OUR TEAM

Elliott Hearte | Executive Director

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Elliott Hearte is a passionate Arts Consultant and Administrator with a background in equity in the arts and cultural management. Prior to returning to BC, she worked across Canada in leadership roles in the creative industry, primarily in media and digital arts. Elliott has had the privilege to work with artist run centres, festivals, distributors, equity seeking groups, and arts service organizations, across disciplines in urban and rural communities. A graduate of the Vancouver Institute of Media Arts, her work in film, video and new media has shown extensively in festivals and galleries across Canada, USA, and Europe. Elliott is Vice-president of the Independent Media Arts Alliance and President of the Media Arts Alliance of the Pacific. Elliott is grateful for the opportunity to lead the important work undertaken by Arts BC. Elliott works from the stolen land of of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. 

Merideth Bisiker | Operations Coordinator

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Merideth oversees operations administration for Arts BC, including project management, membership, accounting, monthly reporting and records management. Her background as a professional coach and organizational consultant with a focus on finance and business systems supports Arts BC in translating its vision into practical strategies. Merideth makes time for music, both as a patron of local musicians and as the lead singer of a rock cover band.

Merideth’s areas of specialization include boundary-setting and leadership in the workplace, creating new financial and operational systems, budgeting, and personal development. Through her role as Financial and Data Administrator with Arts BC, Merideth has an intimate understanding of the challenges that arts administrators face, and leans on this expertise to support arts administrators and artist entrepreneurs. 

With reverence, Merideth lives on the unceded and ancestral lands of the Coast Salish peoples, specifically the Pentlatch speaking people of Qualicum First Nation. 

Xin Xuan Song | Administrative Assistant

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Born and raised in China, Xin Xuan graduated from SFU Contemporary Arts with a bachelor degree in Theatre Production and Design where she developed her interest in stage and production management. As a freelancer, Xin Xuan is committed to building compassionate, equitable production spaces. She takes great interest in the artistic process, enjoys community-oriented projects, and frequently collaborates with artists/companies with a multidisciplinary practice. In her baseline gig as Artistic and Administrative Coordinator with Kay Meek Arts Centre, she oversees the curation of both the film and speakers’ series as well as contributing to the implementation of year-round programming.

As the newest team member with Arts BC, Xin Xuan is excited to bring her management and programming experience to the Arts BC team.

Xin Xuan lives and works on the unceded and ancestral lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.

Soma Keo | Administration & Project Coordinator

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Soma is responsible for administration and coordinating projects. Born and raised in Montreal, she graduated with a Bachelors of Arts in Economics with an extended minor in French from Simon Fraser University. Soma also completed a Human Resources Management Certificate from SFU prior to going on her first maternity leave. She has been a busy stay-home-mom for the last few years raising both of her children and she is now very excited to be involved with Arts BC. Soma and her family relocated from the Mainland to French Creek, B.C. in 2021; they are loving their new lives as Vancouver Islanders and all it has to offer!

She acknowledges that they are gathered on the unceded territory of the Coast Salish People, including the territories of the Snaw-Na-Was and Qualicum people.

Lys Glassford | Program & Service Specialist

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Lys (they/them) is a queer, non-binary visual artist who specializes in public art and technology. They are passionate about supporting creatives with their work and delight in bridging the gaps between complicated technological processes and the needs of artists and arts administrators in the real world. Originally from rural Saskatchewan, they have lived from coast to coast and are now living and working as an uninvited guest on the Traditional Territory of the Snuneymuxw People.

Lys has been involved in the tourism, arts & culture world in a myriad of roles. From co-founding organizations, to consulting, administration, serving on elected board positions, and as an artist entrepreneur. Their background includes leadership and facilitation, implementation and workflow management, project management, responsive web design and accessibility, UX, digital marketing and placemaking.

Gavin Liang | Communications Designer

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Gavin is born and raised on the unceded, ancestral lands of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. He completed his Bachelor of Arts in Communication with a minor in Print and Digital Publishing at Simon Fraser University. Growing up as a queer Chinese settler, much of his interests centres around media representation and approaches to building inclusive and accessible initiatives through art and activism. Over the years, Gavin has been involved with several non-profits and grassroots initiatives and is excited to carry these experiences into his role at Arts BC!

Heidi Cuff | Digital Content Specialist

Heidi Cuff is a writer, educator and arts activist who currently resides in Campbell River, BC. She received her master’s degree in Educational Theatre with a Playwriting emphasis from the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development at New York University. Heidi has worked extensively in the nonprofit and commercial arts sectors in New York, Los Angeles, and more recently Campbell River. Heidi currently serves on the Campbell River Creative Industries Council, working with the City of Campbell River, First Nations, local businesses and the community at large to incubate and accelerate the growth of creative industries, as well as the local economy.

Heidi works for the Tidemark Theatre as the Programming and Marketing Coordinator and is also the Digital Marketing Strategist for Arts BC and Patricia Huntsman Culture + Communication.

Lucía Reguera Castro | Clinic Legal Supervisor (Artist Legal Outreach)

Lucía graduated in law in Spain, taking one of the years of her degree in Italy. After some time carrying out a cooperation project in schools in Honduras and working as a lawyer on her return to Spain, she decided to specialise in Intellectual Property. This opened the doors to work first with brands and then to make the leap to musical and audiovisual production, working daily with artists in an independent record label and music agency, doing music consultancy, production and managing intellectual property and image rights for marketing campaigns and audiovisual projects as films, TV series, short films.

She also teaches Intellectual Property in Spain.

During her years at the record label, she also carried out three years of research and analysis on music rights and collection systems in audio branding for a cooperation project (ABC_DJ) funded by an EU innovation programme in collaboration with other European companies.

After ten years of experience in Spain she decided to take a new step and come to Vancouver, where she works as a legal assistant and administrator at PLEO and couldn’t be happier to start collaborating with Arts BC as well.

 

Shared Services

Arts BC has commenced work to design a Shared Professional Services program. We are currently in the research and design phase and will share more details as this project progresses through our newsletter.

In this current phase, this project is supported by:

Juan Ramirez | Program Designer, Shared Services

Juan Ramirez was born in the Amazonas region of Colombia. When he was 14 years old, his family immigrated to Canada as political refugees. Juan is a software developer, designer and musician, different skills which he combines to create digital collages and interactive installations. His artworks often explore the relationship between people and the digital world we have created around us, how it affects us and how we perceive it. All of his artworks are created digitally using a combination of traditional graphic design techniques and his own technique, which he calls “pixel sampling”. His latests series called “non-volatile memories” aims to transpose moments in time into pieces of art by sampling photographs provided by collectors.

Rural Arts Inclusion Lab, led by Carla Stephenson | Community-Based Research Partner, Shared Services

Carla Stephenson is the project lead for the Rural Arts Inclusion Lab (RAIL) a systems change project funded by the Vancouver Foundation. Carla has been working in small rural communities for over two decades, she is the co-founder of the Tiny Lights Festival and the Executive Director of Renascence Arts and Sustainability Society and a member of the Arts BC Insight team She has presented at the Canadian Arts Summit and the Canadian Rural Revitalization Foundation Conference about the innovations that her organizations have made in equity and sustainability. Through her work with RAIL, she has been facilitating many conversations to address colonial systems that perpetuate inequality by design. Her facilitation work is grounded in creating conditions where emergence can happen through listening and collective story harvesting. She believes art plays a vital role in disrupting and getting to the truth of issues in subversive and overt ways. Carla brings to her work the lived experience of being a mixed-race woman of colour and mother who is grateful to live and work on the unceded territories of the Sinixt and Ktunaxa Peoples.

Pathways