ADINKRA Bios
Community elder
Chris Leonard
Chris Leonard is passionate about supporting transformative change in communities. For over 40 years, she has been bringing mindful awareness and compassionate presence to her work, which focuses on grief and loss, worker well-being, and restorative approaches for care and repair. Chris acknowledges her ancestors for their guidance and grounding.
Presenters and facilitators
Ayoola Silvera
Ayoola Silvera is a librarian who enjoys developing and contributing to programming that expands the definitions of what libraries can be in their communities. She has assisted with providing library services for incarcerated men at Rikers Island through the Queens Public Library, children's services in West Africa through the Nima-Maamobi Gale and Osu libraries in Ghana, and outreach and child/youth services for Toronto Public Library.
Bushra Junaid
Bushra Junaid is a Toronto-based artist-curator whose work probes the African diaspora and Atlantic Canadian history. She has exhibited across Canada and in the USA, curated numerous exhibitions and public programs, illustrated Adwoa Badoe’s Nana’s Cold Days, and is the award-winning author of The Possible Lives of W.H., Sailor (Running the Goat Books & Broadsides).
@rahbush7604
Charmaine Lurch
Charmaine Lurch is a multidisciplinary visual artist and educator whose painting, sculpture, and socially engaged practice explores relationships between people and their environments. Contributing to Black feminist thought, environmental justice, and community dialogue, she teaches visual and digital arts at Humber Polytechnic and presents at universities across Canada.
charmainelurch.com
Daphnée Nostrome
Daphnée Nostrome is a Toronto-based Haytian artist. Her work draws on themes of decolonization, womanhood, spirituality, and collective healing. A multidisciplinary artist and community-rooted practitioner, she has mentored young artists at the Nia Centre for the Arts and facilitated arts programming for Ubuntu Community Collective. Her work has been published in York University’s New Sociology: Journal of Critical Praxis.
@digitaldaph
Dawn Grant
Dawn Grant is a multidisciplinary artist, contributing to the creative looks of screen-based productions, projects, and creative environments. Experienced in film and television, prop creation, and wearable art design, she channels her unique background into activities for artistic expression and discovery. She is an art teacher for daycares and afterschool programs.
dawngrantartistry.com
Gloria Blizzard
Gloria Blizzard is an award-winning non-fiction writer, poet, and songwriter whose writing has appeared in numerous literary publications, magazines, and sound recordings. Known for her exploration of music, dance, culture, and identity, she holds an MFA in creative nonfiction. Her first book, Black Cake, Turtle Soup, and Other Dilemmas, was published by Dundurn Press.
gloriablizzard.com
Karen Miranda Augustine
Karen Miranda Augustine is a visual artist, writer, and death doula whose work is influenced by pop culture and the sacred arts. Focused on memorialization, gender, loss, and interconnectedness, her projects reference African traditional religions and diasporic practices to facilitate communal reflection. She holds an MA in interdisciplinary studies.
karenmirandaaugustine.com
Karen Turner
Karen Turner is a Jamaican folklorist, musician, and community facilitator whose work centres Caribbean ritual, song, and collective remembrance. Rooted in Jamaican cultural tradition, she creates inclusive spaces where music becomes a vessel for grief, healing, and connection, bringing people together through embodied practice, ancestral memory, and shared voice.
linktr.ee/kareneturner
Lanise Lywood
Lanise Lywood is the founder of Melanin Mosaic, a community-centred therapy practice. They are a queer Afro-Caribbean facilitator, liberation-oriented psychotherapist, and gardener who is passionate about providing culturally responsive care to other racialized and 2S/LGBTQIA+ individuals, guiding them toward healing in community.
melaninmosaic.ca
Nicole De Jesus
Nicole De Jesus is an incoming fourth-year undergraduate student, with a history specialist and political science minor at the University of Toronto.
Tope Adefarakan
Temitope Adefarakan is assistant professor of Black Canadian Studies, Teaching Stream, at the University of Toronto. The author of The Souls of Yoruba Folk: Indigeneity, Race, and Critical Spiritual Literacy in the African Diaspora, she uses a decolonial equity-centred approach in her research and teaching, which is grounded in Black feminist and African indigenous critical social theory.
drtope.com
ADINKRA is supported by:
