Lauren Wetmore is a Canadian curator and writer based in Brussels. She has initiated and contributed to exhibitions, biennials, publications, and commissions internationally, working closely with artists in that space between the unstoppably abstract needs of an artwork and the immovably practical constraints of the world around it. As artistic and curatorial coordinator of Meeting Points 8, she contributed to the biennial of art from the Arab World, which took place at the Beirut Art Center (Beirut, 2017), La Loge (Brussels, 2016), and the Windsor Hotel (Cairo, 2016). As associate curator of Frieze Projects (London, 2014-2015) she co-commissioned twenty major new works in a variety of media by artists including Lutz Bacher, Rachel Rose, and Cerith Wyn Evans. As curatorial assistant to the 2013 Carnegie International (Pittsburgh, 2012-2014) she co-authored the biennial’s catalogue and oversaw its satellite public program The Apartment, with projects and presentations by over fifty international artists. As program coordinator of visual arts residencies at The Banff Centre (Banff, 2011), she produced Ragnar Kjartansson’s television spectacular Soiree TV. Her project The Conversation won the Encura curatorial residency at Fundació AAVC Hangar (Barcelona, 2015). Her writing has been published in C Magazine, Momus, and Spike Art Quarterly, among others, and she has contributed to publications including Xavier Cha: abduct (MOCA Cleveland, 2015) and These Are the Tools of the Present: Beirut – Cairo (Sternberg Press, 2017). Wetmore holds a MFA in Criticism & Curatorial Practice from OCAD University (Toronto, 2011) and a BA in Art History and Gender Studies from the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, 2008).

Dushko Petrovich is a Chicago-based artist who has exhibited his work internationally at venues including the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, the Charlottenborg Museum in Copenhagen, and Zacheta—National Gallery of Art in Warsaw. His writing has appeared in periodicals such as Bookforum, n+1, and ArtNews, among many others. As a co-founder of Paper Monument, Petrovich has edited publications including I Like Your Work: Art and Etiquette and Draw It with Your Eyes Closed: The Art of the Art Assignment. In 2015, Petrovich published Adjunct Commuter Weekly, which was reported on by the New Yorker, the Wall Street Journal, and NPR. His newest project, The Daily Gentrifier, will debut in September. Having previously taught at Yale, New York University, and RISD, Petrovich is currently Graduate Director of the New Arts Journalism program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Bopha Chhay is a writer and curator based in Vancouver. She is co-founder of livedspace, a research and publishing organization. She has held positions at Enjoy Public Art Gallery (New Zealand), Afterall (Contemporary arts research and publishing) Central Saint Martins College of Arts & Design (UK), 221A Artist run centre (Vancouver), Charles H. Scott Gallery (Vancouver) at Emily Carr University of Art & Design and currently holds the position of Director/Curator at Artspeak (Vancouver). She provides editorial support for Bartleby Review and is co-founder and an editor of Charcuterie.

Steffanie Ling is a producer of criticism, pamphlets, stories, essays, exhibitions, reviews, bluntness, anecdotes, shout outs, wrestling storylines, proposals, applications, jokes, readings, minimal poems, poems, dinner, compliments, and diatribes. Her books are CUTS OF THIN MEAT (Spare Room, 2015) and NASCAR (Blank Cheque, 2016). Her first script, UBER EVERYWHERE was commissioned by the 2nd Kamias Triennial and produced by artist Gabi Dao as an podcast play for Here Nor There, her sonic publishing project presented by Western Front. Ling is co-founder and an editor of Charcuterie, and a curator of events and exhibitions at VIVO Media Arts Centre. She lives in Vancouver, frequenting grocery stores, The Cinematheque, and other air conditioned spaces.

Fan Wu is the organizer of Close Workshops – an ongoing series of critical reading and creative writing sessions that happen over a period of many months, around a central problem. They are founded on a model of sympedagogy, where participants’ expertises and passions directly influence the construction of the reading list and the shape of the workshop. These workshops aim to open spaces of intimate trust that enable experimentation and difficult dialogue.

Jim Shedden is the Manager of Publishing at the Art Gallery of Ontario, where he also occasionally curates film-related exhibitions, including the Guillermo del Toro: At Home with Monsters, currently on view at the AGO. In the 1990s, Shedden worked at the AGO as a film curator and performing arts programmer, before leaving for a 12 year stint at Bruce Mau Design. Shedden makes the occasional documentary film, and has written extensively on music, film, video, art, and design, published dozens of zines and small press publications, and has been involved in the artist-run scene in Toronto since the late 1980s. Shedden has recently published a book in the form of a poster that is really a zine, DIY Toronto, 1975-1989; is editing a book on Canadian avant-garde cinema; and recently co-founded ad hoc, an experimental film exhibition collective.

