Art Out Side

Anita Shahriary is a classically trained mezzo-soprano, pianist, lyricist, and composer known for blending classical technique with diverse musical styles. She has been singing for over 10 years and has performed extensively across Canada and the U.S. at festivals, concerts, and community events, recently presenting her concert, Songs in Bloom. In 2026, Anita received First Place in the Performing Arts BC Provincial Excellence Competition in both Classical Voice and Vocal Variety, as well as two First Place Medallions at the Vancouver Kiwanis Music Festival in Senior Classical Voice and Classical Voice Provincial Excellence. Alongside performing, she teaches voice and piano to students of all ages and is passionate about using music to connect cultures and communities. Through her expressive voice and engaging stage presence, Anita strives to create meaningful musical experiences for diverse audiences.

María Carolina Estupiñán holds a degree in Education with an emphasis on Artistic Education. Her career reflects a deep passion for traditional Colombian dance and a strong commitment to cultural education. After four years of training in dance, she became a professional dancer for seven years with the renowned Fundación Escuela Ritmo Caleño, performing on both national and international stages. In Colombia, she took part in major cultural events such as the Petronio Álvarez Festival, the Cali Fair, the Mercedes Montaño Folkloric Dance Festival, the Carnival of Blacks and Whites, the Inti Raymi, and the Festival de la Neblina. Internationally, she showcased Colombian folklore at the Festival of Almagro in Spain, the Folkloric Dance Festival in Belgium, and at the Casa de la Cultura in Cuba. Beyond her artistic career, she has led community initiatives such as Soñar con los Pies, a project working with children and seniors. Through dance and dance movement therapy, she fosters well-being, self-expression, and intergenerational connection.

Billy Marchenski graduated from the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University. He has been working in Theatre, dance and performance art for over 25 years, professionally. Billy won the Sidney Risk Prize for his play, "slowpoke," about his trip to the Chernobyl Exclusion zone in 2014. He is a founding member of the Butoh group gigamal, with members from Canada and Japan. Billy dedicates this piece to one of his mentors, the late Butoh dancer and teacher, Yoshito Ohno.

Camila Szefler is a Canadian-Polish illustrator, printmaker, mixed media artist with a BFA from ECUAD (2022) and based in the Tri-City area. She enjoys documenting the everyday, wherever that might be, in her small hand bound sketchbook with a captivation to drawing landscapes, patterns and plants.

Claire Davis is a Vancouver based multidisciplinary artist working across live performance installation, immersive theatre, and poetic arts. Their work blends clown, improvisation, and participatory writing and immersive elements to create playful, open-flow encounters where audiences become collaborators. They are a part of Dreamqueen Immersive Theatre, performing as the Star in The Last Resort (2024-2026) and as Bat Clown in Mr. Nowhere’s Disappearing and Reappearing Starlight Carnival (Fringe Festival Vancouver, 2025), while also serving as Propmaster and Creative Producer. Their performance installation practice includes creating and producing This is Not a Protest, presented as part of the Democratic Set at PuSh Festival (2020) with Big Pond Arts Collective. Claire’s broader work spans poetic installation and community-engaged projects, including Letters to the Lake (Deer Lake Artist Residency) and the Community Chronicles Zine Project: Stories of Home (CREATE! Arts Festival, 2024), as well as the eco-art installation RECIPROCITEA (Burnaby Blooms Festival Eco Artist Walk 2023). Their work has been recognized with the Poet’s Corner Reading Series Open Mic Listener’s Choice Award and the Royal City Literary Arts Society Poetry in the Park winner. Claire approaches their work with the lure of possibility, imagination, and the enduring alchemy of the moment.

