Artistic Practices for Immigrants, Indigenous, Black and People of Colour (IBPOC)

Over the past 15 years, Jessica Ruano has worked extensively as an arts and culture journalist for multiple publications, as well as in marketing and communications for numerous theatre companies, arts organizations, artists, local businesses, and festivals in Ottawa and in London (UK). She is perhaps best known for directing and producing the award-winning touring productionsSappho...in 9 fragments and The Ghomeshi Effect. Currently, she is delighted to be surrounded by artists of all disciplines in her role as Community Program Director with MASC. She is grateful to be living on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishnaabeg people with her daughter Joy Apitak.

Featured by Ottawa Life Magazine as one of the 2013 Top 25 people in the Capital, Claudia Salguero is a Colombian-Canadian professional multidisciplinary artist and Community Engaged Artist working with multicultural groups in communities at risk. Working in collaboration with different Social Institutions, she has created more than 40 community murals in the City since 2014.

She was awarded by Ottawa Arts Council with the 2021 Peter Honeywell Mid-Career Artist Award, recognizing and encouraging the achievements of Ottawa artists of all disciplines who have evolved beyond the emerging stage in their career to become recognized professional working artists contributing to the community.

Through her work, Claudia has evidenced the power of community art and her capacity to work with communities in big projects.  In 2017 she was awarded with the 150Neigbourhood Arts Grant for the creation of her mural “Canadian Pride, Harmony in Cultures” as part of Canada’s 150 Anniversary official celebrations. She is the creator of  "The Wisdom Mural" the tallest mural in Ottawa, created with the participation of close to almost 70 members of the community from all backgrounds, genders and corners of Ottawa.

Claudia is also a Latin Folk and Jazz singer who has been raising funds for kids’ foundations in her home country Colombia through her annual sold-out concerts at the Ottawa’s National Arts Centre since 2011. She is a member of the Arts Network Ottawa’s Board of Directors.

Claudia believes in art and music as a tool for a better society

Kseniya Tsoy is a community-engaged and mural artist originally from Uzbekistan. As a person of mixed heritage, diversity is a vital component of her life and a constant inspiration for her work. Her personal murals are a visual exploration of complex cultural identities and are inspired by folk motifs from diverse cultures that have influenced her. Occasionally, she loves doodling comics that fight stereotypes with lightheartedness and humour. Sometimes those doodles even make it into public murals!

Marisa Gallemit is a Filipina-Canadian visual artist. Informed by motherhood and third culture

rituals, her work spans sculpture, site-specific installation, storytelling, and arts

advocacy. Since 2010 Marisa has been active in Ontario and Quebec with performative works,

design installations for music + art festivals and art-making workshops; she has directed visual

art programs for non-gallery community venues in Ottawa, and has produced a large-scale

public art installation for the City of Mississauga. Through an ongoing exploration of found

objects and their potential energy, Gallemit’s practice leans deeply into Buckminster Fuller’s

Query: “Now how do we make this spaceship work?”