Lisa Gabrielle Mark is the Publisher at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). She was the Director of Publications at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, from 2000–2010. She has written extensively about contemporary art and has edited numerous museum catalogues and artist monographs, including Diana Thater: The Sympathetic Imagination (LACMA), Mike Kelley (Stedelijk Museum), WACK: Art and the Feminist Revolution (MOCA).

David Liss is currently Curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto Canada, (formerly Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art), and was Director & Curator from December 2000 through 2015. Arriving from Montreal with a vision to create a museum for contemporary art in Canada’s largest city, Liss evolved MOCA from modest beginnings in the Toronto suburb of North York, re-locating the museum to Queen St. West in 2005, and establishing its permanent facility in Toronto’s west end set to open in Spring 2018.

Paola Melchiori is the founder and past president of The Women’s Free University in Milan, and Crinali, the research and intercultural education association. She is also present president of the International Feminist University Network, an international think-tank for women’s critical thinking and education. These Free Universities are committed to carrying on participatory research and refining methodologies to collect the history of “invisible groups” in society and making them available for the public and for future generations. She is author of three books, co-editor of seven collections of oral history, and has written more than 70 articles and reports about feminist theory and on the topics of knowledge creation, interdisciplinary and relational learning, and education. She has also produced three videos on international struggles of women in Argentina, Iceland and Albania.  Melchiori is currently focusing on how to pass on experiences, memory, history to young women and men, through written and visual texts.

Adriana Monti is an independent producer and filmmaker with more than 30 years’ experience. She is the principal of A&Z Media Ltd., a documentary film making company. She began her career in the context of a larger feminist movement in Italy in the 1970s. Her 1983 film Scuola Senza Fine (”School without an End”) has become one of her artistic trademarks. It reflects her collaborative and participatory style that encourages the subjects of the film to co-author and infuse their creativity into the final production.  The film follows a group of former housewives who completed a 150-hour secondary diploma course and then joined a research and study group.

EMILIA-AMALIA is an exploratory working group that employs practices of citation, annotation and autobiography as modes of activating feminist art, writing and research practices. Initiated in 2016, the group investigates historical and intergenerational feminisms, as well as relationships of mentorship, collaboration and indebtedness between artists, writers, thinkers, curators and practitioners. In tracing these lines, the group aims to elucidate the histories of feminism that have been obscured and overlooked in the narratives of 1970s, or “second-wave,” feminism that we have inherited. EMILIA-AMALIA is an open group that invites all levels of engagement. We are all experts. No one is an expert. Expertise is not expected. EMILIA-AMALIA is initiated by Cecilia Berkovic, Yaniya Lee, Annie MacDonell, Zinnia Naqvi, Gabrielle Moser, Leila Timmins, cheyanne turions and Shellie Zhang.

Christopher Manson (British, b.1979) is a documentary photographer and photo instructor living and working in Toronto. He is the author of numerous self-published documentary photobooks focused on diabetes and First Nation health in remote northern regions of Canada. Manson’s bookworks can be found in numerous collections including the AGO Art Gallery of Ontario, Dorothy H. Hoover Library (Ontario College of Art & Design), Ryerson Archives & Special Collections, Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections (York University), and many others.

Don Taylor has been a bookbinder in Toronto since 1980. His practice includes book restoration, design bindings, portfolio making and corporate and edition binding for design firms, architects, small presses and private customers. Don’s design bindings and book works have appeared in exhibitions across Canada and in Japan, Italy and France. Examples of his work can be found in private and public collections in Canada, the U.S., Japan, and the United Kingdom. He is also the proprietor of Pointyhead Press which produces book works on subjects such as travel, memoir and the curious.

Dave Dyment is a Toronto-based artist whose practice includes audio, video, photography, performance, writing, curating, and the production of artists’ books and multiples. His work investigates how culture is formed, valued and used. He has exhibited across the country, as well as in New York City, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, London, and Dublin. His work sits in many private and corporate collections, and in the libraries of the AGO and National Gallery of Canada. Examples can be seen at davedyment.com or heard on the YYZ Anthology Aural Cultures or the Art Metropole disk New Life After Fire, a collaboration with Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth. He is represented by MKG127.

Born in Ajax Ontario, Kristin Nelson received her BFA in Visual Arts at Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design (2003) and MFA at Concordia University (2014). Kristin completed a Canada Council International Residency at Artspace in Sydney Australia (2015) and has participated in a residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts (2008). She has exhibited work in Canada at La musée régional de Rimouski, Idea Exchange (Cambridge), Skol (Montréal), Winnipeg Art Gallery, La Maison des artistes visuels francophone, Plug In ICA, Actual and RAW Gallery (Winnipeg). Her work has shown internationally at Museo Textil de Oaxaca in Oaxaca, México. Kristin is on the board of the Winnipeg Arts Council and has been a mentor for women identified artists at MAWA. She has served on the board of directors of the Manitoba Craft Council and the Manitoba Printmakers Association Inc. Her work is represented by Lisa Kehler Art + Projects is in the collections of Boralex, BMO, the Province of Manitoba and the Winnipeg Art Gallery.

