Indu Vashist

Executive Director

Indu Vashist has served as the Executive Director of SAVAC since 2013. Currently, she is serving her second term on Executive of the Board of MANO (Media Arts Network of Ontario), she sits on the Advisory Board of Blackwood Gallery, and the Advisory Council for Creative Time Summit hosted by The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery. She has written and published extensively including: “Redefining South Asia without Borders.” (Art Gallery of Mississauga, 2013); “From Collective to Institution.” (Surrey Art Gallery, 2015); “Family Photo Album.” (Art Asia Pacific Vol 95, Sept/Oct 2015); “What do you do?: Basil AlZeri’s You Do What You Love Because You Do One Two, and More Than Two.”  (University of Waterloo Art Gallery, publication forthcoming). Prior to working at SAVAC, she had been equally splitting her time between India and Canada. In India, she worked with artist, queer and feminist arts organizations and collectives: Bombay-based Queer Nazariya International Film Festival, Delhi-based Nigah Media Collective, and Madras-based Marappacchi Theatre Group.

Email: indu@savac.net

Abedar Kamgari

Artistic Director

Abedar Kamgari is an artist based in Hamilton and Toronto. In her art practice, Abedar unpacks the contexts and conditions of displacement and diaspora using site-responsive, durational, and relational approaches. She is deeply influenced by performance art and her pieces often emphasize and question the presence, absence, movements and responsibilities of bodies in relation to land and labour. Her current projects explore body memory, complicated inheritances, and the idea of distance, inspired by a play written by her father and garments passed down from her grandmothers.

Her art practice informs her work as a curator, writer, and arts worker. Abedar has developed programs on diasporic methodologies, performance art, race and the politics of inclusion, and contemporary art and gentrification. Abedar holds a BFA (2016) and an MFA (2022) in interdisciplinary studio and has performed, screened, and exhibited in a range of institutional contexts.

Visit: abedarkamgari.com or @kamgara on Instagram

Email: abedar@savac.net

Sophie Sabet

Communications Coordinator

Sophie Sabet is a visual artist working in video, sculpture and installation.

Visit: sophiesabet.com

Email: communications@savac.net

Sophie is currently on temporary leave.

Heather Canlas Rigg

Co-chair

Heather Canlas Rigg is an independent curator and writer based in Toronto. 

photo by sarah bodri

Niyash Mistry

Co-chair

Niyash Mistry is a South Asian-origin advocate for the arts, whose arts engagement is rooted in a sense of social justice, anti-colonial action, and anti-nationalism. He is engaged on a long-term project to build a collection of artworks by contemporary artists from South Asian and in the diaspora, whose practices respond to socio-cultural realities, and situate the works within the context of current discourse on post-colonialism, rising ethno-nationalism, and gender-based experiences, among other areas. Niyash actively works to amplify the voices of South Asian artists in North America through initiatives that engage the collecting community, curators and public institutions to create impact for artists.

Outside the arts, Niyash has a decade-long career in risk management, working for Kroll, a global forensic investigations and corporate intelligence firm. Through this work, he advises governments, pension funds, non-profits and corporations on issues ranging from fraud mitigation, corruption and political risk, and governance best-practices.

Elham Fatapour

Treasurer

Elham Fatapour is a Toronto-based visual artist and completed Master’s in Fine Arts at York university 2020 that was awarded a Joseph Armand Bombardier Scholarship from the Social Sciences & Humanities Research
Council of Canada. Her recent works include painting, performance, and mixed media installation. They address diverse but interconnected subjects, including satellite usage, surveillance, vernacular architecture, modes of communication, and empathy.

Her ongoing ‘homemade satellite dishes’ series was the winner of the 2022 biennial art prize for the Surveillance Studies Network Conference and was presented at Rotterdam Erasmus University in June of 2022.

Sanjeet Takhar

Board Member

Sanjeet Takhar is the Artistic Director of Toronto’s Music Gallery. As a curator and cultural programmer, Sanjeet focuses on amplifying the voices of emerging and underrepresented artists, and working to make legacy institutions more equitable and future-facing. Sanjeet has curated diverse lineups for major venues and events across Canada. Her work has been profiled in Now Magazine, Toronto Life, and the Toronto Star.

Kazi Bodrul

Secretary

Kazi Bodrul Alam, a TMU Alum, is a 1st generation Bengali-Canadian photographer residing in Toronto. Early in his career, utilizing his law and business background, he extended out to the Toronto art community through a student-led company called Cultivate Productions where in a collaborative effort with his colleagues, organized concerts with a focus on cultivating the Toronto art scene. Kazi through his schooling and work experience has a deep understanding of Canadian business legal principles, organization governance, and community outreach and engagement.

Despite his business and law background, he sought photography to explore his extended diaspora. He has worked on creating documentary projects focused on south asian communities in Toronto. In becoming a self-taught photographer, he is continuing to explore the visual arts and extending his roots into the vibrant Toronto art community.