Cookin' With Brass is a high octane band that supercharges Top 40 Pop songs with their universal party groove. Known for their heart pounding energy, this Funky Brass Band turns any event into a raucous family friendly New Orleans street party. Their repertoire spans I Want You Back by The Jackson 5 to I Just Might by Bruno Mars plus New Orleans Brass Band favourites. Cookin' With Brass was featured at 23 festivals and community concerts last Summer including Vancouver Symphony Day of Music, Granville Block Party, Main Street Car Free Day, Surrey’s Canada Day, The Hyack Festival, Mission Twilight Concert Series and Sounds of Summer in Surrey. Past performances also include The Harrison Festival of the Arts, Surrey Fusion Festival, The Harmony Arts Festival, The Surrey Tree Lighting Festival and The Whiskey Smoke at Hastings Racecourse. Cookin’ With Brass always brings the PARDI-GRAS!

Corus is an Indigenous sound healer and multidisciplinary artist of Haisla and Kitasoo Xai’xais descent, based in British Columbia. Their work blends Native American flute, crystal singing bowls, and immersive sound to create grounding and transformative experiences. Through their community Co-Creating Love, Corus facilitates sound journeys and performances that reimagine public space as a place for connection, healing, and presence.

Cosmic Lottery co-creators Anne and Ben Howard invoke a sense of joy with their work. Their living installations are childlike imagination made manifest, in conversation with their surroundings and their community. Cosmic Lottery is strategic spontaneity: carefully crafting work that invites improvisation and interaction.

Elijah Strand is a professional puppeteer and puppet builder in Vancouver BC. His work has appeared at The Salmon Festival, Vancouver Kids Fringe, and Midsummer Festival, and audiences have praised his puppets’ craftsmanship and smooth, expressive movement. His most recent project, Rags and the Magic Paintbrush, is a handcrafted show full of humor and heart about learning to express your inner artist. He prides in bringing storytelling, nature, and a sense of wonder to every project.

Isaac Gasangwa, better known as Izo Dreamchaser, is a distinguished creator, educator, and a leading ambassador of African cultures in Vancouver. Driven by a mission to promote African heritage, he founded AfroBeats Van, a renowned African dance company that provides dance classes and performance opportunities for Black artists. Since its establishment in 2017, Afrobeats Van has aimed to introduce, educate, and inspire Vancouverites to connect with African culture and history while actively addressing pressing social issues such as racism and police brutality.

Elizabeth is the eldest daughter of a Las Vegas mural artist. Raised in Las Vegas, her early education of visual media included the fantastical imagery of the Las Vegas Strip and the stark skylines offered by the Mojave Desert. Her early influences contribute to exploring the intricacies of plants, bright colours, and the stark silhouettes from her youth. Over her life, she has lived and traveled in and around the West Coast of North America before emigrating to Vancouver in 2017. Fluent in many mediums, her work spans multiple areas including watercolour, ink, fibre arts, and digital media. She is currently most fascinated by paint, fibre, and the way communities integrate with art.

Originally from Calgary, flutist Emily Richardson has played with ensembles across Canada including the Red Deer Symphony, National Youth Orchestra of Canada, and Vancouver Inter-Cultural Orchestra. She believes strongly in the emotional and story-telling power of music, and her flute and piano collaboration, Artemisia Duo, has presented themed programs in concert series across the lower mainland. In addition to modern flute, Emily began studying historical flutes during her Masters degree at UBC. Since then, she has performed in the Toronto Bach Festival and with Victoria Baroque. She recently joined the Naden Band as a full-time member, and is thrilled to be back on the West Coast, as well as to be part of the Art Out Side festival.

Fantastique is Vancouver's newest dance collective, joining forces to create epic veil fan and flow art group acts! Comprised of four talented cabaret creators with decades of dance experiences under their belts, Fantastique is thrilled to offer performances that are lush, expressive, and full of fabric!

5 on a String has been picking and singing bluegrass music all around the Pacific Northwest for over thirty years, so get ready for plenty of hot picking and fiddle tunes to entertain and enjoy. Many folks love the old time theme and harmony singing, and even the kids are attracted to the staccato sounds of the banjo and fiddle. They play and sing in the old time radio show style, gathered around one microphone, and they’re sure get your toes tapping and hands clapping… Guaranteed. They have performed all across B.C., Alberta, and Washington state over the years and the friends, fans, and relationships they have shared are a testament to their hard work. Hope you enjoy the show tonight!

