Ancient Circuitry

Alexis Nanibush-Pamajewong (she/they) is a 2S Anishinaabe artist and curator from Shawanaga First Nation. Alexis completed their BFA (Honours) in Tsi’ Tkaronto, for the Indigenous Visual Culture from OCADU (2024 Medal Winner recipient.) Alexis attended the Beal Art Program. Alexis works in performance, installation, photography, video, and birch bark biting. Focusing on Anishinaabe knowledge, love, and the land.

Alexis’s emerging presence in Toronto includes: FOR THE YOUTH at Toronto’s Nuit Blanche 2025, Artist Project in C Magazine’s Issue 158: Almanac (2024), Ascension of Abundance, Xpace Cultural Centre. Alexis works at Evergreen Brick Works as the Coordinator, Indigenous Public Arts Programming.

Emilee Ann is a 14-year-old Champion Hoop Dancer from Wiikwemikoong Unceded Territory. She discovered her love for hoop dancing at the age of 5 years old and has since mastered her love into beautifully choreographed routines. Emilee Ann has competed at the World Hoop Dance Championship at Heard Museum in Phoenix. In 2026, she placed an impressive 8th place as a self-taught hoop dancer. In July 2026, she was awarded top prize for the Teen Women’s Hoop Dance Champion at the Utah – American Indian Services Hoop Dance Competition. Emilee Ann carries the original storytelling dance and teachings of the hoop dance for audiences to enjoy.

Mani Mazinani (b.1984, Tehran) is a Toronto-based artist making installation, video, film, sculpture, photographs, multiples, sound and music. His practice evolved from an early interest in sound recording, now working with the process of translating thoughts into recordings in various media. His visual work thinks about scale and perception, often combining subject matter and medium. Mazinani has been researching origins of ancient thought, perceptual limitations of humans, and improvisation. He developed the Solar Organ in the Connected Minds artist residency at York University. Exhibition and performance history includes Evergreen Brick Works (2024), MOCA Toronto (2024), Tate Modern (2019), The Bentway, Toronto (2018), Tehran International Electronic Music Festival (2017), SIP Culture Centre, Suzhou (2016).

Solar Organ is a polyphonic sound generation machine, designed to produce tuned sound fields and playable as a pentatonic musical instrument by anyone regardless of training. Its inventor, Mani Mazinani is joined by Amahl Arulanandam (cello), Steve Kado (visuals), Brandon Valdivia (percussion), Marilyn Yogarajah (trumpet) to form the Solar Organ Ensemble.

Solar Organ Ensemble performs music built on pentatonic music ideas, using traditional and invented scales, moving through composed and improvised forms. Pentatonic music practice is a universal phenomenon in human experience, globally ubiquitous geographically and historically.  Solar Organ collects research that connects music to our biology, to engage in what is universal between us all.

Brandon Miguel Valdivia is a drummer, percussionist, composer and producer living in London, Ontario. Known for performing and recording with Lido Pimienta, improvisatory work with Not the Wind Not the Flag, and recording with artists such as U.S.Girls, The Halluci Nation, Jeremy Dutcher, Bomba Estereo and composing for theatre and dance. He has amassed numerous Polaris Prize Shortlist nominations, a DORA Nomination, Two Polaris Prizes, one Juno Award and two Latin and American Grammys nominations during his diverse and eclectic musical career.

marilyn yogarajah is a toronto poet and musician, curates audiopollination and spectrum soundbath, plays in multiple bands in the city, and has a background in teaching music.

With interests from baroque to metal, Juno-nominated cellist Amahl Arulanandam is known for his musical versatility and ability to adapt to many genres. At home in studios, clubs, and halls, Amahl hopes to convey that musical expression is beyond labels.  Amahl has wholly embraced the bizarre sounds the cello has to offer and takes special pleasure in playing on areas of the instrument other than the strings.

Steve Kado is an artist, musician, broadcaster and writer interested in extreme repetition and mechanical reproduction. His sculptures, photographic work and public speaking events have been shown widely throughout North America and Europe. The majority of his concerts and recordings over the last decade has been performing ‘2003’, a composition for solo drum machine. He is also a co-founder of the Los Angeles Woodwind Skill Share (LAWWSS) where he plays alto clarinet. From 2011 to 2023 he was co-host of The Talking Show on KCHUNG Radio. He is currently the host of One Thing Radio on KPBJ (Shadow Hills, CA) and CHMA (Sackville, NB).