Media Creation Grant 2023 Recipients

CSV is proud to continue efforts to support our members artistic practice. We are excited to present the two recipients of our 2023 Media Art Creation Grant: Christian Anderson for their experimental drama 'Nobody Falls'  and  Aaron Jones for his exhibiton 'Sound & Body /Untouched Spaces/ Whispering Spirit'


Christian Anderson is an award-winning Afro-Latinx writer & director based in Toronto, Canada. A recent graduate of York University’s film production program, their work, such as “Teen Dream” and upcoming series “Bloom Room”, center queer diasporic perspectives through unique and immersive storytelling. They are an alumnus of Oya Media’s Emerging Filmmaker’s program and the Nia’s Centres Creative Connect community. Her work has been screened at the 2015 & 2020 Regent Park Film Festival, the 2022 Stella’s Place’ Get Reel Film Festival in Toronto, and in Winnipeg at the 2018 & 2019 Afro Prairie Film Festival. Additionally their short film Teen Dream has been recognized by the Canadian Screen Academy in their 2020 Black Canadian creators list for February.e efforts to support our members artistic practice.  


Aaron Jones (born 1993 in Toronto) graduated with a BA from OCADU in 2018 and is a founding member of the BAU Collective. His work has been included in the exhibitions Three Thirty at Doris McCarthy Gallery, From the Ground Up at NIA Centre for the Arts, Ragga NYC at Mercer Union, all in Toronto, and Propped at Oakville Galleries, Oakville, ON. Jones was awarded The Gattuso Prize for his exhibition Closed Fist, Open Palm for the 2020 CONTACT Photography Festival.

About the Jury:

Tristen Sutherland is a writer/director/producer whose stories highlight BIPOC members of the LGBTQ+ community. “Halfway Boy,” their latest television project was selected for the EAVE on Demand Access Program, presented by the National Screen Institute - Canada (NSI). They are an alumni of Oya Media’s Mentorship Program, one of Reelworld Film Festival’s Emerging 20 for 2020 and was shortlisted for the BIPOC TV & Film’s Reel Work Initiative. They co-created a web series “Bloom Room” made in tandem with Oya Media. Their latest documentary, which they co-directed,“Reel Black: Our Stories” won the Best Short Documentary at the Caribbean Tale International Film Festival and is available to stream on CBC GEM.

Jess Murwin is a nonbinary Indigenous (Mi'kmaq, Scottish and Welsh) filmmaker, curator and educator based in Montreal, Quebec They received formal artistic training from Notre Dame de la Tilloye (France) and the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (Canada), as well as informal training on various sets, at artist centres and in workshops in Canada and Europe. Their work is largely community-based and draws on genre and storytelling traditions to imagine social change.

As a programmer, they have worked for the Atlantic International Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival, and Rencontres Internationales du Documentaire à Montréal, among others. Their focus in presenting films and media artworks has always been to champion stories by 2SLGBTQ+, and Indigenous artists. They see this work as a critical way of reclaiming narrative
spaces.

Noor Khan (b. 1994) is a community-engaged multidisciplinary artist, art director and producer. She was raised in Scarborough (a suburb of Toronto), born in Saudi Arabia, with roots in South Asia. Due to constant migration and nomadic Pashtun ethnic lineage, she was often a subject of surveillance between and within national borders and grew up lacking a consistent communal experience and privilege to maintain relationships with land and people. Having experienced different societies, Noor became interested in human-made design, including architecture, infrastructure, and other everyday objects & materials created to facilitate cultural and socio-political activity. As a result, her artwork is a manifestation of her memory and imagination in relation to these designs, and explores the circle of life informed by them. She holds an M.F.A in Community Arts and a Certificate in College Teaching of Art from Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), a Certificate in Digital Art from OCAD University, and has a B.A. in Community Development from University of Toronto. Noor has won several awards for her practice as an emerging artist, and gained recognition from local organizations such as Scarborough Arts, to national institutions such as the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television. Her projects have been supported by Toronto Arts Council, Ontario Arts Council, FACTOR Canada, and New York Foundation for the Arts.

 2023