Vivienne Bessette (b. 1982) is a queer artist of mixed settler and Michif heritage (Red River Treaty 1). They are based on the stolen and unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and səlí̓lwətaʔɬ Nations. Bessette incorporates drawing, painting, woodworking, sculpting, dying, writing, fermenting and building relationships with plants into their practice. They work in and out of the studio, the garden and the kitchen, developing sustainable and alternative modes of food production and utilizing unconventional materials. The strength of entangled and interdependent community is at the stomach of Bessette’s process. Bessette holds a BFA from Simon Fraser University. They have been involved with multiple garden and food-based collectives, including Commons Garden at Sahalli Park Community Garden, Garden Don’t Care, Looking at the Garden Fence, and the project What artists bring to the table for the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria with Derya Akay and Kurtis Wilson. Bessette was a Food Coordinator for Slow Waves Small Projects on Mayne Island. They have been published in The Capilano Review (“Pattern of Pears,” 2020 and “Organize Your Building with the Support of the Vancouver Tenants Union with the Belvedere Residents,” 2018).

Gabi Dao (Canadian, b. 1991) is an artist and organizer currently based in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Dao’s research-based practice culminates in collage, sculpture, sound and moving image installations. They also generate olfactory experiences in both their installations and their small-batch perfume business, PPL’S PERFUME. Through non-linear conceptions of memory, time and truth, Dao confronts Western ocularcentrism and the rigid binarism of capitalism. Dao also engages with writing and community building in her work. Dao is currently an MFA candidate at the Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam, and received a BFA from Emily Carr University. Dao was shortlisted for the Sobey Art Award (2021) and received the Portfolio Prize Award for Emerging Artists (2016). She has exhibited in galleries and artist-run spaces across Canada, Asia and Europe, including solo exhibitions at grunt gallery and Spare Room, Vancouver; as well as group exhibitions at the Vincom Centre for Contemporary Art, Hà Nội, Vietnam; Centre Clark, Montreal; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Kamias Triennale, Quezon City, Philippines; Nanaimo Art Gallery; Libby Leshgold Gallery at Emily Carr University, Vancouver; Burnaby Art Gallery; Vancouver Art Gallery; Audain Gallery at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver; Western Front, Vancouver;  Artspeak, Vancouver; 221a, Vancouver.

Derek Jarman (English, 1942-1994) was an artist, filmmaker, gardener and activist who is considered a central figure of twentieth-century British culture. A renowned director, cinematographer and set designer, he is best known for his avant-garde art films. Many of his films explored the lives of gay and bisexual historical figures, including Caravaggio (1986) and Wittgenstein (1993), despite the dominant conservatism of the time. Collaboration was essential to Jarman’s practice. He worked with the Smiths, Pet Shop Boys and Bryan Ferry as an early maker of music videos, and helped launch the careers of Tilda Swinton and Sean Bean. After he was diagnosed with HIV in 1986, Jarman continued to elevate queer histories and experiences, giving a voice to the impact of the AIDS crisis on his community. The Slogan Paintings series appropriated words and phrases from media outlets and government policies, commenting on public fear and so-called “AIDS panic.” Around this time, he also began tending his seaside garden at Prospect Cottage, his home in Dungeness, Kent. Gardening was a source of healing and happiness throughout the duration of his illness before he died of AIDS-related complications in 1994. His Prospect Cottage garden still remains today as a tribute to his life and work. During his life, Jarman exhibited across England, including at Edward Totah Gallery, London; Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; and Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester. His work has been widely exhibited posthumously, including a retrospective at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin. Jarman wrote several books, including the autobiographical Dancing Ledge (1984) and two volumes of memoirs, Modern Nature(1992) and At Your Own Risk (1992). Derek Jarman’s Garden, which documents the creation of his extraordinary garden at Dungeness was published in 1995.

Charmian Johnson (Canadian, 1939-2020) was an artist and educator who lived and worked in Vancouver. She studied ceramics under Glenn Lewis, and developed a distinct style within the Leachian tradition having spent a number of years at Bernard Leach’s pottery studio in St. Ives where she catalogued and archived the Leach collection. Beginning in the 1970s, Johnson has been highly regarded across local and international ceramic communities. Throughout her lifetime, she developed a meticulous drawing practice that she kept largely to herself. Rendering botanical elements she encountered in her own garden as well as on her travels to Morocco, Turkey, Hawaii and France, Johnson developed her drawings over time, sometimes for months or even years. Johnson studied drawing, graphics and pottery at the University of British Columbia. She has had solo exhibitions at the Vancouver Art Gallery and UBC Fine Arts Gallery (now the Belkin Gallery). Johnson has been featured in group exhibitions across Canada, including the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; the UBC Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver; the Burnaby Art Gallery; the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria; the Glenbow Museum, Calgary; the Museum of Natural Sciences, Ottawa; Catriona Jeffries Gallery, Vancouver; and in the 2004 exhibition Thrown: Influences and Intentions of West Coast Ceramics at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, which she co-curated.

