Staff

Samuel Garrigó Meza, Programming Coordinator

Before starting his current role as Programming Coordinator, Samuel Garrigó Meza has been involved with articule for over a dozen years, as a volunteer, board member, and gallery technician. He is a writer and a performance artist, best known in the Montreal community for his years of patience and dedication installing art.

— Email : programmation@articule.org

James Goddard, Outreach Coordinator

James Nicholas Dumile Goddard is a Ndebele-Canadian sound artist, curator, arts administrator and experimental saxophonist. He currently lives and works in Montréal, QC. His work explores themes related to race, the speculative and economics. He performs solo, in the duos NYON & Platitudes and as part of the Egyptian Cotton Arkestra. He's worked in community radio, concert promotion and non-profit administration – all these experiences inform an interest in non-hierarchy within his creative and administrative practices.

— Email : outreach@articule.org

Maral Farrokh, Administrative Coordinator

Maral Farrokh is an arts administrator, production manager, director, and actor focusing on theatre and film. Their work in administration examines what ethical philanthropy looks like and seeks to take money from colonial structures to redistribute wealth to marginalized communities in order to facilitate healing. They are a student of Unlearning, a term coined by Akilah Richards, which means to decolonize the habits and programming we adopt through institutions which teach a culture of competition and impede true learning rather than support collective success and growth. Maral devotes their attention to community centric fundraising, as well as trust-building and reconciliation training.

— Email : administration@articule.org

 

Aziza Nassih, Communications Coordinator

Aziza Nassih is an artist and cultural worker with a degree in visual and media arts. She navigates the traces and artifacts marking colonial expansions, dormant languages and displacements of populations. She is also interested in publishing and print art.

— Email : communications@articule.org

Faraz, HR Coordinator, Computer Technician

Raz is a non-binary desi witch dedicated to undoing the harms of profit-driven hierarchies through love, play, and radical sadness. They are at their best when connecting people, technology, and nature to build resilient, self-directed communities of care.

- Following the law 25, Faraz is the privacy officer at the centre.

— Email: rh-hr@articule.org

Collaborators

Guy L’Heureux, Exhibition Documentation
LOKI, Graphic Design
Mireille N’gouan, Bookkeeping

 

Board of Directors

Laura Leong, President

Educated in Environmental Design, Laura is drawn to the physical context which shapes design from the cup to the community center. As a professional designer, her work has spanned from the technical development of upscale commercial lighting to the design and installation of international trade exhibits. Within her expanding ceramic practice, she seeks to push the limits of the material from the use of multiple building techniques to the modification of the clay and glaze composition. The creation of every piece is seen as an opportunity to experiment. As of the 1st of May 2021, Laura has teamed up with four fellow potters to start a new co-operative ceramics studio at the Artmall, located in what’s known the Garment district in Tio’tia:ke (Montreal)!

Juhi Sohani, Vice-President

Juhi is a community organizer and nonprofit digital communications specialist based out of Tiohtià:ke (Montréal), with a special focus on the impacts of capitalism and colonialism on climate justice. As a child, Juhi found Persian art and Urdu literature as a way to connect with her ancestors. As an adult, she looks to visual art and multilingual literature to communicate ongoing struggles and disjointed emotions in a way that the English language alone could never successfully articulate. Her passion for movement-building and social justice is rooted in a history of mental health advocacy and education reform.

Kaja Levy, Treasurer

Kaja’s moving image work explores the theatrics of expressing sensitivity. She is interested in the spectacle of vulnerability accessed through film and video. She has presented with XXIV Rencontres Internationales Traverse, Harcourt House, the Academy of Art Video Art, Galerie FOFA, the Winnipeg Underground Film Festival, Film Pop Montreal, and Long Winter Toronto.

Kaja graduated from the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema in 2016. She was born in Poland under Soviet occupation and is now based in Tiohtià:ke (Montréal), unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory. She is a member of Available Light Screening Collective and co-founded Burnt Experimental Film and Video Art Festival with video artist Anna Grigorian and Chantale Potié of Double bonheur studio.

 

Eva-Loan Ponton

Working at Tiohti:áke (Montreal), Eva-Loan Ponton-Pham is a multidisciplinary artist with a degree in Art History & Visual Arts from Concordia University. In all of her projects, whether as co-founder of Atelier La Coulée, member of the feminist collective Les Bêtes d'hier, or cultural mediator in various community projects, she seeks to amplify marginalized voices by focusing on personal and collective narratives that challenge prevailing discourses. Her personal work deals with confluent identities and the complexities of cultural transmission in diasporic contexts. Currently in late development, she is working on her first documentary film Con Nhang - Enfants d’encens.

Amber Goveas

Amber Goveas is a wandering artist in Tiohti:áke, interested in different mediums ranging from sculpture, painting and metalworking. She currently works in a ceramic studio. Herbackground in architecture has fostered a deeply tempestuous relationship with the field, however the most valuable of her research recognizes the transformative potential of hybrid spaces (‘tiers-lieux’), in an increasingly gentrified urban context, to foster radical care and participatory democracy. Amber is actively involved in local community initiatives that build solidarity and collective empowerment among diasporic groups.

Manel Benchabane

Manel Benchabane is a curator of contemporary art and exhibition manager at the Stewart Hall Art Gallery. She was previously in charge of the education and cultural mediation program. She is interested in nature and the environment, diversity and cultural issues, heritage and feminism. She is a regular contributor to various contemporary art publications and has served on various committees and juries.

 

Stéphane Piazo

Stéphane Piazo is a Quebec artist who articulates digital media and interactive technology through computer graphics, narrative design and visual art. SP currently holds a degree in Interactive Media, and is considering a Master's degree in Experimental Media. A major project in his portfolio is the augmented reality realization of the Mont Royal statue (Monument à Sir George-Étienne Cartier), accessible via smart readers. The project received financial support from the City of Montreal and many other institutions. An enthusiast of the visual arts, he began his career as a comics writer, then as a visual artist in Angoulême, France. Once he arrived in Quebec, he quickly carved out a place for himself among digital industry professionals, combining CGI and interactivity, visual programming and traditional art. These constitute the general traits of his artistic approach.

SP has collaborated with many local artists since arriving in Qc to gain experience and make a living from his art..." On my way home from class, a member of articule invited me to discover the center. That was my first contact with articule on Fairmount Street. Almost 12 years today."