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Learn more about the 2022 artists in residence
The Ontario Heritage Trust is committed to respecting how artists choose to identify themselves and recognizes these as deeply personal decisions. These artist bios are written by the artists in their own words.
Tong (Raine) Shen – multi-disciplinary artist, Vancouver, British Columbia

Shen’s art was born of uprising and conflict, and delves into the interconnectedness of individuals through history, art, technology, literature, politics and labour. In her work, she explores solutions to the modern dilemmas of global warming, racial injustice, social and financial divide, colonialism, slave labour, gender equality and the role of AI technology.
Shen is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Canada Council for the Arts Research and Creation Fund, the Dale and Nick Tedeschi Graduate Studio Arts Fellowship, and the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts Scholarship. Her works have been shown in China, Japan, the United States and Canada. She was a tree planter in rural Canada for three years and obtained her Master of Fine Arts degree from Concordia University. https://tongshen.ca
Rebecca Roher – cartoonist, Toronto, Ontario

Roher is a contributor to The Nib, Taddle Creek Magazine, CBC Arts and Bitch Media, among other publications. She has received numerous grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Nova Scotia Community Culture and Heritage and the Toronto Arts Council. Roher teaches comics at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University.
She is currently working on a graphic novel based on interviews with near-100-year-olds about aging and longevity, set to be published with Drawn & Quarterly in 2023. www.RebeccaRoher.com
Luce Dumont – visual artist and printmaker, Saint-Fabien, Quebec

Lamis Haggag – multimedia and visual artist, Toronto, Ontario

Haggag’s practice is an ongoing process of attempting to disturb social autonomy and displacing boundaries, without giving alternatives. She perceives her projects as subtle infiltrations to social confines. Aware of the fact that those attempts are contradicting themselves and absurd in many ways, she sees them as a reflection of how people cope with restrictions.
On her move to Canada, Haggag noticed patterns of immigrants attempting to blend in the western context. Since then, she has been focusing her research on difficulties that usually go unnoticed in the process of integration. She worked with notions such as seasonal depression and the different thinking processes of English as a Second Language people in Canada, with a focus on Arabic speakers and Arabic syntax. www.lamishaggag.com
Ryan McKenna – filmmaker, Montreal, Quebec

After graduating from University of Winnipeg in 2005, McKenna became a member of the Winnipeg Film Group, during which he was a contributor to the art collective L’Atelier Nationale du Manitoba, and collaborated with Guy Maddin on My Winnipeg (2007). He’s worked as an editor on numerous documentary television programs for CBC, APTN, Historia TV and Bell MTS, directed two television documentaries, as well as experimental shorts Four-Mile Creek (2014) and Controversies (2014).
McKenna’s works have screened across Canada and worldwide, including the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, MoMA’s Festival of International Nonfiction Film and Media, and the Moscow International Film Festival. His most recent short documentary Voices of Kidnapping (2017) was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award, long-listed for the Academy Awards, and is currently available on the Criterion Channel. www.ryanmckenna1.com
Em Dial – poet, Toronto, Ontario

Em Dial (she/they) is a queer, non-binary, multiracial, chronically ill grower, poet and educator. They were born and raised on Ohlone lands, in what is currently known as the San Francisco Bay Area in California. Their work plays against the idea of the (un)natural, with words and seeds rooted in histories of resistance and nourished by communities of care.
In addition to working with organizations like CommunityGrows and Black Creek Community Farm to increase access to growing space and food sovereignty, Dial is also a 2022 Kundiman Fellow and a recipient of the 2020 PEN Canada New Voices Award and the 2019 Mary C. Mohr Poetry Award. www.em-dial.com