JJJJJerome Ellis (any pronoun) is a disabled Grenadian-Jamaican-American animal, artist, and person who stutters. Born in 1989 in Groton, Connecticut, USA the artist lives in Norfolk, Virginia, USA with their wife, poet-ecologist Luísa Black Ellis. JJJJJerome dreams of building a sonic bath house! Concepts that organize the artist’s practice include: unknowing, improvisation, inheritance, opacity, prayer, gap, contradiction, aporia, eternity, unpredictability, interruption, and silence. Ellis researches relationships among blackness, disabled speech, divinity, nature, sound, and time. The artist’s body of work includes: contemplative soundscapes using saxophone, flute, dulcimer, electronics, and vocals; scores for plays and podcasts; albums combining spoken word with ambient and jazz textures; theatrical explorations involving live music and storytelling; and music-video-poems that seek to transfigure archival documents.

Their debut album, The Clearing (2021), was called “an astonishing, must-listen project” (The Guardian). It was co-produced by NNA Tapes and The Poetry Project, and it was released with an accompanying book published by Wendy’s Subway. The artist has received a Fulbright Fellowship (2015), a United States Artists Fellowship (2022), a Foundation for Contemporary Art Grants to Artists Award (2022), a Creative Capital Grant (2022). The artist has received residencies at MacDowell (2019, 2022), Ucross (2021), Lincoln Center Theater (2019), ISSUE Project Room (2021), and La MaMa (2021). JJJJJerome’s solo and collaborative musical/performance work has been presented by Lincoln Center, The Poetry Project, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Sawdust, WNYC, and ISSUE Project Room (New York); Venice Biennale 2023; Haus der Kunst (Munich); Rewire Festival (The Hague); Schauspielhaus Zürich; Chrysler Hall (Norfolk, Virginia); MASS MoCA (North Adams, Massachusetts); Arraymusic (Toronto); and the Center for African American Poetry and Poetics (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), among others. The artist’s visual work (video and photography) has been presented by Oklahoma Contemporary (Oklahoma City), Juf (Madrid), Artspace New Haven (New Haven, Connecticut), and Ballroom Marfa (Marfa, Texas). They have received commissions from the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, The Shed, and REDCAT.

Sara Constant is a Tkarón:to/Toronto-based musician and artist working in various forms of contemporary/experimental music and sound. Trained as a flute player and active as a soloist, improviser, sound artist, and ensemble musician, Sara’s work involves interpretations of composed music for flute, improvisations with instruments and electronics, curation, and installation work with objects and loudspeakers, to explore ideas around listening, resonance, and place.

Karie Liao is a contemporary art curator with an interest in public art, digital media, and printed matter. Her most recent curatorial work, In a Manner of Speaking, was featured in The Blackwood’s lightboxes at the University of Toronto Mississauga. Previously, she has held positions including Co-founder and Curatorial Projects Coordinator of the Toronto Art Book Fair, Curator at Cape Breton University Art Gallery, Resident Curator at Artscape Youngplace, Artistic Director of Contemporary Art Forum Kitchener and Area, and Curator-in-Residence at the Textile Museum of Canada. From 2017 to 2021, she worked as a Content Strategist for Snap Inc., contributing to the Bitmoji team. Her writing has been published by the Canada Media Fund, Vie des Arts, BlackFlash, and C Magazine. Karie holds an MA in Art History and Curatorial Practice from York University and has been the Assistant Curator at The Blackwood since 2022.