COMMISIONER BIOS

Rebec­ca Apple­baum is an actor and direc­tor. As an elect­ed Vice-Pres­i­dent of ACTRA Toron­to, she’s proud to advo­cate for over 15,000 per­form­ers work­ing in Eng­lish-lan­guage record­ed media across Ontario. Beyond her cur­rent ACTRA Toron­to roles as Exec­u­tive Liai­son for the Women’s, Voice, and Con­fer­ence Com­mit­tees, she’s also the organization’s rep­re­sen­ta­tive on the Ontario Green Screen Advi­so­ry Com­mit­tee, an ini­tia­tive ded­i­cat­ed to improv­ing the industry’s envi­ron­men­tal impact.

Nahed Man­sour cur­rent­ly serves as the Cura­tor of Pro­grams at the Gar­diner Muse­um. She has over a decade’s worth of expe­ri­ence with­in the Toron­to arts sec­tor work­ing as an arts admin­is­tra­tor, cura­tor, and prac­tic­ing artist. Nahed has pre­vi­ous­ly held the posi­tions of Con­stituent Cura­tor — Com­mu­ni­ties and Engage­ment at the Muse­um of Con­tem­po­rary Art Toron­to, Artis­tic Direc­tor at the South Asian Visu­al Art Cen­tre, and Direc­tor at May­works Fes­ti­val for Work­ing Peo­ple and the Arts Toron­to. The major­i­ty of her cura­to­r­i­al and pro­gram­ming work sup­ports visu­al, media, and com­mu­ni­ty-based artists whose work respond to con­tem­po­rary social, polit­i­cal, eco­nom­ic, and envi­ron­men­tal issues from racial­ized and gen­dered per­spec­tives. Her mul­ti-dis­ci­pli­nary research-based arts prac­tice draws from archival images, found footage, and mate­r­i­al-cul­ture to inves­ti­gate notions of race, pow­er, and labour in the enter­tain­ment industry.

Michael Mur­ray (MBA, CPA, BMus) — Local 149 of the Amer­i­can Fed­er­a­tion of Musi­cians of the Unit­ed States and Cana­da. Michael has been Exec­u­tive Direc­tor at the Toron­to Musi­cians’ Asso­ci­a­tion since 2015, with pri­or posi­tions at Ontario Arts Coun­cil, Cen­ten­ni­al Col­lege and Urba­nArts. As a song­writer and for­mer per­former, he is ded­i­cat­ed to improv­ing con­di­tions for all musi­cians and artists. He is involved in new con­ver­sa­tions with Cana­di­an Media Pro­duc­ers Asso­ci­a­tion, Rogers, Bell, Corus and var­i­ous ini­tia­tives towards more respect­ful work­places in the Music Sec­tor, includ­ing respectfulartsworkplaces.ca

Greig de Peuter is an asso­ciate pro­fes­sor in the Depart­ment of Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Stud­ies at Wil­frid Lau­ri­er Uni­ver­si­ty. He research­es the polit­i­cal econ­o­my of dig­i­tal media and cul­tur­al pro­duc­tion, with a focus on work, employ­ment, and col­lec­tive orga­niz­ing. He col­lab­o­rates on the SSHRC-sup­port­ed research project Cul­tur­al Work­ers Orga­nize, which explores col­lec­tive respons­es to pre­car­i­ty in the cul­tur­al and tech sec­tors. He is the coau­thor, with Nicole Cohen, of New Media Unions: Orga­niz­ing Dig­i­tal Jour­nal­ists, which was pub­lished by Rout­ledge in 2020.