Xpace Cultural Centre is a not-for-profit artist-run centre dedicated to providing emerging and student artists, designers, curators and writers with opportunities to showcase their work in a professional setting.
We approach our programming as a form of world-building: providing exhibitions, events, panels and workshops that respond to the direct needs and interests of our communities and membership. Expanding notions of theory and aesthetics, we seek to hold space for thought-provoking and experimental collaborations.
Xpace Cultural Centre is committed to maintaining an anti-oppressive, queer positive environment, prioritizing marginalized, racialized, Black and Indigenous folks.
Xpace is gracious for it's support from OCAD U student ancillary fees. Our programming is open to students, as well as emerging practitioners of any educational background. Xpace is not affiliated with OCAD University or the OCAD University gallery system.
We wish to acknowledge this sacred land on which Xpace Cultural Centre operates. It has been a site of human activity for 15,000 years. The territories include the Huron-Wendat, Anishinabek Nation, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nations, and the Métis Nation. The territory is the subject of the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, an agreement between the Iroquois Confederacy and Confederacy of the Ojibwe and allied nations to peaceably share and care for the resources around the Great Lakes. Today, the meeting place of Tkaronto is home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island and we are grateful to have the opportunity to work in the community, on this territory.
Director
Avalon Mott (she/her)
Avalon Mott is a curator, arts administrator and lens based artist originally from Vancouver BC, now calling Toronto home. She graduated with her BFA from Emily Carr University of Art + Design, and is pursuing her MFA in Criticism and Curatorial Practice at OCADU as the recipient of the Presidential Scholarship and Ontario Graduate Scholarship.
Avalon was a founding member and the co-director of FIELD Contemporary, and has curated for numerous BC institutions. She has also curated public art installations for the City of Richmond, the City of Vancouver, and Capture Photography Festival among others.
Avalon’s curatorial practice is rooted in supporting emerging and under-represented artists, alongside a commitment to bringing accessibility into the gallery space. Her thesis research is rooted in process and studio culture, and how this long standing tradition when brought into the gallery can aid in fostering accessibility and provide the viewer with a sense of agency and a platform for learning.
Programming Coordinator
Philip Ocampo (he/him)
Philip Ocampo is a queer Filipino artist and curator based in Toronto, Canada. Ocampo’s multidisciplinary practice primarily involves sculpture, installation, illustration and public programming. His work usually explores phenomenon, nostalgia, and the reconciling of personal experiences. Ocampo holds a BFA in Digital Painting and Expanded Animation from OCAD U.
Communications Assistant
Agnes Wong (she/her)
Agnes Wong is a multidisciplinary designer and artist based in Tkaronto/Toronto and Hong Kong.
Through an experimental approach, Agnes' creative practice seeks to integrate themes of displacement, fragmentation, and temporality together in an interdisciplinary blend of digital and moving image, photography, graphic design, text, and print matter. She holds a BFA (Honours with Distinction) in Publications from OCAD University (2023) and has completed her propaedeutic studies at Design Academy Eindhoven, Netherlands.
PAST STAFF MEMBERS
Aamna Muzaffar, Adrienne Crossman, Alicia Nauta, Alexia Bréard Anderson, Amanda Amour-Lynx, Amber Landgraff, Anam Ahmed, Andrea Manica Matthew Moreland, Ashley Proctor, Brette Gabel, Cameron Lee, Carmen Cheung, Casey Wong, Chloe Lorenzo, David Caterini, Derek Liddington, Dzeneta Zunic, Edison Osorio, Elija Montgomery, Elise Windsor, Elle McLaughlin, Emily Gove, Enna Kim, Erin Jacobson, Geneviève Wallen, Humboldt Magnussen, Hau Pham, Hwa-Jin Jun, Jacky Challenger, James Cam, Jazmine VK Carr, Jenneen Shortreed, Jennie Suddick, Jessica Cappuccitti, Joanna Labriola, Jonathan Wheeldon, Katie Kotler, Katie McGowan, Laura Baillie, Maddie Alexander, Mary Ma, Matthew Williamson, Maya Wilson-Sanchez, Megan Kotze, Melissa Fisher, Mireille Osbourne, Monica Laflamme, Natalie King, Ngqabutho Zondo, Nicole Rocca, Pablo Munoz, Patric Colosimo, Petar Boscovic, Sara England Melanie Keay, Sarah Butterill, Serena Lee, Solskin Brask, Stephanie Fielding, Stephanie Rosinski, Stephanie Simmons, Tomas del Baso, Vladimir Milosevic
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Asia Ruggiero
Asia Ruggiero is a Toronto-based artist-curator whose work bridges socially conscious curation with playful, imaginative art-making. Her curatorial practice emphasizes community, experimentation, and accessibility, focusing on work that challenges established narratives. As an artist, she creates under the name Glowball, crafting dreamlike compositions inspired by kawaii culture and the synergy of nature. Using accessible materials like pancakes and pencil crayons, she explores themes of connection, play, and world building.
Chloe Lorenzo
Chloe Lorenzo is a Filipina multidisciplinary creative based in Toronto. Her practice encompasses working as a stylist, strategist and graphic designer. She is a recent graduate from the Advertising program at OCAD University. Chloe seeks to create with a deep care for the self, incorporating rest and wellness into creative process. She believes in creating with care for others, celebrating her collaborators indents and intersections while prioritizing their needs. She aims to authentically represent her collaborators, cultivating a space for play and experimentation where they can thrive in their purpose.
Jasmine Liaw
Jasmine Liaw is an interdisciplinary artist, director, and designer in contemporary dance performance, new media art, and experimental film. Evidenced in collaboration and community, her work leans into transcultural narratives intersecting her Hakka diaspora, and queer theories in temporality and ecology. Select presentations of her work include Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto, The Asian Arts & Culture Trust with Holt Renfrew, Northwest Film Forum, Gallery 44, Pleasure Dome, and Images Festival. Liaw is a recipient of the 2023 Emerging Digital Artists Award presented by EQ Bank and Trinity Square Video. Recently, she co-founded inter-grit studios, an experimental auto-ethnographic research collaboratory.
Kathleen Foran-Spragge
Kathleen Foran-Spragge is an independent researcher, curator, and writer interested in how patterns of listening and sounding may be transformed to support relationships between humans and with the more-than-human. She is a recent graduate of the Criticism and Curatorial Practice MFA at OCAD University, where she is completing an exhibition thesis exploring how sound and movement can be used to form connections across linguistic divides.