On today’s episode, we are joined by an amaz­ing trio of artists — Has­saan Ashraf, Ally Gon­za­lo, & Chuk­wudubem Ukaig­we — as they share their insights and expe­ri­ences with pric­ing them­selves as artists and valu­ing their worth.

Treaty 1 based, mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary artist Has­saan Ashraf has been focus­ing on their skills as a painter and cal­lig­ra­phy artist for the last cou­ple of years. Orig­i­nal­ly a lens based artist, Has­saan has tried to fol­low the spi­ral of change in their prac­tice as they have focused on explor­ing a mul­ti­tude of medi­ums through­out their art life. Their prac­tice flour­ish­es the most while col­lab­o­rat­ing with artist friends who share sim­i­lar val­ues and polit­i­cal stand­ing. They hope to con­tin­ue their prac­tice once the pan­dem­ic is a thing of the past and nour­ish­ment through com­mu­ni­ty and friends becomes a pos­si­bil­i­ty again. Cur­rent­ly, their focus is work­ing as an artist, cura­tor and admin per­son at Take­Home BIPOC Artshouse, an artist run cen­tre and com­mu­ni­ty nour­ish­ment stu­dio space they opened with Annie Beach, Bren­den Gali and Sapp­fyre Mcleod in Oct 2021 for and by BIPOC folks exclusively.

Ally Gon­za­lo is a queer, first-gen­er­a­tion Fil­ip­inx man who set­tled in Treaty 1 Ter­ri­to­ry back in 2016. Adept in social media and mar­ket­ing coor­di­na­tion, Ally uses his skills to fos­ter com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment at the grass­roots level.⠀Additionally, he has over 7 years of expe­ri­ence in pho­tog­ra­phy and spe­cial­izes in hon­est, inti­mate por­traits. He is for­mal­ly trained in the field of pho­tog­ra­phy and has received edu­ca­tion in His­to­ry and Polit­i­cal Sci­ence from his moth­er­land as well.

Chuk­wudubem Ukaig­we is a Niger­ian-born song, dis­persed by a tran­sient Atlantic breeze, cur­rent­ly pass­ing through Treaty 1 Ter­ri­to­ry, so called Cana­da. He con­scious­ly uses a vari­ety of medi­ums to relay a plu­ral­i­ty of ideas at any giv­en time. He views his art prac­tice as a con­ver­sa­tion or a por­tal into one, and, in some instances, as an inter­pre­ta­tion of this ongo­ing exchange. Chuk­wudubem weighs an occur­rence, feel­ing, or idea on a scale and then cre­ates a nar­ra­tive in his own lan­guage. He oper­ates as an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary artist, cura­tor, writer, and cul­tur­al work­er, and is the founder of Pat­terns Col­lec­tive. He is also the cur­rent edi­tor of Plug In ICA Edi­tions Online.

The mod­er­a­tor for our event, our own Stu­dio 393 Assis­tant Man­ag­er, Annie Beach, a visu­al artist, born and based in Win­nipeg, Man­i­to­ba, Treaty One Ter­ri­to­ry. Beach is Cree/​Saulteaux/​Ukrainian, with rela­tions from Peguis First Nation.