Vancouver-based Trevor Boddy is a critic of contemporary architecture, and commentator on recent urbanism and city-building.  His writing on buildings and cities has been awarded the Alberta Book of the Year Prize, Jack Webster Journalism Prize, Western Magazine Award, the Architecture Canada/Royal Architectural Institute of Canada’s 2010 Advocacy Award, and an Honorary Membership in the American Institute of Architects. At the 2011 World Congress of Architecture in Tokyo, Boddy’s essay (for A/V in Madrid) on contemporary design in his country entitled “MEGA + MICRO: Canada, Innovation at the Extremes” was awarded a commendation for the UIA’s Pierre Vago Prize as the best piece of architectural criticism published worldwide in the preceding three years. As a consulting urban designer, he has co-devised architectural competitions including Surrey’s “TownShift: Suburb Into City” (www.townshift.ca)   His “HybridCity” was included in the Vancouver Art Gallery’s 2011 exhibition “WE Vancouver: 12 Manifestos for the City,” (further details http://projects.vanartgallery.bc.ca/publications/We_Vancouver/ .) As architectural curator, Trevor Boddy produced the 2008 exhibition “Vancouverism: Architecture Builds the City” and related Trafalgar Square site-specific construction, which was named a marquee event for the 2008 London Festival of Architecture, then re-mounted it in Paris in 2009, then home to Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.  Boddy is an Adjunct Professor in UBC’s School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, and has held prior professorial appointments at Manitoba, Oregon, Toronto and Carleton.

Eduardo was born in Panama City in 1951. He studied architecture at the Technische Hochschule in Darmstadt, Germany, where he graduated in 1977. In 1985 he obtained his PhD in art history at the University of Heidelberg (Germany), where he specialized in the history of European and Latin American architecture from the eighteenth century onwards.He has been a UNESCO consultant in Panama and Belize and an advisor to several Panamanian government agencies and foundations, mainly the Mayor’s Office in Panama City, the Oficina del Casco Antiguo and the Patronato Panamá Viejo. He has worked and done research in Panama City’s Historic District since 1986. He is a professor of architectural history at the University of Panama and has been a visiting professor at the universities of Madrid, Seville and Granada, as well as the National University of Colombia at Bogotá, the University of Arizona at Tucson and Tulane University in New Orleans. He is the chairman of the DOCOMOMO Panama working party. He regularly publishes books and articles in Panama and abroad. His most recent books are Panama: Architecture and Landscape Guide (Seville, 2007), El Teatro Nacional, historia de un ícono cultural(Panama, 2008), and City of Knowledge. Building a Legacy (Panama, 2012).

Robert is the co-founder of the Land Art Generator Initiative and Studied Impact. His focus is on designing buildings that go above and beyond current popular notions of sustainability to achieve complete harmony with their local and global environments and with the people that use them. His designs of “positive-impact” buildings that double as renewable energy power-plants have been featured in “Superlative Emirates” (Daab Publishing), several Popular Science Magazine articles, and have been shown at international exhibits. The Land Art Generator Initiative has been in feature articles in numerous international press outlets, including The New York Times and Dwell Magazine. While based in the UAE, he consulted on such projects as Masdar City and ADNOC HQ. Robert is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University and a licensed architect.

M. Simon Levin creates site-based systems that explore the aesthetics of engagement using a variety of designed forms and tools that address our many publics. These spatial and pedagogical projects, expand the social agency of art making, rethinking notions of space and place, authorship and audience. Working collaboratively and primarily within the public sphere, Levin’s work ranges from billboard projects, alternative tours of cities, land care centres and alternative mapping and telecommunication systems. Recently commissioned projects include a user-generated ‘sousveillance’ system and a global contributive new media platform, both showcased for Vanvouver’s 2010 Cultural Olympiad. He has been artist in residence for the Vancouver Parks Board, the TechLab at the Surrey Art Gallery, and at the International Art Space, Kelleberrin, Australia. He has exhibited, lectured and published locally, nationally and internationally. He also lectures at University of British Columbia, and has published a curriculum on Contemporary Public Art.

