Naghmeh Sharifi is a New Rosemont-based multidisciplinary artist whose work bridges the gap between the tangible immediacy of painting and the narrative depth of time-based media. An Iranian-Canadian artist with degrees in both Visual Arts and Psychology, she explores the oral transmission of matrilineal folktales. Through a process of layering and erasure, she investigates the body as a site for memories that are personal, cultural, and ancestral.

While everything at the moment feels like an unprecedented shit-show-screaming-match, collectively, we seem more sensitive than ever. It’s logical that being pulled in so many directions while navigating the incessant noise and schoolyard level communication styles leaves us all a bit raw.

IRL (Amanda Harvey) is a Villeray-based composer, DJ, and writer whose work bridges the gap between ethereal ambient textures and the low-slung rhythms of IDM.

My mind loves a loop. It finds something that doesn't fit, or sit correctly with me, and proceeds to circle it until it's emotionally processed, logicized, or definitively solved.

Natasha Fagant is a multidisciplinary artist whose work bridges the gap between fluffy cheesecake erotica and the sobering grit of performance art. Whether she is recounting the bloody history of Montreal as a ghost storyteller or challenging audiences as the queen of uncomfortable arousal, her work uses physical theatre to explore the visceral friction between technology and the human body.

Times of secure, stable, peace are few and far between (for some countries more so than others, and globally all at once, it's never happened). Thus, peace is one of those ideas that runs as an undercurrent, as a rule: pageant queens wish for it, believers pray for it, idealists talk about it.

Humans are storytellers by nature. Even if we're not writing them down or holding court, our brains are always running in the background, constructing stories that help this existence make sense. God, who killed JFK, and what that bitch meant by what she said – it's all the same to our brains. Facts are facts, but our brains crave explanations.

Anne of Green Gables becoming a multiverse-crossing serial killer wielding a Japanese sword is just the beginning of Kirsten Shute’s Fanfiction Is for Teenage Girls (Cactus Press, 2025). Her chapbook is full of clever, hilarious wordplay and even dips into the history of ancient, reconstructed languages.

Jesse Vacarciuc is a multidisciplinary artist, researcher, and advocate who uses writing and music to navigate the complexities of addiction, trauma, and mental health. A survivor and professional based in Montreal, Jesse focuses on breaking taboos and providing a voice for those navigating the unspoken struggles of youth.

With the sun slowly creeping up to a healthy, normal level, I'm feeling myself normalize as well. In fact, everyone’s got more pep in their step, both colour and pattern have returned to store shelves, and people are posting their first ice cream runs (jackets notwithstanding).