My favourite plant: impossible to choose I love so many..… wild columbine or raspberries

Art piece that has impacted me: Ana Mendieta – Siluetas

Amanda Parafina is a performing arts stage manager and producer. A second-generation Filipino settler, she has grown up, lived and worked throughout the unceded and ancestral territories of the Kwantlen, Tsawwassen, Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations. With a BFA in Theatre Design & Production from UBC, Amanda finds joy in working with artists to create and play; to ensure everyone feels supported and cared for in creating their art, and is grateful to be a part of the process. Also an aspiring linguist, Amanda hopes to intersect the arts and languages in her own work in the future.

My favourite plant: I know it’s really basic but… I love my monstera deliciosa! It was my first plant and my mom gifted it to me, so it’s really special to me.

Art piece that has impacted me: watching the play The Unplugging by Yvette Nolan, produced by The Arts Club in 2012. I took a Reading Plays class at SFU during my first year and it was put on the syllabus to read and watch. This was before I even considered pursuing a career in the arts. That was the first professional production I had seen, and when I decided to pursue theatre two years later, it still had an impact on me.

jaye simpson is an Oji-Cree Saulteaux nonbinary transfemme storyteller from the Sapotaweyak Cree Nation. An avid community organizer with a fondness of Social Justice and Equity, they find themselves often planning rallies, teach-ins, reading series and celebrations of resistance. 

jaye is a displaced indigenous person living, creating and occupying on xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-waututh), and sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) First Nations territories.

Their favourite plant is hard to choose as they love time with nature and gardening. Daffodils and dandelions are especially important to them. An art piece/work that deeply impacted them was Children of God, a play by Corey Payette.

Hello! This is Marcelo. I’ve been a settler on Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh territories since 2012. I’m from Iztacalco, Mexico City. I joined Vines in 2019 and quickly took to putting time and thought into the way that we do accessibility. My work is grounded in my experiences of being casted out of multiple spaces because of my immigration status, trans experience, queerness and autism. I have experienced organizations whose accessibility efforts are performative and who refuse to take accountability. My focus as an “accessibility coordinator” is to make sure that we are reaching out to communities that have been systemically pushed away from witnessing and making art. You can email me at marcelo@vinesartfestival.com to ask questions, give me feedback, and make accessibility related requests.

My favourite plant: my peperomia rubella. It somehow has not died on me.

Most impactful art piece: Years ago I saw my now coworker Arash Khakpour break a watermelon with his fists and the memory has followed me since.

Katia Asomaning (pronouns: fluid) is a settler on the unceded territories of the šxʷməθkʷəy̓əmaɁɬ təməxʷ (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh-ulh Temíx̱w (Squamish) and səl̓ilwətaɁɬ təməxʷ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. They are passionate about: advocating for marginalized people; community building; uplifting and celebrating QTBIPOC voices; storytelling and narrative; and wellness.

In addition to her work in community relations and outreach with Vines, Katia is also Director of Operations for Pink Flamingo, a Black-led advocacy group that uplifts the QTBIPOC community by facilitating art, events, workshops, education and safer spaces. Katia’s values are intersectional, anti-racist and in solidarity with ongoing social justice movements and they are passionate about building equity across as many sectors as they can get their hands on.

Her favourite plants are carrots and cannabis and the art piece that most impacted her to date is The Guide & Protector, a mural located in Mohkinstsis by Jae Sterling.

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Estíqw is a 2 spirit anti-professional, working as an interdisciplinary artist with a focus on decolonization and indigenous autonomy. they are a defender of the sacred and use their craft as a tool to decolonization and land sovereignty. they and their fire are from the secwepemc nation of the south central interior of so called british columbia.

Jesse Del Fierro is a non-binary, Filipinx – Canadian theatre creator, performer and facilitator with the privilege to work in both Moh’kinstsis on Treaty 7 Territory and on the unceded, ancestral territories of the Coast Salish peoples colloquially known as Calgary AB and Vancouver BC respectively. They will have the absolute joy of being vAct’s 2021-22 MSG Emerging Dramaturg and have collaborated on works presented at PuSh International Performance Art Festival, SummerWorks, Audain Gallery and rEvolver Festival amongst others. Intersectionality is their only reality. Honesty is the policy and so is screaming. Say hello at www.jessedelfierro.com

Ivan So is a multidisciplinary artist, graphic designer, and educator who is currently working in Vancouver, BC. He has exhibited artwork at the Audain Gallery and created graphic art for Arts Club, Vancouver Playhouse, Gateway Theatre, and more. Ivan’s art practice focuses on mental health, empowering the marginalized, and environmental justice. As an educator, he is interested in integrating good pedagogy in his work and encouraging the use of art to deliver meaningful messages. Ivan So studied at Simon Fraser University and holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts. He is currently studying Graphic Design and UX/UI design at British Columbia Institute of Technology.

Originally from Tehran and based in Vancouver, Arash Khakpour is privileged to be a dance artist who has immigrated to the ancestral and unceded Coast Salish territory including the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations.
Arash’s desire is to see whether the theatre can be a place to interrogate the body and to investigate the alternate ways of being – how can one just be a body? He is interested in dance as a way to research human nature and human conditions through historical, social, political and existential interpretations.

Arash is the cofounder of the dance-theatre company The Biting School (alongside his brother Aryo Khakpour), the cofounder of Vancouver’s performance group Pressed Paradise and the founder and co-host of How About A Time Machine a podcast on the history of Canadian performance. Arash is grateful to be the 2017 recipient of Dance Victoria’s Chrystal Dance Prize’.

Photo by Sheng Ho