Glen is a writer, cultural theorist, and editor. He received his PhD in English from Simon Fraser University, where he specialized in contemporary Canadian literature and culture. Lowry’s research focuses on collaborations among artist researchers and other academics. As one core member of Maraya maraprojects.com (2007-2012), he has facilitated and participated in numerous presentations internationally and locally, including Art Dubai (2010), Learning From Vancouver symposium held at Western Front (2010), Interactive Futures ’09: Stereo, and ISEA 2011 Istanbul. From 2001-2011, Lowry edited the Simon Fraser University-based cultural journal West Coast Line. Pacific Avenue (LINEbooks, 2009) is his first poetry collection. On sabbatical, he is currently a visiting scholar at the Shingwauk Residential Schools Centre, Algoma University, Sault Ste. Marie, ON.

As the director of SCE Elizabeth is committed to nurturing global intellectual and creative dialogue. She is currently working on large-scale international public art projects that both address and expose models of environmental sustainability. Under SCE she co-founded the Land Art Generator Initiative (LAGI) with Robert Ferry, an international initiative activating interdisciplinary teams to conceive of large-scale public artworks for specific sites that artfully provide utility-scale clean energy to the city grid. The project has been featured in articles in numerous international press outlets, including The New York Times and Dwell magazine. Under her leadership, SCE has been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts grant among others. Ms. Monoian is an interdisciplinary artist and designer whose work has been screened and exhibited in venues throughout Europe, the Middle East, and the United States. She received an MFA from Carnegie Mellon University and has been a university educator for many years in cities such as Dubai, Pittsburgh, and Abu Dhabi. During her time as a professor she has won several awards for her creative and academic work.

Amer has professional, research, practice and teaching experience in architecture, urban design and planning. A PhD from the University of Southern California Los Angeles, USA, Dr. Moustafa’s current teaching and research interest focuses on urbanism, city and urban design, the socio-political dimensions of design, and urban transformation and identity in a globalizing world. He held teaching positions at the University of Southern California, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo and California Polytechnic University, Pomona. He also practiced architecture, urban design and planning in Boston, Los Angeles and the UAE.

Over the last decade Sadira has worked in a variety of roles as a curator, writer, educator, facilitator, public programmer, arts administrator, as well as Director, of the university’s Continuing Studies department. Recent positions have included Curator at the Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary Asia Art, Manager of Arts Programs with 2010 Legacies Now, Diversity Facilitator with the Canada Council for the Arts and Public Programs Coordinator at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

Shelly Rosenblum is Curator of Academic Programs at the Belkin. Inaugurating this position at the Belkin, Rosenblum’s role is to develop programs that increase myriad forms of civic and academic engagement at UBC, the wider Vancouver community and beyond. Rosenblum received her PhD at Brown University and has taught at Brown, Wesleyan and UBC. Her awards include fellowships from the Center for the Humanities, Wesleyan University and a multi-year Presidential Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, Department of English, UBC. She was selected for the Summer Leadership Institute of the Association of Academic Museums and Galleries at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University (2014). Her research interests include issues in contemporary art and museum theory, discourses of the Black Atlantic, critical theory, narrative and performativity. Her teaching covers the 17th to the 21st centuries. She remains active in professional associations related to academic museums and cultural studies, attending international conferences and workshops, and recently completing two terms (six years) on the Board of Directors at the Western Front, Vancouver, including serving as Board President. At UBC, Rosenblum is an Affiliate of the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies.

Susan teaches in the areas of global indigenous issues, the indigenous history of Canada, and public history.  Her book, These Mysterious People, Shaping History and Archeology in a Northwest Coast (McGill-Queen’s Press, 2010), concentrates on the history of the Musqueum First Nation and develops a critique of the processes through which historical evidence and material culture have aquired authoriy in public history contexts, including museum displays and land claim cases.  She has worked as a research consultatn for the First Nations of Canada.

Adrienne is an Founding executive editor of the culturalmagazine Talingo (published from 1993 until 2001 and recipient of the Prince Claus Award), and founding director of arpa (Art>Panama), a non-profit arts foundation (since 2001), and of Sarigua (since 2009), a small publishing house dedicated to art and literature. Curator of solo and group exhibitions (such as “ciudadMULTIPLEcity”, the international urban art event cocurated with Gerardo Mosquera and held in Panama City in 2003, and most recently, two anthologies on the work of photographer Carlos Endara in Madrid and Panama in 2011), organized symposia (most recently, “De Facto: Boundless Actions” for the 8^th Central American Biennial in 2012), given talks, and served as a jury member at international and local biennials and art events. Editor and coauthor of several publications, including the recent anthology of essays Negociaciones: puentes estratégicos entre el arte y los públicos, Ed. Sarigua, Panama: 2012). Author of critical essays on art and culture for periodicals, magazines, and books, and advisor for Cisneros-Fontanals Foundation and Endara House Museum, among others.

