The Gathering Divergence Multi-Arts Festival & Conference Spring 2026

May 12, 2026: Online

May 14 – 15, 2026: Hybrid

Nancy & Ed Jackman Performance Centre & Online

Building a Diverse Canadian Cultural Arts Management Ecology panel

This panel brings together cultural leaders, arts administrators, and consultants to discuss the future of arts management in the Canadian arts ecosystem. It asks what it means to build an “ecology” of arts managers that supports diverse needs, practices, and communities. Framed through the concept of ecology, the conversation explores relationships that shape the arts, including those between consultants, arts workers, artists, organizations, funders, and other stakeholders.

In a country defined by geographic scale and cultural diversity, arts management extends beyond organizational leadership to creating conditions where creativity can thrive across contexts. Panelists working at different levels of the cultural sector will share insights into current challenges, emerging needs, and future possibilities for arts workers, managers, and consultants. Topics include: mentorship, capacity building, and strategies for fostering both practical tools and long-term sectoral change.

Designed for arts leaders, administrators, and students, this session invites reflection on how to support future generations of arts management practitioners and build a more inclusive, sustainable, and dynamic arts management ecology in Canada.

Moderator: Sabrina Richard

Speakers: Michelle Yeung, Joyce Rosario, and Victoria Steele

Bios: 

Sabrina Richard

Sabrina Richard (she/her) is Co-Founder and Director of Research and Planning at Bespoke Collective, a Toronto-based arts consultancy specializing in cultural planning, community engagement, and arts strategy. With over a decade of experience working with arts organizations and cultural institutions across Canada and internationally, Sabrina brings deep expertise in strategic planning, capacity building, organizational development, and community engagement. Recent projects include a new program framework for the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, a feasibility study and organizational strategy for the Marlowe Foundation, business planning for the Centre for Art Tapes (CFAT), and leading CPAMO’s study of emerging co-director models in the arts, supported by Work in Culture’s Catalyst and Transformation (CAT) Fund. Her scholarly research has been published by the Mellon Foundation, as well as Routledge Press. Prior to co-founding Bespoke in 2011, she was Senior Planner at Lundholm Associate Architects, specializing in museums and cultural institutions. Sabrina is committed to building an inclusive and sustainable cultural sector in Canada. 

Michelle Yeung

Michelle brings over 20 years of experience in arts and culture, with deep operational leadership and a nuanced understanding of how revenue, staffing, governance, and programming decisions intersect in real time. As a Certified Fund Raising Executive (CFRE), she has strong command of the financial and relational dynamics that underpin nonprofit arts organizations, including donor ecosystems, revenue diversification, and long-term sustainability. Her governance experience, including serving on boards and leading initiatives like the Creative Champions Network, gives her clear insight into how leadership and boards must align to support organizational health and mission. At Mass Culture, she is leading the organization’s exploration of social enterprise and advancing strategies to strengthen financial resilience and long-term sustainability. Grounded in a systems-level perspective, Michelle understands arts organizations as part of a broader ecosystem shaped by policy, funding, and community, and translates this complexity into practical, sector-relevant strategies that enable organizations to generate both artistic and public value. 

Photo Credit: Kat Rizza

Joyce Rosario

Joyce Rosario is currently a Cultural Planner at the City of Vancouver and maintains an independent practice as a performing arts curator and consultant. She is a certified facilitator in the Critical Response Process® (CRP) and has shared CRP online and in person with local and international artists and organizations, ranging from the National Creation Fund in Ottawa, Canada to BlakDance in Brisbane, Australia. In all her work, Joyce is guided by values of collaboration, rigour and care and over her career has gained broad exposure in interdisciplinary, experimental and community-based performance. Joyce has served in programming and senior leadership positions, including the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival, New Works, and Made in BC – Dance on Tour. She studied Theatre Production/Design at the University of British Columbia following her first foray in performance as a teenage participant in a new genre public art project by Suzanne Lacy.

Victoria Steele

Victoria Steele is a bilingual, certified management consultant with decades of experience in arts and cultural management who works with clients and stakeholders to develop strategies, realize innovative projects, generate revenues, manage resources and build partnerships.  She is best known as a former Managing Director of Theatre at Canada’s National Arts Centre for 19 years, and general manager of several Ontario theatre companies, where she partnered with artistic directors to program over 50 world premieres and co-founded the Magnetic North Theatre Festival.  She also served as Executive Director of Arts Network Ottawa where, in addition to ongoing activities, she facilitated twenty community-engaged arts projects for Canada 150 and chaired the Ottawa Cultural Alliance.  A Queen’s School of Business graduate committed to supporting arts leaders, over the past decade Victoria co-created the Contemporary Management for Arts and Culture program at University of New Brunswick and Université de Moncton, taught at UOttawa Theatre Department, Carleton University’s Sprott School of Business and Queen’s University’s Master’s in Arts Leadership program. She has been a mentor through various national initiatives and led workshops in arts entrepreneurship and respectful workplaces. Victoria is currently Chair of Arts Consultants Canada and Treasurer of Culture Works Canada, and, among other projects, is leading a feasibility study to design a potential Canadian network for professional development in cultural management.