Francisco Berlanga is a Vancouver based textile artist whose practice reflects on his relationship to his Mexican identity as a second-generation immigrant through the lens of Craft. He attempts to understand how one can inhabit a culture while being partially absent from it. He engages in discourse with his own identity through the creation of traditional Mexican “manualidades” or crafts. His practice engages with concepts of inaccessibility attempting to bridge the gaps between his personal and cultural identities by forcing connections between them and trying to understand the limitations that these identities impose upon each other. Working with traditional materials allow him to attempt to salvage connections often severed by colonial notions of diaspora. Histories of repetition often produce apparitions of motifs that haunt his works. His previous exhibitions include solo shows at Grunt Gallery and Modern Fuel as well as group shows at the Morris and Helen Belkin gallery, Surrey Art gallery, the AHVA gallery, This gallery, and the Audain gallery. Berlanga obtained his BFA at Simon Fraser University and his MFA at the University of British Columbia.

Fred Soofi, a member of BC Chefs Association, founder and chef of Pasta Polo & Brick Oven Pizza in Coquitlam since 2001. In 2005 he opened Il Mercante on Queen St in Port Moody which was the first in the Tri-Cities making pizza in a wood burning oven. He has always been very involved in the community, Coquitlam Farmers’ Market, SHARE Food Bank, Peoples’ Pantry and others. Fred is Advisor on the Advisory Council of Port Moody Arts. Fred has been active in Port Moody moving and preserving heritage homes at risk of demolition. The Appleyard building which in 2004 was moved to the present location as part of Port Moody Arts Centre was the heritage house he saved from demolition and then restored.

Georgie Dan is a talented multidisciplinary artist born Mexico City. From an early age, she displayed an innate passion for art and creativity, which led her to explore various forms of artistic expression throughout her life. Her artistic journey began with drawing and painting, photography, acting and dancing. Her artistic approach was characterized by a special sensitivity to the beauty of the everyday and human connection, which allowed her to tell visually striking pieces. After completing her studies in graphic design, art and photography, Georgie ventured to different parts of the world to enrich her creative outlook. Her travels became an inexhaustible source of inspiration for her work, allowing her to mix different styles and aesthetics in her images. Throughout her career, Georgie has collaborated on a wide variety of artistic and publishing projects. He has worked on solo and group shows at local and international art galleries, receiving praise and recognition for her innovative approach and ability to communicate emotion through her photography. In addition to her focus on photography, Georgie has also dabbled in other artistic disciplines, such as graphic design and painting. Her versatility has allowed her to create creative projects in various fields, always maintaining her passion for art and her search for beauty in all its forms. Her artistic approach transcends cultural and geographical barriers, connecting with the viewer on a deep emotional level. Georgie is an artist committed to her passion for art, and her legacy will continue to leave an indelible mark on the con- temporary art scene. Her work inspires others to look at the world from different perspectives and to appreciate the beauty that lies within the ordinary and the exceptional.

Harmonie Garry is a multidisciplinary French and Canadian artist whose practice merges living art, scenography, puppetry, visual art, and pedagogy. With a background in performance, set design and arts education, she creates poetic, intimate encounters that blend language, gesture, and object theatre. Her work often explores the space between understanding and feeling, inviting audiences to experience meaning through sound, rhythm, atmosphere, and emotion rather than translation. Rooted in playfulness and subtle magic, her artistic approach transforms everyday materials, papers, found objects, into portals for imagination. Harmonie has developed participatory and site-responsive performances, always seeking to spark curiosity, poetry, and a sense of wonder in public spaces

Joy is a Vancouver-based artist creating interactive, community-driven installations that explore the relationship between emotion, colour and shared experience. Her work invites public participation, transforming individual expression into collective visual environments.