Henry is a visual and media artist and occasional curator whose work incorporates digital media, video, photography, language and sculptural elements in the exploration of the relationship between the public, community and identity in the new global order. Projects in the public sphere range from community-based curatorial and engagement practices to permanent commissioned artworks. His current project, Maraya with Glen Lowry, M. Simon Levin et al, is an interactive public artwork that will connect Vancouver’s False Creek with the Dubai Marina in the UAE. Video installations such as Orange County, 2004, and Olympus, 2006, shot in California, Beijing, Torino and Vancouver, examine overlapping urban and socio-political spaces; and Napa North, 2008, looks at the relationship between wine, real estate and cultural translation in British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley. His Welcome to the Land of Light, is a 100 metre-long installation located on the seawall handrail along Vancouver’s False Creek. Comprised of fibre optic cable lighting and marine-grade aluminum lettering, it literally underscores Chinook Jargon, a 19th Century local trade language, and the English that replaced it, to speak about the promise of technology and how different cultures have come to live together in that part of the world.

Annabel trained as an architect and is the Principal of the design firm publicLAB RESEARCH + DESIGN in Vancouver. She has taught at the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at the University of British Columbia. She is currently on assignment in Toronto at the Centre for City Ecology. Her practice works to understand how Vancouver has come to be the city it is, where it is headed in the future and how the intersection of art and architecture in the public realm will shape the outcome. She has co-written articles for Artspeak, West Coast Line and Vancouver Matters with Rob Brownie, and has exhibited at Artspeak Gallery, Presentation House Gallery, the Vancouver Art Gallery, and The Other Gallery in Banff. This past fall she co-curated the exhibition TO|FROM at Centre A. Recently she has been collaborating with the photographer Alteha Thauberger on public art proposals.

Annabel trained as an architect and is the Principal of the design firm publicLAB RESEARCH + DESIGN in Vancouver. She has taught at the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at the University of British Columbia. She is currently on assignment in Toronto at the Centre for City Ecology. Her practice works to understand how Vancouver has come to be the city it is, where it is headed in the future and how the intersection of art and architecture in the public realm will shape the outcome. She has co-written articles for Artspeak, West Coast Line and Vancouver Matters with Rob Brownie, and has exhibited at Artspeak Gallery, Presentation House Gallery, the Vancouver Art Gallery, and The Other Gallery in Banff. This past fall she co-curated the exhibition TO|FROM at Centre A. Recently she has been collaborating with the photographer Alteha Thauberger on public art proposals.

Humberto studied Law and Political Sciences at the University of Panama and was awarded a scholarship from The Foundation of Latin American Cinema for studying Filmmaking and TV at the International School of Cinema of San Antonio de Los Baños, Cuba, funded by Gabriel García Márquez. He has been an artist in residence in Sheffield, Vienna (Ministry of Foreign Affairs), Toronto (York Art Gallery University), London (Triangle Arts Trust-Gasworks), Paris (Cité des Arts) and Toronto (Art Gallery of York University) and METAL in London Southend. He works as an artist, art teacher, and an independent filmmaker.Vélez has created performances for the TATE Modern, the Centre Pompidou and Venice, Shanghai, Liverpool, Rumania, Havana biennials, among many others. The Art Gallery of York University in Toronto has just published Aesthetics of Collaboration, a book dedicated to his work and centered on his performances.

Independent curator Keith Wallace (Canadian, b. 1951) has been a curator of contemporary art since 1979. From 1991 to 2001 he was Curator, then Director/Curator, of the Contemporary Art Gallery in Vancouver where he developed a program of regional, national and international exhibitions. He has organized exhibitions for the Vancouver Art Gallery, National Gallery of Canada, The Power Plant, Toronto, and the Belkin, where he was Associate Director/Curator from 2005 to 2008 and 2012 to 2015. Wallace has travelled to India more than a dozen times over close to thirty years and artists of South Asian descent he has exhibited in Vancouver include Shani Mootoo, Sunil Gupta, Vivan Sundaram, Subodh Gupta, and Anita Dube. From 2004 to 2020, he was Editor-in-Chief of Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, the first English-language publication on contemporary Chinese art that is edited and designed in Vancouver and published in Taipei, Taiwan.