Contributor

Raji Aujla is the founder and president of Willendorf Cultural Planning and editor-in-chief of Newest Magazine, sister companies that focus on better representation and inclusion of IBPoC voices in Canadian arts and culture. She has been a cultural builder, curator, creative director, and advocate in the Canadian arts sector for the past ten years. Prior to this, she worked in journalism, spending tireless hours researching and developing stories focused on racial, gender, and caste injustices. Throughout this experience, storytelling has been her greatest superpower to help bring together people of different backgrounds and beliefs and to empower her generation to design a better future. She believes that the arts have a transformative power to bring people together and build empathy.

Aujla studied Visual Culture at the University of Toronto. She sits on the boards and committees for Canada’s National Ballet School, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), Baaz News, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and Toronto Foundation’s Vision 2020 Alumni. She was selected as an Independent Curator for the City of Toronto’s Year of Public Art in 2021. Raji works as a freelancer for The Globe and Mail and has bylines in the CBC, Chatelaine, The Globe and Mail, Huffington Post, and Baaz News. She also co-founded the aujla + vukets foundation with the aim to mentor and fund female-led social impact ideas.