Joy Machuga, aka, Joy On Drums is a genre fluid drummer who works professionally as an artist; touring, performing, organizing, teaching and building community. Her work includes recording over 25 albums, performing internationally and working with a broad range of artists including: Snotty Nose Rez Kids, Tia Wood, Cris Derksen, Rae Spoon, E.S.L, and many more. She runs the gamut of styles from playing folk festivals, to working with theatre and dance companies, to performing at the 2025 Juno Awards, playing stadiums, to playing correctional facilities, to experimental, improvised interdisciplinary performances to punk, thrash dive bars,. She has also worked on film scores for movies, TV shows and documentaries. She is active in building the local music and art community, teaching full time, organizing and programming music events, and running venues. Her contribution encompasses work as a booking agent, artistic director, founding member of a non-profit and facilitator. She also enjoys developing curriculum and workshops in her teaching practice. Her work has expanded to visual fibre art and painting. She was inspired to use scrap drum materials, combining the skill of salvaging and repurposing in creative ways. The pieces are made from discarded drum heads and the music lives on in a new incarnation. All of her work, whether it be music, teaching, facilitating, coordinating, art or performance, revolves around the drums.

Mahaul is a musical group which touches on a variety of subjects love, addiction, poverty, societal injustice, nature and free will. They have cultivated a sound which lies somewhere between folk, punk, psychedelic rock and indie.

Carpenter by day, showman by night and storyteller by nature. Matt Peterson-Muirhead is a hardworking man that finds great release in the expression of music and song writing. From beautiful Port Coquitlam BC, Canada, Matt’s music is influenced by the environment around him and the characters he encounters everyday. Inspired by great blues, country, rock and bluegrass players, his music is genre defying and speaks to many different walks of people.

Melissa Burgher is an award winning multidisciplinary artist and basketry weaver whose work is deeply inspired by nature, wildlife, and the coastal landscapes of British Columbia. Drawing on a lifelong connection to the outdoors, she creates handwoven basketry and fibre art that reflect themes of resilience, storytelling, and humanity’s relationship with the natural world. Through traditional weaving techniques and contemporary artistic expression, Melissa transforms natural and found materials into pieces that celebrate both craftsmanship and the enduring beauty of the environment

Michael Deacon is a Canadian/Romanian singer/songwriter and multi-instrumental recording artist who was raised in North Vancouver. He's been writing since childhood and loves weaving meaningful experiences into songs that land in the hearts of listeners, uplift the spirit, and inspire positive change. Using guitar and voice to create a deep landscape of feelings for audiences. Original music that uses rich language invites a deep listening and contemplative experience.

Experienced up beat country, Canadian folk, roots singer songwriter. Host bi weekly Open Mic Nights in Port Moody to promote music in our community. I had the opportunity to play this event last year and immensely enjoyed the experience and opportunity. This event is amazing concept.

Nickie Lewis is an artist residing on the unceded lands of the Tsleil-Waututh and Musqueam first nations people, also known as Burnaby B.C. Canada. She specializes in eco-friendly art created entirely out of natural organic, and 100% biodegradable materials. She endeavors to spread joy while bringing awareness to the preservation of our natural world. Her most recent accomplishments include, a public display of multiple large scale projects through the ArtStarts program as an Artist in the Classroom grant recipient, a 5 month Artist in Residence for the City of Port Coquitlam, and a Canada Council Grant recipient for her work with alternative biodegradable materials on her works.

Cydney Uffindell-Phillips is a movement director and interdisciplinary artist creating physically driven performance work that sits between theatre, dance, and film. As the founder of No-One’s Watching, she develops movement-led narratives that prioritize the body as a site of storytelling, often exploring inner emotional worlds through stylized, visual language. Her work has been shaped by international training, including the National Theatre Studios in the UK, and is influenced by contemporary physical theatre practices. Alongside her creative work, she leads Arc of Motion, an educational platform focused on movement-based acting. Her projects often invite audiences into immersive, emotionally resonant experiences that reimagine how stories can be told in space.

