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 supported by the OCAD Student Union, and 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) 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) 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.
PROGRAMMING COORDINATOR
Natalie King is a queer interdisciplinary Anishinaabe (Algonquin) artist, facilitator and member of Timiskaming First Nation. King's arts practice ranges from video, painting, sculpture and installation as well as community engagement, curation and arts administration.
Often involving portrayals of queer femmes, King’s works are about embracing the ambiguity and multiplicities of identity within the Anishinaabe queer femme experience(s). King's practice operates from a firmly critical, anti-colonial, non-oppressive, and future-bound perspective, reclaiming the realities of lived liv es through frameworks of desire and survivance.
King’s recent exhibitions include Come and Get Your Love at Arsenal Contemporary, Toronto (2022), Proud Joy at Nuit Blanche Toronto (2022), Bursting with Love at Harbourfront Centre (2021) PAGEANT curated by Ryan Rice at Centre[3] in Hamilton (2021), and (Re)membering and (Re)imagining: the Joyous Star Peoples of Turtle Island at Hearth Garage (2021). King has extensive mural making practice that includes a permanent mural currently on at the Art Gallery of Burlington. King holds a BFA in Drawing and Painting from OCAD University (2018). King is currently GalleryTPW’s 2023 Curatorial Research Fellow.
COMMUNICATIONS ASSISTANT
Agnes Wong (she/her) 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.
BOARD MEMBERS
For a list of current board members, please visit the OCAD Student Union website.
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, 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