Sean McLachlan is an artist and mapmaker living in Winnipeg, Canada. His work focuses on the power of place, and blends the boundary between fine arts, cartography, and furniture design.

Learn more about World Tea Party at worldteaparty.com

Momus is an international online art publication and podcast that stresses a return to art criticism. It publishes art writing that is evaluative, accountable, and brave. Since 2014, Momus has attracted more than 600,000 readers and been recognized by peer publications including Frieze, e-flux, The New Inquiry, and the LA Times. In 2016, it was shortlisted – twice – for the International Award for Art Criticism. It also established a podcast, which has already been syndicated by NTS radio, in the UK. Now, for the first time, Momus extends its reach to print. In its inaugural print publication, Momus encompasses its most popular, brave, urgent, and shifting criticism, while promoting a discourse that continues to address both the flaws and strengths of an artworld fast expanding – and in need of renewed reflection.

Tau Lewis (b. 1993) is a Jamaican-Canadian artist living and working in Toronto, Ontario. A self-taught sculptor, Lewis combines natural and synthetic materials to create simulations of living things. She considers the history and symbolism of each material, exploring the political boundaries of nature, identity and authenticity. Her work is bodily and organic, with an explicit strangeness and subtle morbidity. Previously, Lewis’ work has carried strong feminist themes. Her current practice relies heavily on her surrounding environment; she uses live plants, found objects and repurposed materials collected throughout the Canadian landscape to create figurative sculptures investigating black identity politics and African diaspora.  Lewis has exhibited at the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Spring Break Art Fair in New York and Mulherin New York. She has received support from Toronto Arts Council and Ontario Arts Council. Recent and forthcoming exhibition sites include: New Museum, New York; Night Gallery, Los Angeles, USA; COOPER COLE, Art Gallery of York University, Toronto, Canada.

Nicotye Samayualie (b. 1983) is the daughter of Kudluajuk Ashoona and Johnny Tunnillie Samayualie. Nicotye’s grandmother, Keeleemeeoomee Samayualie was a well-known graphic artist whose prints were represented in the Cape Dorset annual print collections throughout the 1970’s and 80’s. Nicotye is fascinated by patterns and arrangements of disparate objects in nature and man-made materials. Many of her drawings depict everyday items such as the contents of a pantry shelf, a table of shiny fishing lures or boxes of camping supplies. Nicotye has had her original drawings shown at the Toronto Art Fair and in 2013 her work was featured in an Italian publication, ‘Annie e le Altre’, an ambitious scholastic study that explored the role of women artists in Cape Dorset.

The practice of Celia Perrin Sidarous presents assemblages and arrangements, following a logic that is at once internal and associative. Her photographs offer a considered way of looking at collected objects within the visual rhetoric of the studio. Referencing histories and the overarching structures of still life, interior arrangement and the placement of objects for display and exhibition, her photographs nonetheless confound the conditions through which everyday objects are usually interpreted and the ways we navigate the material world. Celia Perrin Sidarous holds an MFA from Concordia University. Her work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions at Parisian Laundry (Montréal), the Esker Foundation (Calgary), Campbell House Museum (Toronto), the Dunlop Art Gallery (Regina), The Banff Centre (Banff), WWTWO (Montréal), VU (Québec), Gallery 44 (Toronto), and was featured in the Biennale de Montréal 2016. She is the recipient of a number of grants and awards, including the 2011 Barbara Spohr Memorial Award. Her works are part of several private and public collections, including the collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal. She lives and works in Montréal.

Dorian FitzGerald (b. 1975, Toronto) makes monumental paintings of materially excessive situations. The subject matter includes the dining room of Stefano Gabbana’s yacht; the throne room of the Queluz National Palace in Lisbon; table decorations for a party thrown by Oprah Winfrey for Sidney Poitier; a Fabergé  Egg ornamented by a rose trellis; a Cartier bracelet and, most recently, an image of Elton John’s sunglasses collection at his estate in Old Windsor, England. Each of the paintings has been made using acrylic paint and caulking in a slow, precise method that FitzGerald has refined in his studio over several years, although the total number of paintings made in this manner is less than fifteen, given their scale and complexity. The process involves researching suitable imagery, manipulating it with software, making a large-scale acetate transfer onto canvas and then using clear caulking to delineate areas of pure colour so that the image is built up slowly in a manner that resembles a kind of pointillism filtered into vector graphics. FitzGerald’s largest painting to date, “The Hacker-Pschorr Beerhall, Oktoberfest, Munich” (2005), at twelve feet wide by eighteen feet high, took the artist more than three years to complete. Of his work and his process, the artist has written that “the images that interest me are symmetrically organized, complex masses of objects that assume fractal-like forms. These opulent interiors and luxury objects not only benefit from the rich texture and application of paint, they also closely align with my socio-political interests. I see myself as a contemporary court painter, documenting on a grand scale the material and spatial excesses of our time.”