Board of Directors

Executive:

Hol­ly Cun­ning­ham & Genne Spears, Co-Chairs

David Plant, Trea­sur­er

There­sa Slater, Sec­re­tary

Members:

David Bobier
Anyse Ducharme
Mitchell Ellam
Annette Hegel
Barbo­ra Race­vičiūtė

Board Bios

David Bobier is the hear­ing par­ent of a deaf son and daugh­ter, which has inspired him to be a strong advo­cate for rec­og­niz­ing and pro­mot­ing the Deaf and Dis­abil­i­ty Arts in Cana­da.

Bobier also has con­sid­er­able expe­ri­ence in arts and arts admin­is­tra­tion, as well as, hav­ing been on the teach­ing fac­ul­ty of Fan­shawe Col­lege, Lon­don, ON; Mount Alli­son Uni­ver­si­ty, Sackville, NB and Uni­ver­si­ty of Wind­sor, ON, for a com­bined 13 years. As a prac­tic­ing artist his exhi­bi­tion career includes 18 solo and over 20 group exhi­bi­tion projects across Cana­da, in the Unit­ed States and the UK. He has been the recip­i­ent of a vari­ety of grants from the Cana­da Coun­cil for the Arts, Ontario Arts Coun­cil and New Brunswick Arts Coun­cil.

In addi­tion to serv­ing Toron­to Inter­na­tion­al Deaf Arts and Film Fes­ti­val as Direc­tor of Devel­op­ment, Bobier is res­i­dent artist with the Inclu­sive Media and Design Cen­tre, Ryer­son Uni­ver­si­ty and TAD Inc. (Tac­tile Audio Dis­play Sys­tems); Co-Founder and Chair of the new­ly formed Lon­don Ontario Media Arts Asso­ci­a­tion and Founder /Coordinator of Vibra­Fu­sion­Lab, a Lon­don-based vibro­tac­tile arts col­lec­tive.

Hol­ly Cun­ning­ham is a grad­u­ate of Sheri­dan College’s Media Arts pro­gram with a back­ground in tele­vi­sion and film pro­duc­tion. Most recent­ly she com­plet­ed a Fine Arts degree from Nipiss­ing Uni­ver­si­ty, which prompt­ed her move to north­ern Ontario. Work­ing as the man­ag­ing direc­tor of the Near North Mobile Media Lab, Hol­ly is active­ly involved in the arts com­mu­ni­ty of North Bay. She cur­rent­ly sits on the exec­u­tive board of the White Water Gallery and is chair of Ice Fol­lies Bien­ni­al, an exhi­bi­tion on frozen Lake Nipiss­ing. With an artis­tic back­ground in video and paint­ing, she is cur­rent­ly focus­ing her cre­ative ener­gy on releas­ing her first EP as a pro­fes­sion­al musi­cian.

Anyse Ducharme is a fran­coph­o­ne media artist from North­east­ern Ontario. Her artis­tic prac­tice is engaged with the cir­cu­la­tion of dig­i­tal imagery and the mal­leabil­i­ty of data. Her work has been exhib­it­ed nation­al­ly and inter­na­tion­al­ly; notable shows include Proof 23 at Gallery 44 (Toron­to), Arti/fiction Real­i­ties at la Galerie du Nou­v­el-Ontario (Sud­bury), Dig­i­tal Alter­i­ties at Inter­Ac­cess Elec­tron­ic Media Arts Cen­tre (Toron­to) and as part of the Flash For­ward fes­ti­val for emer­gent pho­tog­ra­phy (Boston, Port­land, Toron­to).  Ducharme holds an MFA from the Uni­ver­si­ty of British Colum­bia, a BFA from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ottawa, and a col­lege diplo­ma in 3D Ani­ma­tion from La Cité col­lé­giale.  She cur­rent­ly works as the Artis­tic Pro­gram­mer at Knot Project Space — SAW Video, teach­es at Nipiss­ing Uni­ver­si­ty and sits on the board of direc­tors of both La Galerie du Nou­v­el-Ontario and the Media Art Net­work of Ontario.

Mitchell Ellam is Ojib­way and Cree of the Brunswick House nation. He is an emerg­ing Media Artist liv­ing and work­ing on Nipiss­ing ter­ri­to­ry. Cur­rent­ly work­ing as Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the White Water Gallery, Mitchell began as Indige­nous Arts Pro­gram­ming Intern. Work­ing with men­tors to craft pol­i­cy and devel­op an Indige­nous Cura­to­r­i­al Res­i­den­cy to cre­ate more space for Indige­nous mak­ers and arts admin­is­tra­tors in con­tem­po­rary art orga­ni­za­tions. Sup­port­ing indige­nous con­tem­po­rary artists and strength­en­ing Indige­nous voic­es in cul­tur­al and artis­tic spaces. Such con­cerns about pol­i­cy, law and treaty rights are also com­ing to inform his artis­tic prac­tice to cre­ate work address­ing present issues con­cern­ing indige­nous peo­ples face in Cana­da today. Mitchell is also a mem­ber of the Near North Mobile Media Lab Board, and Art Fix orga­niz­ing col­lec­tive; he was a mem­ber of WWG’s Board 2016–18.  

