Andrés Salas is a Humanities PhD student at Concordia University working at the intersection of mining, critical infrastructure and alternative epistemologies. Andrés is a visual artist from Colombia, living and working in Montreal. He is actively committed to the communities where he has worked and lived, developing artistic projects that explore local dynamics but deal with global problems. He was recently awarded with a doctoral fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Christine White is completing her undergraduate degree in Fine Arts at Concordia University with a major in Intermedia and minor in Sociology. She is a community activist, artist and
researcher who intervenes in public space through socially engaged art programs. In 2014, Christine was invited to collaborate with PedalBox Gallery in ləkw̓ əŋən Traditional
Territory/Victoria BC where it quickly became one of her favourites ways of working. Bringing this concept to Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal, PedalBox now explores its second iteration beginning in the summer of 2021. This includes working with the Shock Value Collective to host mobile projections, transport pop-up installations and transform into a pop-up office space.

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Gabriel Townsend Darriau works on land value and real estate development, in theory and praxis. With a BA in Urban Studies from Concordia University and a Certificate in Real Estate
studies from UQÀM in progress, he has spent recent years observing and challenging the notions around land, value and economy that are so ingrained in our relationship to the world and so influential to contemporary urban development. He works in community development in Pointe-Saint-Charles and is a proud resident of Centre-Sud.

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Jonathan holds a Masters of Science in Design and Urban Ecologies at Parsons The New School for Design in New York. He has been working for more than ten years on various types of urban related challenges and innovations, acting either as a strategic designer, entrepreneur, curator, documentary filmmaker, writer or speaker. Jonathan co-instigated a number of organisations and initiatives to address issues such as chronic vacancy, heritage destruction, biodiversity loss, and lack of regulatory infrastructures, to name a few. Lapalme's work has appeared in a number of magazines, newspapers and museums.

www.lesinterstices.com

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Currently pursuing a PhD in Humanities at Concordia University, Joëlle Dubé is researching the intersectional temporalities of intergenerational (in)justices and digital art. More precisely, she is interested in developing a more generous form of empathy, one that would have a broader temporal reach and that could extend further in the future so as to include future life (both human and more-than-human). Positing relationality at the very center of her theoretical and conceptual preoccupations, her aim is to investigate ways of rearticulating the relationship between the currently living and life-to-come. Her approach to art and matter rests at the crossroads of philosophy and art history.

Madelyn Capozzi combines design, research, and strategic intervention to engage with societal issues from a systems perspective. She thrives on collaboration and re-imagination, and takes great joy in bringing the two together. With Joëlle Dubé, Madelyn unpacks the ontological underpinnings of Western institutions, positing art and design as tools for broadening the scope of possible futures. As part of the collective Shock Value, she challenges financialization with a proposed institution for non-financial value creation. Madelyn holds a BFA in Design from Concordia University.

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Marie-Sophie  has a master's degree in urban planning from Université de Montréal and a B.A in gender studies and political sciences from McGill University. Her academic research background touched upon complex systems theory, postructuralist philosophy, affect and embodiment as epistemology. Over the years, she did work in community organising, non-speculative innovation in housing and real estate strategic development and philosophy of finance. She is also an author and independent journalist who focuses on housing, planning  and ethics. Banville’s pieces have appeared in academic, specialised and general publications.

marie-sophie.banville@concordia.ca

I سلمى am a Ph.D. candidate in the interdisciplinary humanities at Concordia University. My doctoral research focuses on the manifestations of Indigeneity in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal, including issues of identity and decolonial praxis. I am interested in the ways Indigenous cultural revival and sovereignty transpire through the arts, and how contemporary urbanity structures Indigenous-settler relations from a non-white/settler/global Indigenous perspective. As an affiliate at CIÉRA (Centre interuniversitaire d'études et de recherche autochtones), I currently investigate themes tied to urban ethnography and global Indigenous studies. I hold a master’s degree in human rights and international law with a focus on Latin American studies, and a bachelor's degree in International Relations from Swansea University (Wales), Britain.

Sarah Brown is a Consultant in Project Development and Strategic Planning for the Arts with over 15 years' experience in artistic direction and arts management.

In her previous role as Advisor, Strategic Initiatives and Special Projects at the Faculty of Fine Arts, her work focused on connecting students and emerging artists with cultural and community partners through innovative trans-disciplinary projects and initiatives.

An interdisciplinary artist and architect, her practice lies at the intersection of art, architecture, community engagement, activism and bureaucracy.

Thomas Heinrich holds a BFA in Design from Concordia University. His work focuses on the development of critical, ecological and social thinking in the production of the built environment in the largest sense. Working in the context of environmental degradation and growing social inequality, he strives to develop ways of organizing and relating to land that offer a glimmer of hope. Thus, he specializes in socio-ecological urbanism, biomaterials, material reuse at varying scales, participatory design, the definancialization of land and citizen autonomy. He has directed the biomaterials project De Souche at Concordia University, co-leads the art and research collective Shock Value, and is part of the research project Déconstruction du pont Champlain : co-création de propositions de récupération des matériaux et engagement citoyen with Dr. Alice Jarry at Concordia.

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In a context of climate breakdown and technological disruption, Dark Matter Labs focuses on accelerating societal transition towards collective care, shared agency, long-termism and interconnectedness. Our daily work ranges from policy and regulation to finance and data, from governance and democratic participation to organisational culture and identity. We organise our work around what this transition needs, and the things we want to see in the world. To keep that transparent, we undertake open work in collaborative partnerships to provoke alternative visions of the future, designing how they might look in practice, and experimenting in context to reveal how they could work and enable the necessary change.

[More about us here]