Art in Unexpected Places will explore new and exciting ways to use art as a tool to reclaim public spaces and disrupt everyday routines.
Anjuli Solanki (She/Her)
Program Director, STEPS Public Art
Anjuli Solanki is an artist and urban planner with 15+ years in community engagement, public programming and urban research. She is the Program Director with STEPS Public Art and has been the project manager and administrative producer for numerous multi-stakeholder public art projects. Anjuli has also developed community programming and research through roles with the Riverside Business Improvement Area, Open City Projects, the Artists’ Network, the UBC Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver, Museums of Malawi in Blantyre, Goethe Institute and the Akilah Institute in Rwanda. She has served on the Board of the Artists’ Network and Co-Chair/Facilitator for the Toronto Ward Museum’s Programming Committee, as well as provided support to arts, culture and heritage initiatives across the country. She holds a Master of Science in Urban Planning from Oxford Brookes University and a Bachelor of Arts in Human Geography from the University of British Columbia. Anjuli has a passion for creative placemaking, public art and urban heritage.
Anna Gallagher-Ross (She/Her)
Senior Manager of Programming, The Bentway
Anna Gallagher-Ross is a curator working across performance, dance, and visual arts, with an emphasis on site-specific and socially-engaged practices. Currently, she is the Senior Manager of Programming at The Bentway, an innovative site in downtown Toronto that commissions and presents performances, public art projects, and community events that are of the city; about the city; for the city.
From 2017-2021, Anna was Co-Artistic Director & Curator of Fusebox Festival, the acclaimed international performance festival, which features interdisciplinary artists from Austin, the U.S., and around the world. At Fusebox, Anna also curated year-round performances, artist residencies, public art projects, and civic initiatives. In 2020, Anna was a guest curator at Performance Space Sydney’s Live Works Festival. She was also part of the inaugural cohort of GENERATE (2019-20), a joint program of the British Council and Arts Council England that promotes exchange between a select group of US and UK performance curators and producers.
Rui Pimenta (He/Him)
Founder & Co-curator, Art Spin
Rui Pimenta practiced as a visual artist from 2000-2014, exhibiting his work extensively in Canada and internationally. Since then, his creative focus has shifted towards programming and curatoriation. In 2009 he founded Art Spin, an arts organization now entering its 15th year of presenting site-specific, multidisciplinary programming in unique/alternative spaces and best known for its bicycle art tours. He was the Co-Director of Median Contemporary (2008-10) and has curated projects for the Toronto Artists Project, the Toronto Outdoor Exhibition, Eastern Front Gallery, and the Government of Portugal. He has served on various arts council juries, was a member of the City of Toronto’s Public Art Strategy Advisory Committee, and currently sits on The Bentway Advisory Committee. His curatorial aspirations are largely motivated by the enthusiastic pursuit of creating engaging and accessible ways to present art in public space.
Moderator
Adam Barrett (He/Him/They/Them)
Producer / Programmer, Luminato Festival Toronto
Adam Barrett is an arts and culture professional with 20 years of experience in Toronto theatre, film, and community arts programming. Recent highlights include producing “What You Won’t Do For Love” starring David Suzuki for The Luminato Festival, creation and direction of The Toronto Mycelial Network, and Doorstop Diaries programs at East End Arts where they, developing and producing “The Campfire Project” by Shadowland Theatre (summer 2019); Video designer for “Fences” at the London Grand Theatre (dir. Djanet Sears); writer, producer, and video designer of “Temple of the Divine Queer” at Buddies in Bad Times for the Rhubarb Festival; producer for Natasha Greenblatt and Rimah Jabr’s “Two Birds One Stone” at the Tarragon Workspace. The Toronto Star said of my projection design for “The Great War” in 2016, “Adam Barrett put the video back in VideoCabaret” which is completely untrue, but a pretty damn good quote.