It’s with immense pleasure that we officially announce the appointment of UNIT/PITT’s 2024 Board of Directors, welcoming Angie Kwong, Henry Tsang, Nico Ford, Kaila Bhullar, and Héloïse Auvray for two-year terms, confirmed during our 2024 AGM on August 26, 2024.
Directors Madison Mayhew (President/Chair), Craig Stensrud (Vice President/Vice Chair), Sara Ellis (Archives Chair) and Emilie Crewe (Treasurer/Finances Chair) will remain for a second term.
This year, we increased our Board seats from 7 to 11 and elected six new positions, with four outgoing Board Members. UNIT/PITT Society for Art and Critical Awareness would like to thank outgoing members Hilda Nanning, Mike C. Ma, Jamie Ward, and Marisa Kriangwiwat Holmes. Their contributions to the organization during a period of upheaval were immeasurable — thank you for leaving U/P a better place!
Nico Ford (Secretary) is an entrepreneur and multi-disciplinary designer with a passion for aesthetics and social impact. With a background in both the non-profit and tech sectors, as well as creative agencies, she brings a diverse range of operational experience and people-first perspectives to her secretary and people operations committee positions. An Emily Carr University and BCIT alumni, Nico is driven toward environmental sustainability, accessibility, justice, equity, diversity, inclusion, decolonizing, and exploring the intersection of art and activism. She loves cycling, music, dancing and spending time in the mountains or on the ocean.
Henry Tsang is an artist and occasional curator who explores the spatial politics of history, cultural translation, community-building, the mobility of people, capital, values, desires, and food in relationship to place. His projects employ video, photography, interactive media, convivial events, and language, in particular, Chinook Jargon, the North American west coast trade language. Presentations take the form of gallery exhibitions, pop-up street food offerings, 360 video walking tours, curated dinners, ephemeral and permanent public art. Henry is the creator of 360 Riot Walk, a 360 video walking tour of the 1907 Anti-Asian Riots, and author of White Riot: The 1907 Anti-Asian Riots in Vancouver (Arsenal Pulp Press). He is a past recipient of the VIVA Award and is an Associate Dean at Emily Carr University of Art & Design.
Kaila Bhullar (She/They) is a queer Indo-Chilean experimental filmmaker + multimedia artist based in the traditional territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm, Skwxwú7mesh, and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh tribes. Informed by digitally-based art forms, Bhullar explores various dispositions concerning identity and perception, including contemplations around the existential and political implications of images and technology. They use moving images and sound as a means to express the abstractions within these intersections, rendering their inquiries to often manifest as collages of varying forms, video or audiovisual works, and multimedia installations. Some of their recent exhibition and screening history includes Centre A, Gallery Gachet, What Lab, XINEMA, The Polygon Gallery, Massy Arts Gallery, UNIT/PITT, and The Small File Media Festival.
Héloïse Auvray (they/them) is an artist, writer and cultural worker based in so-called Vancouver on the unceded territory of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. They particularly work with repetitive and time-consuming processes, with the optic of re-valuing (s)low production and currently explore topics related to the Home and urban landscapes. They hold a Bachelor of Arts from the University of British Columbia with a focus on Visual Arts and Art History.
Angie Kwong (b. Hong Kong) is a cultural advocate and co-founder of the art collective Air Talk, based in Vancouver and Mexico City. Her artistic practice examines socio-political issues within diverse landscapes and ecologies. Kwong received a BA in Psychology from the University of British Columbia (2001) and a BA in Integrated Media from Emily Carr University of Art + Design (2004). Her experience as a board member at Unit/Pitt and Gallery Gachet has deepened her commitment to advocating for marginalized communities and amplifying underrepresented voices. This dedication is rooted in her identity as a BIPOC individual and a member of the Chinese diaspora. Through her work, Kwong fosters inclusive dialogue and contributes to a decolonial approach in the arts.
Marianne Thodas (b.1997) is a lesbian filmmaker and sound artist born in Okotoks, AB, now based in Vancouver, BC. Deeply interested in expanded modes of film and sound production, her pieces contextualize images and sounds of the familiar. During her BFA at Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts, she studied with world-renowned filmmakers and theorists whose work specialized in challenging the traditional boundaries between creative and critical practice in film. Inspired by the thematic, narrative, and technological experimentation taught during her degree, Thodas has fashioned a special brand of hybrid film to examine topics of memory, belonging, mortality, lineage and place-based attachment. Outside of creating her own films, she works with artist-run organizations—such as Cineworks Independent Filmmakers Society—to run workshops and create community-based initiatives promoting engagement with independent cinema. Her new film, ‘Over the Island’, has now completed post-production and is currently in distribution.
Emilie Crewe (Treasurer) (she/her | b. 1987, Québec City, Canada; raised in Pittsburgh, PA, USA) is an interdisciplinary artist based on unceded land known colonially as Vancouver, Canada. Her practice often takes the form of multi-channel and single-channel video, installation, and new media. Emilie holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University. Her work has been exhibited and screened internationally in galleries, museums, artist-run centers, experimental film/video festivals, and as public art.
Sara Ellis (Archive Committee Chair) is the Art Librarian at UBC’s Music, Art & Architecture Library. Her background is in libraries and education: in addition to experience in academic and special library settings and public library service, Sara has worked as an art history instructor, developing curricula and teaching undergraduate and graduate courses. In her free time, she enjoys cooking and trying out new recipes, and road-tripping to explore arts and culture sites and historic small towns.
Anna Zoria is the Director of Communications for BC Alliance for Arts and Culture and an artist working in video, installation and performance. She is an immigrant of Russian-Ukranian descent living on the unceded and traditional territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh, and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm Nations. In 2019, Anna received her MFA with distinction and felicitation from the jury at École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris. Her work has most recently been shown at Daniel Faria Gallery (Toronto), Wil Aballe Gallery (Vancouver), Maison Touchard (Luxembourg), Access Gallery (Vancouver) and Certain Fallacies (LA). She is passionate about advocating for the needs of arts service organizations and artists and growing the Vancouver contemporary art scene.
Craig Stensrud teaches in the English department of Kwantlen Polytechnic University, where he aims to foster a critical and collaborative classroom community dedicated to mutual support, intellectual development, and academic integrity. In 2020, he received the Killam Graduate Teaching Assistant Award for his classroom instruction. Craig has a chapter in a forthcoming edited collection on Gothic Melville, and is currently a member of the Executive for the Canadian Association for American Studies. In addition to his academic pursuits, Craig is an active member of Vancouver’s diy underground music scene, and plays in a band called Yes.
Madison Mayhew (President) is a writer, musician, and cultural worker based in Vancouver, BC. She works as the Senior Admin and Finance Coordinator at 221A Artist Run Centre Society. She holds a MA in Comparative Media Arts from SFU’s School for the Contemporary Arts (2021) and a BFA in Critical and Cultural Practice from Emily Carr University (2017).