Parumveer Walia (b. Chandigarh, India) is a visual artist working across photography and film. His practice expands the image-based into video, installation, and object forms, examining queerness as subject, aesthetic, and culture. Working between India and Canada, Walia’s projects interweave archival research, socio-political episodes, and his lived experience to generate unstable, hybrid narratives.

Peter is a composer and Singer-Songwriter with Opera performances at theatres such as QE Playhouse, with reviews in Opera Canada, has multiple songs released, with over 120 solo performances annually. Jessie is accomplished ballerina and choreographer, and Colleen is an accomplished contemporary dancer

Phantom Jungle is a duo band formed in Vancouver, Canada, consisting of Alfredo Mangherini (guitar,synth,vocal) and Nicholas Lagasse (bass,loop-beat,flute,vocal). Their collaboration began in 2023 when Alfredo was busking on the streets of Vancouver, playing cumbia rhythms. Nick, biking by, was immediately drawn to the cumbia sound. This chance encounter sparked a unique partnership built on a shared passion for experimental music, from Latin rhythms to psychedelic funk/rock. Alfredo brings over 20 years of music experience performing with the bands Delef, Duo Orchestra +1 and Solo performances, specializing in fingerstyle folk, Latin, and surf rhythms. Nick has been playing in various Vancouver bands since 2002, including long-running Latin American fusion ensemble MNGWA since 2013. He also has collaborated with musicians worldwide on the Beyond Music platform, including Michael League and Bill Laurance of Snarky Puppy. Nick’s cross-cultural approach brings a wide range of colour to his bass guitar playing, drawing on funk, prog rock, cumbia and electronic sounds. In January 2025, the band made their debut collaboration with the live improv Soap Opera "Sin Peaks," creating themes and live background music. Also, they performed in local events such as Art Outside Festival, Uptown Live Street Festival, Sapperton Soda Festival, Arts NewWest.

Prairie and Chika brings together two seasoned Vancouver-area musicians with a shared passion for revitalizing vibrant folk traditions. Fiddler Prairie Wolfe has spent over two decades crafting a rhythmic and driving fiddle style influenced by Scottish, Cape Breton, and French Canadian traditions. As the leader of the contra dance band Ground Effect, she channels a dynamic energy that gets feet moving and pulses racing. Multi-instrumentalist Chika Buston adds a unique, eclectic flair to the mix on guitar and vocals. With a wide range of influences, Chika is a familiar face in the local live music scene and can be regularly found playing live shows and festivals in Western Canada.

Rachelle Joan is a singer and song writer and performer from Vancouver Bc. She performs heart felt soulful music that brings communities together in a playful and rhythmic way. Her genre is reggae, rnb, and jazz. 

Richmond Plein Air Studio is a four-member artist collective based in Richmond, BC, united by a shared passion for observational drawing and painting in the open air. The team is led by Horae Jiang, a visual artist and art educator with over 30 years of studio practice in oil painting and watercolour, whose work combines realism and expressionism. Bradley is a university-level fine arts instructor specializing in oil painting, bringing rigorous technical training and teaching experience to the group. Frank and Amily are architect-practitioners whose spatial sensibility and eye for structure enrich the team's approach to urban and landscape subjects. All four members are active members of the Richmond Artists Guild. Together, the team brings a range of disciplines — painting, drawing, and design — to the task of capturing the living city, one face and one street corner at a time

Shalom Wiebe (MSW, RSW, CTM) is a therapeutic harpist and registered social worker based in the Vancouver area. Her work bridges music, mental health, and community care, offering live, improvised harp music designed to support rest, nervous system regulation, and emotional connection. With a background in social work, trauma-informed practice, and therapeutic music, Shalom creates experiences that are both artistically engaging and deeply restorative. She has offered therapeutic harp sessions for individuals, community groups, healthcare teams, and public events, where participants often report feeling calm, grounded, and reconnected to themselves and others. Shalom regularly provides ambient / therapeutic - style music in community spaces and events and has preformed with Arts New West, the Burnaby Arts Council, and most recently the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival.