Annette Hegel is the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of SAW Video and a work­ing mul­ti-media artist who has exhib­it­ed her work in Cana­da and in Europe. Work­ing out of her stu­dio, she is a found­ing mem­ber of Slip­stream Col­lec­tive, and nur­tures col­lab­o­ra­tions with many artists in many places. She has had a 30 year career in mar­ket­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tions, devel­op­ing iden­ti­ties and suc­cess­ful­ly estab­lish­ing brands in both the for prof­it and not for prof­it sec­tors. Before join­ing the SAW Video team, she pro­duced and led imple­men­ta­tion of tar­get­ed mar­ket­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tion strate­gies for nation­al orga­ni­za­tions and inter­na­tion­al brands. She is a recip­i­ent of many awards, among them cul­tur­al brand of the year award. She lives and works in Ottawa on the tra­di­tion­al unced­ed and unsur­ren­dered ter­ri­to­ry of the Anish­inābe Aki.

David Plant is the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of Trin­i­ty Square Video. With more than 30 years in the cre­ative indus­tries as a pro­duc­er, busi­ness­man and graph­ic artist, David brings a broad range of expe­ri­ence in media, enter­tain­ment and tech­nol­o­gy, with depth in both the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors. He has assist­ed over 1200 film pro­duc­ers inter­na­tion­al­ly and has cred­its on Acad­e­my Award-win­ning films such as Good Will Hunt­ing. As a pro­duc­er, David co-exec­u­tive pro­duced the first fea­ture film of writer-direc­tor David Krae and has pro­vid­ed his assis­tance with works screen­ing at TIFF, Imag­i­ne­NA­TIVE and Plan­et in Focus. He recent­ly com­plet­ed pro­duc­tion of a fea­ture-length video pro­duc­tion of a one-man play, “Wing­field: Lost and Found” star­ring Strat­ford’s Rod Beat­tie. He has been a mem­ber of the Acad­e­my of Cana­di­an Cin­e­ma and Tele­vi­sion for more than 20 years serv­ing on juries and com­mit­tees and he con­tin­ues to sit on indus­try pol­i­cy com­mit­tees address­ing the future of the indus­try with a par­tic­u­lar inter­est in emerg­ing tech­nol­o­gy, pub­lic out­reach and edu­ca­tion and also sits on the Pro­gram Advi­so­ry Com­mit­tee for Advanced Tele­vi­sion, Video and Film at Sheri­dan Col­lege.

Barbo­ra Race­vičiūtė grew up in Šiau­li­ai and Vil­nius, Lithua­nia and then Mon­tréal, and has been liv­ing in Toron­to for almost a decade. She earned a Bach­e­lor’s degree from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to and an MFA from the Ontario Col­lege of Art and Design. She is an inde­pen­dent cura­tor and cul­tur­al work­er, and co-runs a col­lec­tive called shell with Mae­gan Broad­hurst. Barbo­ra works as an arts admin­is­tra­tor at the8fest and Images Fes­ti­val.  

 

There­sa Slater is an artist and writer who works with cre­ative facil­i­ta­tion, eth­i­cal the­o­ry, new mate­ri­al­ism, dig­i­tal bod­ies and the inter­sec­tions of fem­i­nism and tech­nol­o­gy. She is cur­rent­ly the Oper­a­tions and Devel­op­ment Man­ag­er with Plea­sure Dome, an artist-run exhi­bi­tion col­lec­tive ded­i­cat­ed to the pre­sen­ta­tion of artists film, video, and exper­i­men­tal media. She is an MA grad­u­ate of Con­tem­po­rary Art, Design and New Media Art His­to­ries from OCAD Uni­ver­si­ty and resides in Park­dale Vil­lage, Toron­to, ON.

 

Genne Spears (Deputy Direc­tor at CFMDC) has worked at the CFMDC since 2007, return­ing as Deputy Direc­tor after a year away. In addi­tion to hold­ing many posi­tions at CFMDC she has worked on the tech­ni­cal team for sev­er­al film fes­ti­vals includ­ing; Toron­to Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val, Hot Docs and Inside Out LGBT Film Fes­ti­val. She is cur­rent­ly on the Advi­so­ry Board for TMAC (Toron­to Media Arts Cen­tre) and has served on the Plea­sure Dome board. Genne holds a Mas­ters of Cin­e­ma and Film Archiv­ing from the Uni­ver­si­ty of East Anglia and is a PhD Can­di­date in Cin­e­ma and Media Stud­ies at York Uni­ver­si­ty.