Board of Directors:
Patricia Massy
Patricia is of Cree, Métis, and English descent and a member of the As’in’î’wa’chî Ni’yaw Nation. She is a mother, changemaker, founder and non-profit director of Massy Arts Society, cofounder of the Indigenous Brilliance Reading Series, and owner of Massy Books – a new and used, Indigenous owned bookstore on the traditional, ancestral, unceded, and occupied territory of the xʷməθkʷəyəm (Musqueam), Sḵwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and selílwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, also known as Vancouver, BC. After spending a lifetime working at various bookstores and non-profits, she decided to open her own bookstore prioritizing the voices and stories of over-excluded authors and artists, and creating a place where people could gather, connect, and organize.
Emily Dundas Oke
Emily Dundas Oke is a nehiyaw, Scottish, English, and Métis curator and editor. She is currently Assistant Curator at the Burnaby Art Gallery and and has previously held staff positions at The Capilano Review, Massy Arts Society, the Contemporary Art Gallery and the Kamloops Art Gallery. A graduate of Philosophy and Visual Art (BA) from Thompson Rivers University, she has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards including the Ken Lepin Award of Excellence and is an alumni of the TRU Indigenous Knowledge Makers program. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, and has been an artist in residence at Nida Art Colony (Lithuania), Ideas Block (Lithuania) and the Kamloops Printmakers Society (Canada). Her work is guided by reciprocity, resurgence and collaboration.
Olivia Palomino
Olivia is Indigenous to the Cora Indians of Nayarit in Mexico. She is the co-founder and Director of Clinical Services at the Metro Vancouver Indigenous Counselling. She holds a Master’s in Social Work from the University of British Columbia and a Bachelors of Social Work from Nicola Valley Institute of Technology. She has lived in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside for the majority of her life and has worked with Indigenous women and children from the community for over 20 years. As Registered Social Worker, she currently works for Providence Health as the Coordinator of Indigenous Cultural Safety, in private practice, and for the University of British Columbia as an adjunct professor in the Department of Social Work.
Meghan Bell
Meghan is a writer, and author of the short fiction collection, Erase and Rewind (Book*hug, 2021) – the winner of the Silver Medal Winner of the 2022 IPPY Awards, and finalist for the 2022 ReLit Award. Her writing has appeared in over a dozen literary journals and magazines, including Rattle, Joyland, Grain, The Puritan, Prairie Fire, The Walrus, and Contemporary Verse 2, as well as in festivals such as the Vancouver and Victoria Fringe Festivals and the Victoria Film Festival.
Andrew Igel
Andrew is an architect with over 25 years of experience throughout North America, with projects completed in eight provinces and thirty-five states, with experience in retail, commercial, residential, hospitality, municipal and education. Andrew is affiliated with the Architectural Institute of British Columbia (AIBC), the American institute of Architects (AIA), the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) and is certified by the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB). He is registered to practice in the province of British Columbia and the states of Washington, Ohio, New York and Massachusetts.