Erin Zimerman

(Teacher at Oasis Skateboard Factory)

Erin “Rock” Zimerman is a key fixture in Toronto’s graffiti subculture, having painted in the city for 25+ years. He is currently employed with the Toronto District School Board as a permanent teacher at Oasis Skateboard Factory, an award-winning arts and entrepreneurship high school program.

Erin holds a BFA from OCADU and a BEd from York University. Photo credit: Robert Cribb

Jane Gordiyenko

(Teacher at Oasis Arts and Social Change Program)

I’m Jane, a dedicated and creative educator with a background in Biology, Psychology, and Geography. My journey has been marked by a curiosity about the world and the human mind. Helping students discover their strengths and passions is what motivates and excites me in teaching.

Born in Ukraine, my cultural roots have influenced my perspective, fostering a global outlook of compassion, empathy, and understanding that I aim to share with my students. I have a deep appreciation for learning about other cultures through travel, connecting with nature, maintaining a healthy lifestyle with a focus on fitness, and expressing my creativity through drawing and painting. These passions not only enrich my own life but also contribute to the vibrant and dynamic atmosphere I strive to create.

Felicia Byron

(Artist-In-Residence)

Felicia Byron (she/her) is a Caribbean-Canadian multidisciplinary artist and photographer living and working in Toronto, Canada. Byron has studied at OCAD University and holds a Certificate of Fine Art and Commercial Portraiture from Spéos International Photography School. As a Black woman and neurodivergent artist living with cerebral palsy, Byron explores themes of identity and community as it relates to the African diasporic and to the disabled experience.

Byron’s work, often employs series as a format to evoke a sense of belonging and shared experience. Byron employs a cinematic approach to creating still imagery, through the use light, colour, wardrobe, prop and set design elements to build worlds, weave stories and evoke feelings of familiarity.

*photo by Ishmil Waterman

https://www.feliciabyron.com

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Danielle Hyde

(Artist-In-Residence)

Danielle Hyde is a multi-disciplinary Tkaronto Treaty 13 Indigenous artist of with lived experience of an invisible mental health disability. Her artwork spans many mediums including new media, murals, painting, photography and installations mixed with performance. Anchoring her practice and process in  the decolonialization of deep transformative accessibility, she centers generosity and ethical relationality in every creative action. She engages all Art as a collaboration, a cocreation. She consciously connects with Art’s fundamental generosity and acknowledge partnerships with the Land, our first art teacher. Art is alive and aware when it is being observed it opens windows of understanding to speak with the viewer. In such conversations when grounded by ethical relationality we can engage Art in dialogues that re-member those things that keep us whole. She collaborates with all beings– seen and unseen, human and beyond-human in a creative chorus to tell these stories that live in community. By creating windows of understanding grounded in generosity, we can grow those critical good places and from within Art and community to flourish together. In dialogue as four-dimensional beings of hearts, minds, bodies, and spirits, we co-create decolonial ecologies of community and accessibility.

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