Voted #1 “Rising-Star Guitarist” in 2013’s DownBeat Critics Poll and successively in the "Top-Ten Guitarists" in 2015, 2016 & 2017 alongside Bill Frisell and Pat Metheny, guitarist and composer Rez Abbasi has become one of the most significant voices on the current jazz scene.

is a Nisga’a writer from British Columbia and the winner of the 2017 Griffin Poetry Prize for his poetry collection Injun. His creative work has recently been anthologized in Best Canadian Poetry, The Land We Are: Artists and Writers Unsettle the Politics of Reconciliation, and The New Concrete: Visual Poetry in the 21st Century. Abel is the author of Injun, Un/inhabited, and The Place of Scraps.

David R. Adler has written about jazz and assorted topics for JazzTimes, The Village Voice, Stereophile, The New York City Jazz Record, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Weekly, Time Out New York and many other publications.

Dr. Al-Solaylee is the author of the national bestselling memoir Intolerable: A Memoir of Extremes. His latest book, Brown: What Being Brown in the World Today Means (to Everyone), was hailed as "brilliant" by The Walrus magazine and "essential reading" by the Globe and Mail.

Simranpreet Anand is an interdisciplinary artist and is committed to a community engaged practice. She is currently working as an Engagement Facilitator at the Surrey Art Gallery and Curatorial Assistant at Western Front.

Dr. Kamal Arora is an anthropologist whose work focuses on gender and Sikhism. She is currently serving as Co-Director of the South Asian Studies Institute at the University of the Fraser Valley.

Tara Atluri is a writer, researcher, lecturer and artist who lives between Bangalore and Toronto.

Kiran Bhumber is a media artist, composer, musician and educator based in Vancouver, Canada. Kiran constructs interactive installations and performance systems that allow performers and audiences to engage with themes relating to cultural memory, embodiment and nostalgia.

Sadhu Binning is a bilingual author a central figure in the Punjabi arts community. He has published more than fifteen books of poetry, fiction, plays, translations and research.

Noa Bronstein is a curator and writer based in Toronto. Her curatorial projects include When Form Becomes Attitude (Calgary) bust/boom (Calgary), With an instinct for justice (Toronto) and Aleesa Cohene's solo exhibition I Don't Get It (Toronto, St. John's, and Vancouver).

Cathy Busby is a Canadian artist and activist based in Vancouver. She is currently an Adjunct Professor of Visual Art at UBC.

Fathima Cader practices human rights law in Toronto and teaches at the Faculty of Law at the University of Windsor. She is interested in borders and in the migrations of war.

Charles Campbell is a Jamaican-born multidisciplinary artist, writer and curator.  He currently lives and works in Victoria BC.

Gurinder Chadha is one of the United Kingdom's most proven and respected Film Director and Producers.

Rohit Chokhani is an award-winning arts curator, director and cultural leader. He is the Artistic Director for Diwali in B.C., co-creator of the Monsoon Festival of Performing Arts, and is an Artistic Associate at Bard on the Beach. Rohit is highly passionate about making performing arts equitable.

Tom Cho has been freelancing as an editor and writer since 1993. He is also a fiction writer whose collection of fictions, Look Who's Morphing, was published in his birth country of Australia and later released by Arsenal Pulp Press for North America.

Samaqani Cocahq (Natalie Sappier) grew up in Tobique First Nation, New Brunswick. She began as a visual artist, inspired by ceremonial teachings, language and surroundings.

Scheherazaad Cooper is an accomplished Canadian performer and choreographer, drawing from nearly thirty years as an Odissi classical Indian dancer, as well as a background in theatre, in her contemporary work.

Chris Creighton-Kelly is an interdisciplinary artist, writer and cultural critic born in the UK with South Asian/British roots. His artworks have been presented across Canada and in India, Europe & the USA.

Mehjabeen Datoo is a Secondary Humanities teacher and teacher educator working in the Richmond School District in British Columbia.

Junie Désil is a Haitian-Canadian poet who has performed at various literary events and festivals. Her work has appeared in Room Magazine and was recently shortlisted for Prism International’s Pacific Poetry Prize.

Deena is a PhD Candidate in the English Department at the University of British Columbia. His work concerns the intersections of the nation, post-colonial capitalism and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa.

Phinder Dulai is a writer and poet living in Surrey, B.C. His poetry is published in Canadian Literature, Offerings, Cue Books Anthology, and other publications. He is a co-founder of The South Of Fraser Inter Arts Collective, and is the author of two poetry books.