Glenn Lewis (Canadian, b. 1935) is a contemporary conceptual artist based in Vancouver. Lewis became a central figure within Vancouver’s prolific avant-garde art scene of the late 1960s. Initially trained in ceramics, his practice expanded to include photography, sculpture, performance and video, and is often grounded in collaborative projects or approaches. Lewis’s work questions the dualities of the social and the natural, the conventional and the mythical, as well as the static and the transient. Over time he has become increasingly inspired by paradise myths, nature and topiary, which motivated his travels around the world photographing gardens. These interests intersect in his commitment to preserving rare and regional botany. Lewis received a degree from the Vancouver School of Art in 1958 (now Emily Carr University) and later a teaching degree from the University of British Columbia. He went on to study ceramics under artist and potter Bernard Leach at St. Ives in Cornwall, England from 1961 to 1963. Upon returning to Vancouver, Lewis became involved in numerous artists’ collectives and artist-run centres, including Intermedia (1970) and the New Era Social Club (1968). In 1973, he co-founded the Western Front Society with Martin Bartlett, Mo van Nostrand, Kate Craig, Henry Greenhow, Eric Metcalfe, Michael Morris and Vincent Trasov. As an educator, arts administrator and arts programmer, Lewis has curated numerous exhibitions and programs, including the Performance Art Program at the Western Front (1977-79), the Exhibition Program at the Western Front (1986-87) and the Western Front Historical Exhibition at the Künstlerhaus Stuttgart, Germany (1983). Lewis has served on numerous boards and councils, including the Vancouver Art Gallery Board of Directors and the Western Front Board of Directors. His work has been exhibited extensively across Canada and abroad.

Mike MacDonald (Mi’kmaq, 1941-2006) was a self-taught new media artist and gardener who lived in Nova Scotia. He linked his love for nature, Indigenous knowledge and storytelling with technology in his video and photography installations. He once said that “each of [his] shots is like a commercial for nature.” One of MacDonald’s most renowned living projects began in the early 1990s when he would embark on yearly road trips across Canada, planting butterfly gardens along the way. These gardens are tactile living examples of his devotion to and admiration of the environment.
MacDonald’s work has been shown internationally in solo exhibitions at venues including Sacred Circle Art Gallery, Seattle; Winnipeg Art Gallery; and Vancouver Art Gallery. His work has been included in group exhibitions at the Canadian Cultural Centre, Paris; Fujinomina, Mt. Fuji; Kamloops Art Gallery; Heard Museum, Phoenix and Edmonton Art Gallery. His work was recently featured at Vtape, Toronto, in partnership with the 2022 imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival where he had previously been awarded the first Aboriginal Achievement Award for New Media in 2000.

Rehab Nazzal is a Palestinian-born (b. 1961) multidisciplinary artist, activist and educator based in Vancouver. Her work interrogates the effects of settler colonialism on people, land and non-human life in Palestine. Nazzal blends experimental, conceptual and documentary strategies in her video, photography, sound and installation works. Her process relies heavily on research, critical thinking and community. Nazzal’s community organizing work includes collaboration with various art collectives, activist groups and galleries in Toronto, London, ON, Vancouver and Ottawa. Nazzal is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Concordia University. Nazzal was an assistant professor at Dar Al-Kalima University in Bethlehem, Palestine for three years, where she also served as Chair of the Contemporary Art and Interior Design Programs. She has lectured at Simon Fraser University, Western University and Ottawa School of Art. She holds a PhD in Art and Visual Culture from the University of Western Ontario, an MFA from Ryerson University, a BFA from the University of Ottawa and a BA (Economics) from Damascus University. Nazzal’s work has been exhibited in Canada and internationally, including at the Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art, Toronto; CONTACT Photography Festival, Toronto; Karsh-Masson Gallery, Ottawa; The Spanish Institute of Art; Encounters Film Festival, UK; the 22nd Sydney Biennale, Australia; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Foresight Gallery, Amman, Jordan; and Khalil Sakakini Cultural Centre, Ramallah, Palestine. She was a resident at the 29e Symposium international d’art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul and AXENEO7 Gallery in Quebec. She is the recipient of the Social Justice Award from Ryerson University and the Edmund and Isobel Ryan Visual Arts Award in Photography from the University of Ottawa.