Shiann Croft

Researcher

Research Question

How do Black and Indigenous knowledge systems, storytelling, and embodied practices shape alternative ways of producing in the performing arts that center care, memory, and collective ways of working?

Roya DelSol

Designer

Photo by Marlowe Porter from the Thought Network Symposium

Left: Shiann Croft (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist, researcher, and curator based in Brampton. Her practice engages storytelling, memory, and Black diasporic identity through performance, digital media, and community-based work. She is the founder and Artistic Director of The Coven, an interdisciplinary collective grounded in Black and Indigenous knowledge systems, centering Black and Afro-Indigenous women and femmes through storytelling, embodiment, and collective practice. Croft is currently TD Assistant Curator at the Art Gallery of Mississauga, where she supports exhibitions and public programming that foreground emerging and underrepresented voices while expanding curatorial practice as a site of care, collaboration, and cultural exploration.

Right: Roya DelSol (she/her) is a Black lens-based artist, filmmaker and photographer of Caribbean heritage currently living & working in T’karonto. She is drawn to the sharp, chaotic and disruptive nature of Black (femme) rage, rebellion and retribution; along with expressions of Black queer eroticisms. Her films have screened at film festivals such as Breakthroughs Film Festival, F-O-R-M, Images Festival, LUMINATO and more.

All photos taken by Marlowe Porter at the Thought Network Symposium and Spark Night

All photos taken by Marlowe Porter at the Thought Network Symposium and Spark Night

The research outcome
THE COVEN: BLACK IMAGINATION LAB

All photos by Taylor Kim

Outcome Summary Podcast Coming Soon