Mercedes Eng teaches and writes in Vancouver, on unceded Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh territories. She is the author of Mercenary English, a long poem about violence and resistance in the Downtown Eastside neighbourhood of Vancouver.

Soheila K. Esfahani is a visual artist, lecturer at the University of Waterloo, and an educator at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto. Her research and art practice navigates the terrains of cultural translation in order to explore the processes involved in cultural transfer and transformation.

Dr. Sal Ferreras is a percussionist, administrator, and an artist dedicated to the pursuit of connections and the bringing together of diverse minds towards common goals.

Kathleen Flaherty is the Dramaturg at PTC, and a former producer of radio drama and Ideas documentaries for CBC Radio. She collaborates with theatre makers to manifest a piece of theatre live in space with the capacity to engage an audience.

David Garneau (Métis) is Associate Professor of Visual Arts at the University of Regina. His practice includes painting, curation, and critical writing.

Babak Golkar was born in Berkeley in 1977. He spent most of his formative years in Tehran until 1996 when he migrated to Vancouver, where he obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Visual Arts from Emily Carr Institute in 2003 and a Masters of Fine Arts from the UBC in 2006.

Beau Gomez is a photo-based artist living in Toronto, Canada. His projects are mainly driven by a curiosity in understanding and subsequently re-envisioning social and cultural tropes of manhood, homosociality and principles of intimacy.

Ayumi Goto is a performance apprentice, currently based in Toronto. Born in Canada, she sometimes draws upon her Japanese heritage and language to investigate notions of national culturalism, senses of belonging, and activism in her creative practice.

Garry Gottfriedson has 10 published books, and has read from his work across Canada, United States, Europe, and Asia. His work has been anthologized and published nationally and internationally.

Melanie Hardbattle is an Archivist with Simon Fraser University Library, Special Collections. She has been instrumental in the Rungh archive being digitized in the Simon Fraser University Digitized Collections.

Tarah Hogue is the inaugural Senior Curatorial Fellow, Indigenous Art at the Vancouver Art Gallery and is a Visiting Curator at the Institute of Modern Art in Mianjin Brisbane for 2018.

Zakir Hussain is one of the world’s foremost percussionists in Jazz and World Music. An unparalleled virtuoso of the tabla.

Am Johal is Director of SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. He is the author of 'Ecological Metapolitics: Badiou and the Anthropocene' and co-author of "Global Warming and the Sweetness of Life: A Tar Sands Tale."

Hanif Karim lives in Vancouver and once, many years ago, played soccer with Rawi Hage on a gorgeous summer day in Montreal.

Kiran Kaur is a writer who was born on the traditional territories of the Sinixt peoples, and the Ktunaxa peoples. They are currently at work on a queer Punjabi love saga entitled, Nerve, as well as a collection of Punjabi ghost stories. They live with their parents.

Professor Ali Kazimi is a filmmaker, writer, and visual artist whose work deals with race, social justice, migration, history, memory and archive.

Hussein Keshani is an Art Historian who researches and teaches South Asian visual cultures at the UBC Okanagan campus in Kelowna, B.C., Canada.

Ausma Zehanat Khan is a community activist and writer living in Colorado. She is the author of The Unquiet Dead and The Bloodprint, her fantasy debut.

Sukaina Kubba is an architect and artist. She works with a variety of materials within the canon of painting including latex, PVC, Polyester, silk and found objects.

Rahat Kurd is a poet and cultural critic living in Vancouver.

Mackenzie Lad is a photographer, writer, and journalism student at Concordia University in Montreal. Her photography and writing has appeared in various publications online and in print.

Chris Lee is Associate Professor of English at the University of British Columbia. His research focuses on diaspora Chinese literary thought during the Cold War and the cultural politics of Chinese Canadian historical narratives.

Nancy Lee is an interdisciplinary media artist, filmmaker and electronic music curator. Her work stimulates and enlivens space, making a provocative statement about how inescapably interconnected we are with our surroundings.

Zab Maboungou is an artist, a philosopher, and a leader in the field of both dance creation and dance teaching.

Hailed by Pitchfork as "jaw-dropping, one of the finest saxophonists going," alto saxophonist, composer and educator Rudresh Mahanthappa is widely known as one of the premier voices in jazz of the 21st century.