Strategies for Increasing Access in the Arts panel In partnership with Tangled Arts

UPDATE: We regret to inform attendees that, due to unforeseen circumstances, our Strategies for Increasing Access in the Arts panel has been cancelled.

This timely panel brings together artists and arts workers engaged in Mad, Deaf and disability arts practices to reflect on strategies for building access in artistic and organizational contexts, while also speaking candidly about the challenges artists and organizations face in creating and sustaining access that responds to a diverse and divergent community.

Moderator: Sean Lee

Speakers: Gaitrie Persaud, Salima Punjani, Theodore Walker Robinson, and Angela Sun

Bios: 

Sean Lee 

Sean Lee (he/they) is Director of Programming at Tangled Art + Disability, which operates Canada’s first gallery dedicated to Deaf, Mad, and disability arts and advances accessible curatorial practice. His work champions disability arts as a vital contemporary movement and positions accessibility as a creative and organizational method across the cultural sector.

For over a decade, Sean has contributed to national and international conversations on disability arts, access aesthetics, and disability-led curatorial practice through exhibitions, public programming, teaching, and mentorship. He has taught and presented with the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, NODE Curatorial Studies Online, Humber College, and the Goethe-Institut, and has published in Curating Access and Living Disability.

Sean serves on the Board of the Toronto Arts Council and CARFAC Ontario and regularly contributes to peer assessment and cultural policy initiatives across Canada.

Photo credit: Felicia Byron Photography

Gaitrie Persaud

Gaitrie Persaud is a Deaf artist, director, and the Founder & Artistic Director of Phoenix The Fire, a Deaf-led company dedicated to advancing ASL performance, interpretation, and accessibility in the arts. Her work centers Deaf and BIPOC voices, creating space for storytelling that is visually rich, culturally grounded, and unapologetically bold.

With experience across theatre, festivals, and community-based projects, Gaitrie brings a collaborative and intentional approach to her work, ensuring accessibility is fully integrated into the artistic process. She has led and contributed to a range of performances, workshops, and initiatives that challenge traditional structures and expand how audiences experience live art.

Gaitrie is also the creator of the Celestial Festival, a Deaf-led platform showcasing BIPOC Deaf artists. Through her work, she continues to advocate for meaningful inclusion, representation, and opportunities for Deaf artists across Canada.

Salima Punjani

Born in Vancouver in 1986, Salima Punjani is a Montréal-based multisensory artist whose work explores connection, care, and sensory accessibility through immersive sound, touch, and interactive installation. 

With a background in social work, her practice blends art and relational aesthetics, transforming biological and everyday sensory data — such as heartbeats, brainwaves, or domestic soundscapes — into environments that invite rest, empathy, and shared experience. 

Her recent work explores themes such as pleasure, grief, rest as resistance to systemic injustice and how medical data can be subverted into finding human connection rather than pathologies.

Working across sound, vibration, soft sculptures, multimedia and participatory storytelling, Salima creates spaces that challenge traditional sensory hierarchies, contributing to contemporary conversations on accessibility, intimacy, and multisensory artistic practice.

She holds a B.A. in Communications and Political Science from Carleton University, a Graduate Diploma in Journalism from Concordia University and a Master’s in Social Work from McGill University with research focusing on the intersection of the arts and care work.

She has shown work at many artist-run centres across Canada as well as the Phi Centre, Musée Regionale de Rimouski and the Spatial Sound Institute. Her work has been supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, Montreal Arts Council, Quebec Arts Council, International Development Research Council and SSHRC. She is currently enjoying playing with synthesizers and deep listening while getting lost in botanical gardens. 

Photo credit: Tristan Brand 

Theodore Walker Robinson 

Theodore Walker Robinson is an actor, singer, textile artist and scholar. They were born with congenital nystagmus and profound hearing loss. Their acting and theatre work explores topics of gender and mental health in the Black community. Their vocal practice explores nonbinary voice and jazz music. Their textile and academic research is focused on West African values in textile production and fashion design as they relate to social politics. Theodore is the Artistic Director of Loom Revolution in Regent Park, a weaving studio and guild for emerging QTBIPOC textile artists. 

Angela Sun

Angela Sun (She/ Her) is a Mad, Disabled, plus-size, first generation/ settler actor, theatre artist, writer, producer, equity consultant, educator, and arts manager of East Asian descent. Her multidisciplinary, multilingual artistic practice focuses on cultural dissonance and mental health. She is also known for her advocacy for cultural diversity, size inclusivity, and access for the non-visibly Disabled community. In her decade-plus career, Angela has worked with many arts organizations and theatre companies in Canada, and is a sought-after speaker and educator. She is currently the Community Engagement Manager at Theatre Passe Muraille, a member of Workman Arts’ Members Advisory Committee, and serves on the Board of The Disability Collective. She received the Patrick Conner Ticket Award in 2023. She can next be seen in Season 2 of The Squeaky Wheel Canada.