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.
Executive Director
Chiedza Pasipanodya (she/they)
Chiedza Pasipanodya is an artist and writer with over a decade of leadership experience across the arts, nonprofit, and community sectors. As an arts administrator, their work bridges organizational leadership with creative practice centering collaboration, integrity, and strategic vision.
Chiedza’s previous unique cross-sector roles include Board Director at Mercer Union, Curatorial Fellow with the Toronto Biennial of Art, Program Manager for award-winning youth initiatives at WoodGreen Community Services and co-founder of Sunset Service, a community-based, queer-affirming arts and spiritual initiative. With a strong background in program management, governance, and arts facilitation, Chiedza is a cultural leader committed to building systems that sustain artists, cultural workers, and communities.
As a practicing artist and writer, Chiedza has been shaped by migration and alternative spiritual traditions and cultivates a deep interest in the metaphysical and the unseen. This informs a social and material practice attentive to the ways that time, matter, and meaning interrelate.
Chiedza has an MFA in Sculpture from Cranbrook Academy of Art (2025) and a BFA in Criticism and Curatorial Practice from OCAD University (2019) where they researched Black Canadian artistic lineages and long-term cultural engagement. Chiedza is author of The Sweet Spot (Hush Harbour Press, 2025), their sophomore collection of poetry and photographs and a recipient of numerous residencies and awards, including the Cranbrook Art Museum, Purchase Award (2025).
Artistic Director
Avalon Mott (she/her)
Avalon Mott (she/her) is an arts administrator, curator, and photographer originally from Vancouver BC, now calling Toronto/Tkaronto home. She graduated with her BFA from Emily Carr University of Art + Design, and her MFA in Criticism and Curatorial Practice from OCAD University as the recipient of the Presidential Scholarship and Ontario Graduate Scholarship.
Avalon was a founding member and the co-director of FIELD Contemporary (BC), and is a member of The Plumb (ON). She has curated for numerous galleries and festivals, in addition to public art installations. Her curatorial work explores the curatorial methodology of exhibitionary affect and how, when applied, can heighten moments of feeling in the gallery space through individual relational experiences of the works on display.
Programming Coordinator
Zaina Zahr (she/her)
Zaina (she/her) is an artist and arts administrator from Toronto. Both her professional and creative practice are rooted in a desire to reimagine pathways towards a world that embraces diversity, honours complexity, and stands in pursuit of empowerment for all. Through cross-disciplinary approaches, Zaina’s work centers joy, resilience, and representation. Her passion for contemporary art, education, and community building drives her to create inclusive, engaging spaces that reflect and uplift the communities they serve. Zaina holds a BFA from OCAD University in Photography and Art & Social Change.
Gallery Coordinator
Abby Kettner (she/her)
Abby Kettner (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist and arts-administrator based in Toronto. Kettner graduated with a BFA in Cross-Disciplinary Art: Life Studies from OCAD University, and her artistic practice continues to evolve as she explores concepts of memory and loss through her unique visual language. Recent exhibitions include Niagara Artists Centre (2024), and Ignite Gallery (2023).
Communications Lead
Agnes Wong (she/her)
Agnes Wong (she/her) is a multidisciplinary designer, artist, and curator based in Tkaronto/Toronto and Hong Kong. She holds a BFA (Honours with Distinction) in Publications from OCAD University (2023) and has completed her propaedeutic studies at Design Academy Eindhoven, Netherlands. She is also the founder of FOREVER GIFT SHOP.
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
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.
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.
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.
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