BEING SCENE

Simon Cole is a self taught and multifaceted arts professional with an extensive career spanning back to 2005.

In 2011, Cole founded Cooper Cole, a contemporary art gallery in Toronto. Renowned for its distinctive programming and global reach, Cooper Cole has earned international acclaim under Cole’s leadership as gallery director.

In 2021, Cole established X in Residence (XiR), a non-profit residency program based in Toronto. Devoted to supporting artists, curators, and creatives from marginalized communities, XiR serves as a vital resource hub for creatives in Toronto.

Cole’s influence extends beyond gallery walls; as he has played a pivotal role in managing a series of permanent public art installations, including murals and sculptures, visible both locally in Toronto and nationwide.

Building on a decade of independent exhibition-making and close collaboration with artists, Eli Kerr founded his eponymous gallery in Montréal in 2022.

Rooted in long-term relationships with artists, his program brings together an intergenerational group of nine artists working from critical and experimental positions across sculpture, drawing, photography, painting, moving image, and installation.

In 2024, the gallery relocated to a 140-square-meter storefront on Boulevard Saint-Laurent in Le Plateau–Mont-Royal, expanding its capacity for ambitious exhibitions and public engagement.

Ann MacDonald is Director/Curator of the Doris McCarthy Gallery at the University of Toronto Scarborough. She has worked with a number of Canadian artists on exhibitions including David R. Harper: Entre le chien et le loup (2013), Mélanie Rocan: Souvenir involontaire (2013), Jon Sasaki: Good Intentions (2010), Liz Magor: Storage Facilities (2009), Bill Burns: Bird Radio (2008), Euan Macdonald: Two Places at Once (2005), and Doris McCarthy: Everything Which Is Yes (2004).

The Doris McCarthy Gallery is a collecting institution, and MacDonald has assisted in notable acquisitions including works by Robin Collyer, Liz Magor, Doris McCarthy, Ed Pien, Sasha Pierce, Zalmaï, and others. She has also been a key participant in the commissioning of permanent installations at the University of Toronto Scarborough by Daniel Young & Christian Giroux, Kim Adams, and BGL. She co-authored Shiva’s Really Scary Gifts (Coach House Books, 2002) with Governor General’s Visual and Media Arts Award recipient John Scott.

MacDonald is a faculty member in the Arts, Culture and Media department at the University of Toronto Scarborough as well as U of T’s Masters of Visual Studies, Curatorial Stream.