Vanessa Andreotti is the Interim Director of the Peter Wall Institute of Advanced Studies, a professor in the Department of Educational Studies, a Canada Research Chair in Race, Inequalities and Global Change, a research fellow at the University of Oulu, where she was chair of global education from 2010 to 2013, and a research fellow at the Centre for Global Citizenship Education at the University of Alberta. Andreotti’s research examines historical and systemic patterns of reproduction of inequalities and how these limit or enable possibilities for collective existence and global change. Her publications in this field include analyses of political economies of knowledge production, discussions of the ethics of international development, and critical comparisons of ideals of globalism and internationalization in education and in global activism, with an emphasis on representations of and relationships with marginalized communities.

Phanuel Antwi is Associate Professor in the Department of English Language and Literatures at UBC. In 2022 he was named Canada Research Chair in Black Arts and Epistemologies. He writes, researches and teaches critical black studies; settler colonial studies; black Atlantic and diaspora studies; Canadian literature and culture since 1830; critical race, gender and sexuality studies; and material cultures. He has published articles in Interventions, Affinities, and Studies in Canadian Literature, and is completing a book-length project titled “Currencies of Blackness: Faithfulness, Cheerfulness and Politeness in Settler Writing.”

Denise Ferreira da Silva is an artist and Professor at UBC’s Social Justice Institute-GRSJ and Adjunct Professor at Monash University’s School of Art, Design and Architecture. She is the author of Toward a Global Idea of Race (University of Minnesota Press, 2007), A Dívida Impagavel (Oficina da Imaginaçāo Política and Living Commons, 2019), Unpayable Debt (Sternberg/MIT Press, 2022) and co-editor (with Paula Chakravartty) of Race, Empire, and the Crisis of the Subprime (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013). Her artistic works include the films with Arjuna Neuman and the relational art practices Poethical Readings and Sensing Salon in collaboration with Valentina Desideri. She has exhibited and lectured at the Pompidou Center (Paris), Whitechapel Gallery (London), MASP (Sao Paulo), Guggenheim (New York) and MoMA (New York). She has written for publications from Liverpool Biennale, 2017; Sao Paulo Biennale, 2016, Venice Biennale, 2017, and Documenta 14 and published in journals such as Canadian Art, Frieze, Pass, Texte Zur Kunst and e-flux. She has held visiting professorships at major universities in Australia, Brazil, Britain, Denmark, Germany and the United States and is a member of the collective EhChO.org and an editor of Third Text.

Kayah George “Halth-Leah” (she/they) proudly carries the teachings of her Tulalip and Tsleil-Waututh Nations and has been on the frontlines fighting against the Trans Mountain pipeline for more than half of her life. She is a young Indigenous environmental leader, activist and filmmaker. George has spoken globally about climate justice and shared the teachings of her nations to honour and care for the earth. She has worked with environmental organizations, including Indigenous Climate Action (an Indigenous-led organization guided by a diverse group of Indigenous knowledge keepers, water protectors and land defenders), to build capacity for an Indigenous-led divestment movement. George is currently working on a short film that shares the intrinsic connection the Tsleil-Waututh people have to the “Burrard” Inlet.

Mark Harris is Associate Professor in the Institute of Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice, UBC. His research focuses on Indigenous rights in relation to cultural heritage, land claims, the stolen generations, intellectual property and criminal justice issues. He has worked as a lawyer giving advice on native title claims for the Wurundjeri, Gunai Kurnai, Manatunga and Gubbi Gubbi Indigenous communities in Australia and continues to provide advice to Indigenous groups on a range of issues. As a representative of LatCrit, an NGO comprising legal academics working in the field of critical race theory and racism, he has participated in the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. His recent research projects have included reviews of the operation of Koori (Aboriginal) courts in Victoria (a program that is not dissimilar to Toronto’s First Nations Gladue Courts), and the experience of Koori youth in the justice system. He also works in the field of postcolonial legal theory, which informed his manuscript titled Human Rights, the Rule of Law and Exploitation in the Postcolony: Blood Minerals that will be published by Routledge later this year. He is currently an editor, along with Denise Ferreira da Silva (Institute of GRSSJ, UBC) and Brenna Bhandar (SOAS, London) of the Routledge series, Law and the Postcolonial: Ethics, Politics and Economy.

Vanessa Kwan is an artist, producer and curator with a focus on collaborative, site-specific and cross-disciplinary practices. They are currently Director and Curator, Gallery and Exhibitions at Emily Carr University on unceded Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh territories (Vancouver, Canada). They have worked in artistic leadership roles since 2003, contributing to organizations such as grunt gallery, the Vancouver Art Gallery, Other Sights for Artists’ Projects, Access Gallery, Powell Street Festival and Out On Screen. They regularly write, speak and publish on art and culture, and since 2017 have been producing residency projects across the Pacific Rim (Vancouver, Seoul, Melbourne and Sydney) exploring artist-led creative exchange. In addition, they have produced significant public art works including Geyser for Hillcrest Park (with Erica Stocking), Speaker A, a permanent sound installation co-created with Theatre Replacement (Maiko Yamamoto and James Long) and Curtains, an upcoming collaborative performance work.

Johnny Mack is from the Toquaht Nation (Nuu-chah-nulth) and is Assistant Professor at UBC Allard School of Law. From 2014-2018 he was jointly appointed across First Nations and Indigenous Studies and Allard Law at UBC. His research investigates the legal relationship between Indigenous and settler peoples in contemporary settler states, particularly Canada, as well as Indigenous constitutionalism, subjectivity, critical theory and legal pluralism.

Rita Wong is a poet and associate professor at Emily Carr University of Art and Design. Wong investigates the relationships between contemporary poetics, social justice, ecology and decolonization. For some time now, she has been researching the poetics of water. A recipient of the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize and the Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop Emerging Writer Award, Wong is the author of monkeypuzzle (Press Gang, 1998), forage (Nightwood, 2007, short-listed for the 2008 Asian American Literary Award for Poetry, winner of Canada Reads Poetry 2011), sybil unrest (Line Books, 2008, with Larissa Lai), and undercurrent (Nightwood, 2015). Wong co-authored with Fred Wah the map-length poem beholden: a poem as long as the river (Talonbooks, 2018). In 2017 she co-edited with Dorothy Christian Downstream: Reimagining Water, a collection of work on the theme of water for the Environmental Humanities series with WLU Press.