Sana Akram
PhD Candidate, Cinema and Media Studies, York University

Sana Akram is a Pakistani XR creator, media artist and an urbanist, currently pursuing a doctorate in Cinema and Media Studies at York University as a recipient of the prestigious Elia Scholars Program Award. Her research-creation explores the themes of wonder, relationality, and enchantment in storytelling, performance, and worlding. Her broader research interests include immersive storytelling and performance, oral tradition, worldbuilding, emergent media, cocreation, and civic engagement.

Tara Rose Morris
New Media Artist

Tara Rose Morris is a new media artist with a practice that spans live performance, immersive installation, and digital artifacts. They investigate the thresholds between spectacle and embodiment, using technology as a site for speculative imaginaries where bodies, memory, and identity converge, flicker, and dissolve.

Shirin Fahimi
Digital Media Artist

Shirin Fahimi is a first-generation Canadian-Iranian digital media artist based in Toronto. Through digital world-building, she explores the role of occult sciences and mysticism in empowering female presence across political, spiritual, and digital domains. Her work is deeply informed by mystical literature and magical practices from Islamic culture, as reflected in Iranian society and diasporic communities. She has exhibited and performed internationally at venues such as SAVVY Contemporary (Berlin), TIFF Bell Lightbox (Toronto), and the CAFKA Biennial (Kitchener). Her practice has been supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, and Banff Centre.

Ali Phi
Transmedia Artist

Ali Phi is a transmedia artist based in Toronto. His works are at the intersection of art, science, and technology, Through installations, autonomous machines, and performances, he explores the underlying mechanisms of new media, technology, interactions and data.

Haoran Chang
PhD Candidate in Cinema and Media Studies, York University

Haoran Chang is a visual artist, media art researcher, and experimental game designer.  He is currently a Ph.D. candidate at York University in Cinema and Media Studies. His practice and research focus on game studies, immersive media, posthuman media, ethnographic game design, somatic design, reenactment studies, and art in cosmotechnics.

Gangping Zuo
Sixth-Generation Successor of Traditional Yang-Style Tai Chi

Gangping Zuo is a sixth-generation inheritor of Yang-Style Taijiquan, a sixth-duan Chinese martial artist, and a first-class national martial arts coach. He is also the founding president of the Jiangyin Yongnian Yang-Style Taijiquan Association. He apprenticed under Master Zhao Youbin, a ninth-duan Chinese martial arts grandmaster and a fifth-generation family inheritor of Yang-Style Taijiquan.

Haoran Chang
PhD Candidate in Cinema and Media Studies, York University

Haoran Chang is a visual artist, media art researcher, and experimental game designer.  He is currently a Ph.D. candidate at York University in Cinema and Media Studies. His practice and research focus on game studies, immersive media, posthuman media, ethnographic game design, somatic design, reenactment studies, and art in cosmotechnics.

Elke Reinhuber
Associate Professor for Expanded Photography, SCM School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong

Elke Reinhuber is a media artist, educator and researcher at SCM City University of Hong Kong. With her award winning and internationally presented immersive projects, she explores different modes of presentation and strategies of storytelling to emphasise the parallel existence of multiple truths of the here and now, anchored in Expanded Photography.

Xinchen Du
Curatorial Director, Funshine Culture Group

Xinchen Du graduated from the Curatorial Practice Program at the School of Visual Arts in New York in 2020 and received her BFA from Parsons School of Design in 2018 with a major in Fine Arts and a minor in Museum and Curatorial Studies. She also studied Asian Culture and Economic Studies at Waseda University in 2018. Her practice and research interests lie in the history of social technology as well as in the application and reflection of technology and new media art from an interdisciplinary perspective.

Xueyu Liu
Curator, Raiden INST

Xueyu Liu, a curator at Raiden INST in Shanghai, graduated from Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts and Chelsea College of Arts, UAL. Her practice centers on mixed-media spatial narratives, integrating diverse forms such as installation，AR/VR and Generative Digital Visuals to create sensory-extended exhibitions. Inspiring from daily life and local issues, she explores the interplay between technology, history，emotion, and reality. She initiated the interdisciplinary project “Capacitor” in 2022 and curated Tech-Driven exhibitions like “Hu Zhi Ling” (2023) and  “Turing Square” (2024).

Momo Yoshida

Momo is the founder and owner of Momo Tea, an online tea store based in Toronto. She selects high quality tea in her home country Japan and offers them at an affordable price in Canada.

Momo is a serious tea lover. She is Nihoncha(Japanese Tea) Adviser certified by Japan Tea Industry Central Association. She is also certified Tea Sommelier with George Brown College and Tea Association Canada.  She is a member of Tea Guild Canada. She belongs to the Urasenke school of Chanoyu (Tea Ceremony).

Keisuke Itoh
Artist

After graduating from Tama Art University’s Department of Graphic Design, Keisuke Itoh gained experience as a graphic designer and is currently active as an XR artist. His works, including the VR play “Typeman,” have been shown at several well-known events, including the Venice International Film Festival, the Cannes International Film Festival, and the world’s largest CG festival, SIGGRAPH. Since 2019, he has directed a VR animation work that has been screened for five consecutive years in the XR category at the Venice International Film Festival, and has been nominated for four consecutive years.

Momo Yoshida

Momo is the founder and owner of Momo Tea, an online tea store based in Toronto. She selects high quality tea in her home country Japan and offers them at an affordable price in Canada.

Momo is a serious tea lover. She is Nihoncha(Japanese Tea) Adviser certified by Japan Tea Industry Central Association. She is also certified Tea Sommelier with George Brown College and Tea Association Canada.  She is a member of Tea Guild Canada. She belongs to the Urasenke school of Chanoyu (Tea Ceremony).

Sana Akram
Lead Producer of the VR Presentation

Sana Akram is a Pakistani urbanist, media maker and a Fulbright alum based in Toronto, Canada. Her award-winning interactive documentary, Little Pakistan – Future Histories, has showcased at several international festivals and her research has been published in Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. Currently, she is pursuing a doctorate in Cinema and Media Studies at York University as a recipient of the prestigious Elia Scholars Program Award. Her research-creation interests include immersive storytelling and performance, oral tradition, worlding and worldbuilding, emergent media, cocreation, and civic engagement.

Wenting Li
Artist

Wenting Li is an artist and illustrator born in Sichuan, China, and living in Tkaronto/Toronto. Working across multiple mediums including installation, print + digital publications, drawing and painting, comics and murals, Li is currently thinking about communally possible futures, everyday routines, scifi and fantasy, specificity within the telling of stories, and leaving the door open to creatures.