Farrah Miranda is an Abu Dhabi born, Toronto-based artist of Goan and Mangalorean descent. She has exhibited at the Santa Fe Arts Institute, Workers Arts and Heritage Centre, Onsite Gallery, Art Gallery of York University, Artcite Inc., Surrey Art Gallery, Astérides, and Whippersnapper Gallery.

Dr. Anne Murphy is Associate Professor in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia, and co-Director of the Centre for India and South Asia Research in the Institute of Asian Research.

Carolyn Nakagawa is a poet, playwright, and cultural organizer. She holds a degree in English Literature and Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies from UBC.

Shenaaz Nanji is an internationally published children’s author.

Zinnia Naqvi is a visual artist based in Toronto and Montreal.

Cecily Nicholson is the administrator for Gallery Gachet, an artist-run centre and mental health resource in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside neighbourhood. She is the author of Triage and From the Poplars.

Jivesh Parasram is an award winning multi-disciplinary artist, and a fine maker of dhal. His work has been performed internationally including Canada, Italy, and the West Indies. He is Artistic Director at Rumble Theatre in Vancouver, and is a co-founder of Pandemic Theatre.

Dawit L. Petros is a Visiting Artist in the Department of Photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is represented by Tiwani Contemporary in London, UK. He investigates boundaries in artistic, geographical and cultural contexts.

Zahida Rahemtulla is an emerging writer of fiction and theatre. Her play-in-progress, The Wrong Bashir, was recently selected as a national finalist for Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre's MSG program and is in development at the Playwrights Theatre Centre.

Jagdeep Singh Raina is an artist who has studied at the Rhode Island School of Design and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Madison, Maine.

Salman Rushdie is the author of thirteen novels, a book of stories, and four works of non-fiction. He has received numerous awards and recognitions, and his books have been translated into over forty languages.

Julian Samuel is a documentary filmmaker, writer and painter.

Sandra Semchuk is a photographer and storyteller who uses the familial, autobiography and dialogue as the basis for recognition and identity across generations, cultures and species.

Rajarshi Sengupta is a practitioner and a PhD candidate in art history at the Dept. of Art History, Visual Arts, and Theory, University of British Columbia, Vancouver. His work focuses on artisanal histories and practice-theory interface.

(Nep) Nirbhai Singh Sidhu is an interdisciplinary artist based in Toronto. Sidhu's art practice highlights conceptual and technical components originating from antiquity, with relevance for the present.

Madiha Sikander graduated from the National College of Arts in Lahore, Pakistan, specializing in miniature painting. She works around issues of historical erasure and memory.

Sroop Sunar is a London based illustrator. She's worked with clients such as Penguin, Random House and The New York Times, and has exhibited in London and Berlin.

Swapnaa Tamhane is an artist and curator. She has been closely studying the Indian performance artist Rummana Hussain (1952- 1999).

Manjushree Thapa was born in Kathmandu and raised in Nepal, Canada, and the United States. She has written several books of fiction and non-fiction.

France Trépanier is a visual artist, curator and researcher of Kanien’kéha:ka and French ancestry. Her practice is informed by strategies of collaboration.

Jaret Vadera is a transdisciplinary artist whose work explores how different social, technological, and cognitive processes shape and control the ways that we understand the world around and within us.

Rahul Varma is a playwright, essayist, and community activist. He is a co-founder and artistic director of Teesri Duniya Theatre. His works include Land Where The Trees Talk, No Man's Land, Trading Injuries, Counter Offence, and Bhopal. Rahul lives in Montreal with his wife and his daughter.

Executive Director of SAVAC (South Asian Visual Arts Centre).

Eduardo Velázquez is Dominican American artist and filmmaker working in video, painting, performance and multimedia installations.

Hal Wake has been engaged with the literary community in Canada for more than 30 years. He has interviewed many well-known authors, and has hosted or moderated hundreds of literary events. He is an Honorary Member of the Writers Union of Canada, and is the former Artistic Director of the Vancouver Writers Fest.

Mandeep Wirk is a writer and journalist, Wirk is also a visual artist, photographer, educator, and social activist.

Rita Wong is a poet-scholar who has written several books of poetry. She lives, works and strives for water justice on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil Waututh First Nations.

Hyung-Min Yoon is a visual artist who lives and works in Vancouver, Canada and Seoul, Korea. Yoon’s work explores the broad notion of translation and the history of language through re-contextualization.

Abeer Yusuf is a journalist, media professional, writer, avid book-reader and interested in all things coloured yellow.