Brendan Fernandes is a Canadian artist based in Chicago. His interdisciplinary practice brings together dance and visual art to explore race, queer culture, migration, protest, and collective movement. Often taking hybrid forms that merge ballet, social dance, and political action, his work creates spaces for participation, solidarity, and belonging. 

Fernandes is a graduate of the Whitney Independent Study Program and has received numerous honors, including the Platform Award (2024), Creative Voice Award from Arts Alliance Illinois (2024), Artadia Award (2019), and a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship (2020). His work has been presented internationally at institutions including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and the National Gallery of Canada. Fernandes is Associate Professor in the Department of Art, Theory, and Practice at Northwestern University and is represented by Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago, and Susan Inglett Gallery, New York.

Shintaro Taneda was generously supported by the Cyril and Elizabeth Challice Fund for Musicians

Violinist Shintaro Taneda is active both as a chamber and orchestral musician. Along with being violinist in the Ethea Trio, he has recently collaborated with acclaimed artists including Kim Kashkashian, Parker Quartet, Inon Barnatan, and Shai Wosner. Shintaro is also a member of the Oregon Symphony, and a violin coach with the Portland Youth Philharmonic.

Kathryn Yusoff is Professor of Inhuman Geography at Queen Mary University of London and a leading theorist of geology, race, and extractive capitalism. She is the author of A Billion Black Anthropocenes or None and Geologic Life, influential works that examine how geology has been constituted as a racialized science and how extractive regimes have shaped both planetary matter and social life. Her research reframes geology as a historical and political practice, foregrounding the entanglement of earth sciences with colonialism, labor, and environmental violence. Yusoff’s work is foundational to contemporary debates in environmental humanities, critical geography, and art discourse, and has been widely engaged by artists and curators concerned with materiality, extraction, and planetary futures.

Elina Waage Mikalsen is a Sámi-Norwegain artist and musician from Romsa/Tromsø, Sápmi/Norway. She works in interdisciplinary ways with sound, textiles, text, performance and installations, based on a Sámi understanding of the world, hidden stories and knowledges. She works with a mix of field recordings, voice, electronics and home-built instruments, and seeks to creating sonic spaces that exist somewhere between reality and fantasy, where Sound acts like a time machine that causes time to collapse and sets both past and future in motion. Through Collecting fragments of stories, materials and practices she works with what lies in between. The holes that the Norwegian colonisation of Sápmi has created in the form of loss of language and cultural heritage have become a starting point for imagining what these holes might represent, what matter they constitute and how they continue to affect the people in our societies. 

Elina runs Šuvva, a platform for Sámi experimental music, sound and listening. She has a master's degree from the Academy of Fine Arts in Oslo, and has exhibited and performed at the places such as Toronto Biennale, Singapore Biennale, Oslo Kunstforening, The Munch Museum, The National Museum in Oslo, Kunsthal Charlottenborg and Lofoten International Art Festival.

Jonathan Huard was generously supported by the Helen Graham Artist Award

Born in Rimouski, Qc, Jonathan Huard holds a bachelor’s degree in percussion from the Rimouski Conservatory of Music, a master’s degree with distinction from the Quebec Conservatory of Music, and an Advanced Certificate in Performance from the University of Toronto. Passionate about contemporary music, improvisation, and orchestral music, he actively pursues these interests by collaborating with several specialized ensembles in Canada, including GGRIL (Rimouski), the Quebec Symphony Orchestra, and Esprit Orchestra (Toronto). Jonathan has participated in the National Youth Orchestra of Canada, the So Percussion Summer Institute, and several competitions, including the Prix d’Europe and the Canadian Music Competition, where he twice won first prize in percussion. In 2026, he was awarded Fourth Prize, Prix de l’Académie de musique du Québec, and Prix du Centre de musique canadienne au Québec at the Prix d’Europe Competition. In recognition of his artistic quality, 
advanced playing skills, and determination to pursue his career, Jonathan has received the Award of Excellence from the Quebec City Symphony Orchestra Foundation.

He is currently pursuing an Artist Diploma at the Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Charles Settle’s studio. His career is marked by a constant pursuit of artistic excellence, great musical versatility, and a sustained interest in contemporary composition.