from a screen, but particularly in the darkroom or in nature.

Erin Ross is a stop motion animation filmmaker and artist. She studied visual arts at Concordia University and received her BFA in Experimental Animation at California Institute of the Arts. Her work has screened at international film festivals. She has worked at stop motion animation studios and and is currently working freelance and on her own creative projects. Erin loves creating characters and worlds from interesting and unexpected materials and loves the magic of bringing the inanimate alive under the camera. She draws inspiration from the tiny and big moments in life and from the interesting materials and textures all around her. Erin has been working with children and youth for 20+ years through enrichment programs, schools, NGO’s and her own private studio. She believes art and creativity are powerful tools to connect us with our truest selves. When working with children and youth she wants to encourage and empower them to experiment, play and stretch themselves and to trust in their innate creativity.

Niloufar Samadi is an Iranian interdisciplinary artist and educator currently based in Vancouver. Her work weaves together puppetry, performance, analog and digital filmmaking, installation, and community collaboration. With a background in theatre and a BFA in Theatre from Iran University of Art, she recently completed her MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts at Simon Fraser University. Niloufar’s practice is rooted in material exploration, embodied storytelling, and creating spaces for sensory experience and intimate reflection. Drawing from her experience as an immigrant, she often works with themes of identity, memory, and in-betweenness. She approaches the camera, materials, and puppets as extensions of the body—tools for sharing stories that may not always fit within words. In addition to her studio and performance practice, Niloufar has taught visual and performance arts to children, youth, and adults in both formal and community settings in Iran and Canada. She is passionate about fostering inclusive, playful, and process oriented environments where students feel safe to experiment, imagine, and express themselves freely.

Alysha Seriani is a settler media artist and inter-generational learner who has been making participatory projects using school iPads with AIRS since 2020. Over the past decade, she's led film, video art and

animation creation with many local artists and community organizations including artist-run centres, indoor and outdoor schools, and city museums. Al's style of facilitation and artmaking with children

weaves together strategies for social emotional learning, popular education, intersectional feminism, decolonial animism, somatic awareness, secure attachment and disability justice. She is committed to listening and showing up to each particular place in ways that honours its past and future flourishing.

Nova is an Anishinaabe OjibweTwo-Spirit and transgender interdisciplinary artist, writer, director, educator and storyteller. Nova is a proud enrolled member of the Pinaymootang First Nation locatedin Treaty 2 territory and is a recent graduate of the Master of Fine Arts program at EmilyCarr University of Art + Design. As an interdisciplinary artist, they weave together a multiplicity of digital and traditional mediums such as video, photography, sound,illustration, beading, performance, and storytelling in exploring/experimenting with new modes of representation through the lens of their Anishinaabe Ojibwe lived and felt experiences. They are a collaborator, producer and video mentor with Access to Media Education Society, and their work has screened at festivals such as imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival (2021) and Vancouver Queer Film Festival (2022). As storytellers, they take pride in sharing their personal journey, knowledge and teachings to all ages and have performed storytelling events across Turtle Island. Nova also teaches at Emily Carr University of Art + Design as a sessional professor.

Amanda Wood is an interdisciplinary artist based on the unceded territories of the xwməθkwəy̓əm(Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations (Vancouver, BC). Working across alternative photography, printmaking, and hand weaving, her materially grounded practice centers on repetition and tactile experience. Drawn to marginal and in-between spaces, Amanda navigates the liminal spaces shaped by an intersectional life. She works with everyday materials and complex processes, combining craft traditions, scientific methods, and archival impulses to examine what is often overlooked or discarded. Through abstraction, translation, and accumulation, Amanda deconstructs and reconfigures information into new patterns and forms. These in between spaces hold a generative tension—bridging gaps between conventional and divergent ways of being, and offering new ways of seeing, sensing, and connecting. Amanda’s work has been supported by multiple Research and Creation Grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and a 2024 Professional Development Grant from the BC Arts Council. She is a 2024 Merit Scholar for Material Code at SAIC’s Oxbow program, and has held residencies at New Media Gallery, Ou Gallery, and Emily Carr University’s Leeway Studio. Her practice is further informed by mentorships through NYC Crit Club, Malaspina Printmakers, and interdisciplinary artist Lenka Clayton. Committed to community engagement, Amanda has served on the AiRs advisory board, as a peer assessor for the Canada Council and Manitoba Arts Council and frequently leads talks and workshops with institutions such as UBC’s MFA program, Sheridan College, and Malaspina Printmakers.