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Our Collective
NEDA OMIDVAR (her/she)
Neda Omidvar has worked as curator and gallery director for the past decade. She has curated and overseen the production of numerous exhibitions by Canadian, Indigenous and International artists. Her acclaimed curatorial work has been reviewed in Art Forum, Border Crossings, and The Toronto Star, among others. She is passionate about helping clients build, manage and grow their art collections through consultations and exhibitions.
She is currently independently curating two exhibitions, and is working as an illustrator with a team on developing an educational app for children.
A graduate of OCAD University, she enjoys collaborating with creative writers and artists. Neda is founder of “Evil Llama and Friends”, an e-commerce site presenting original and quirky illustrated cards and apparel.
JULIUS PONCELET MANAPUL (them/they/ze)
Julius Poncelet Manapul (Born in Manila, Philippines 1980) immigrated to Canada in 1990, identifying as a queer migrant nonbinary Filipinx, Ilocano artist and descendant of Maria Josefa Gabriela Carino de Silang, known as an anti-colonial fighter during the 18th century Spanish rule over the Philippines, the first female leader of a Filipino movement for independence from Spain. In 2009, they completed their BFA at OCAD and MFA (UofT) in 2013. Over the last decade, Manapul has exhibited across North America and Europe, Nuit Blanche, Toronto World Pride, Inside Out Toronto LGBT Film Festival, Toronto Queer Film Festival, had been featured several times on CBC, written in several academic articles, Journal of Asian American Studies Vol.19 #3, Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures and the Americas Vol.1 #2, Diasporic Intimacies: Queer Filipinos and Canadian Imaginaries" to name a few, and had hosted workshops and panel talks on queer diasporic decolonial research. They are a Professor in the Faculty of Arts at OCAD University.
Manapul’s multidisciplinary art practice and research examines eternal displacement, complicated by colonialism, sexual identity, diasporic bodies, global identity construction, and the Eurocentric Western hegemony. Focusing on the hybrid nature of Filipinx culture through post-colonial realities, and the gaze of queer identities as taxonomy. Excavating narratives specific to diasporic queer bodies and the loss of motherlands.