Born in Montreal, Sylvie Roussel-Janssens lives in British Colombia since 1980. She graduated with honours from Emily Carr College of Art in 1984 and now lives in Chilliwack on the traditional and unseeded territory of the Stó:lō people. Her work shows her interests in history and the environment. Sylvie’s approach to sculpture is sustainable and based in the joy of the building process. Her light sculptures are welded wire and fabric or plastic constructions made of recycled materials. Sylvie Roussel-Janssens is pursuing her creative journey, at the intersection of art, craft and design.

Tarcila Neves is an artist, curator, and educator with a foundation in Industrial Design and Concept Art. Her work blends traditional and digital techniques to create immersive, accessible art experiences. She integrates augmented reality, animation, and audio to ensure her art is accessible to people of all abilities. As an art director at ArtNest Collab, she collaborates with communities to bring visions to life. She leads workshops that promote co-creation and break down barriers to art and technology.

Duo Lindalouise and Dougie met in a dimly lit bar in a tiny Scottish town many years ago. They fell in love and moved halfway across the world. At their roots What We Embrace tell stories, some triumphant, some less so. Their sound is teetering between Indie Folk, Alt Country and New Americana, their voices blending, and weaving in beautifully haunting places. Their songs are a journey through heartbreak, loss and redemption. They make music for the dreamers, the broken and the yet-to-be-found. 2025 Highlights include a feature on Global news for Khatsalano on the Vancouver Folk Festival stage and were honoured to play Burnaby Blues and Roots festival in 2025

Winston Lê is a Vietnamese diaspora poet, interdisciplinary artist, and cultural worker who resides on the unceded and ancestral territories of the Coast Salish Peoples. His writing has been featured in The End Zine, filling Station, ROOted Rhythms, Composed: anthology of poetry 2024, Poetry Pause, periodicities, Sparkling Tongue Press, Ekphrasis Magazine, and pagefiftyone. He is the author of three poetry chapbooks, translanguaging, hybrid utterance, Thhhhh. His debut chapbook, translanguaging was shortlisted for the 2018 Broken Pencil Zine Awards. Winston also has worked on various interdisciplinary collaborations with other artists, including multi-instrumentalist composer, Cameron Catalano, botanical artist, Katrina Vera Wong, and choreographer, Rob Kitsos. In April 2025, Lê was the poet-in-residence at Greywood Arts, an artist residency located in Cork, Ireland.

Zell Leira is an emerging transmasculine visual artist residing in the unceded and unsurrendered lands of the Halkomelem speaking people known as “New Westminster”. Their expressive and fantastical work explores the themes and emotional experience of plunging head first into a gender and sexuality based identity transformation. The aesthetic of their work draws upon various influences close to their heart, such as the larger than life worlds of fantastical animated media and videogames, patterns inspired by the fluidity of the natural world, motifs in the clothing of their Romanian cultural background, as well as psychedelic and surrealist imagery. Their craft draws upon their experience in a variety of disciplines combined with self teaching, from growing up dabbling in various traditional media to the skills they developed working in the animation and games industry. Zell’s artistic journey of going back to embrace passionately painting and creating in the tactile world rather than digital one mirrors his personal journey of breaking free from a life that left his heart and soul empty in favour of one that embraces his authentic queerness and expression of self. Zell is currently exploring the style that has emerged in the process of reconnecting with traditional painting media, and his newfound goal is to continue to challenge himself into making increasingly bigger, bolder, complex visual feasts that express the fullness of their identity in striking ways. "

Hi everyone! My name is Zlata and my main art that I have been doing for years are window displays. Last year I had the awesome opportunity to be a part of Art Out Side. I worked with three other amazing artist in New Port village doing our Art in Nature window displays. After that I had a chance to volunteer with the big mural for the Belong Centre. I helped our community finish painting, where you see our Inlet which turned out super. I also finished some of the mural that added the finishing touches.