Miriam Esquitín is an arts and non-profit leader based in Vancouver, Canada, with a strong focus on community building and social justice. Originally from Mexico, Esquitín’s career has focused on fostering inclusivity, innovation, and resilience.

Currently, as Executive Director of the Vancouver Mural Festival (VMF), Miriam leads an organization that transforms urban spaces by connecting thousands of people through public art. VMF’s projects exemplifies how public art can transform physical urban environments into cultural landscapes, with layers that speak to diverse communities.

Over the years, VMF has increasingly incorporated digital and immersive technologies in their public art programming. The Winter Arts Festival, for example, has focused on virtual and augmented reality experiences that expand the traditional boundaries of art, integrating digital layers onto public spaces. This bridges physical reality with virtual constructs, creating dynamic, interactive experiences that reimagine how people engage with urban environments.

Equity, reconciliation, sustainability, and artistic excellence are instrumental to the work of VMF. The organization has collaborated with dozens of Indigenous artists, aiming to affirm the resurgence and importance of Coast Salish culture, directly combatting the systemic suppression of Indigenous visual art. Furthermore, over 60% of all artists engaged by VMF have been from equity-deserving communities.

Miriam is also the Co-founder of Polymer Dance, a unique community-based improvisation ensemble that embodies the belief that “Dance is for Everybody and Dance is for Everywhere.” Since 2012, she has developed collaborative improvisational methods that decentralize the creative process in instantaneous compositions. Polymer Dance is part of a movement to democratize the arts, creating accessible opportunities for people to engage with dance regardless of their backgrounds or training.

With a BA and MA in Social Anthropology, Miriam approaches her work from a perspective that honors the cultural history of the places she inhabits.

Adrian Sinclair is a collaborative, curious and committed person with a dash of good humor. He lives on the unceded and ancestral territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil Waututh people aka “Vancouver,” BC with his wife and lifetime muse, Brandy Colton.

His favourite thing in the world is to help people develop their superpower and provide a platform, resources and amplification to share it with the world.

As a Co-founder and Director of Engagement & Partnerships at Vancouver Mural Festival (VMF) and Winter Arts Festival (WAF), he develops strategy, funding and partnerships to support artists and community members to co-create public programming, placemaking, events, and public art in Vancouver and beyond.

His aim is to build a more equitable, joyful, and inclusive city by transforming public spaces with art, culture and placemaking.

Why? Because he believes the health and diversity of the cultural ecosystem enhances the overall equity, joy and safety of the places we live.

He has had the extreme privilege to co-create year-round and festival specific programming unique to VMF and WAF. He has also enjoyed developing public art and event programming in partnership with organizations in the private and public sector. A few of these include VMF’s: Emerging Artist Training Program, Blanketing The City Mural Series, VMF Artist Residency Program, VMF Artist Talks, VMF Mural Tour Program, VMF’s Indigenous Capacity Building Program, VMF’s Guest Curator Program, and the annual Murals Without Walls Program.

These programs were built in consultation with artists and community members, over long-term timelines, in multi-layered partnerships with organizations like Kickstart Disability Arts & Culture, BC Hydro, Vancouver Coastal Health, The Overdose Prevention Society, Simon Fraser University, Vancity Credit Union, The Vancouver Parks Board, many Business Improvement Associations, Property Developers, City of Vancouver, City of Victoria and more.

We have produced over 430 murals, 16 annual free outdoor public art and music festivals for over +500,000 attendees since 2016. Over 38% of the artists (creating murals, 2D art, augmented reality art and more.) created their first piece of public art at VMF — they also grained crucial experience with hands-on training as part of the Emerging Artist Training program.

Adrian has an MA in Philosophy, specializing in queer literary theory, digital embodiment, and phenomenology from the University of Western Ontario. He is a sauna enthusiast, musician, surfer, and a daily gong fu cha (tea) drinker.

Johannes DeYoung is an internationally recognized artist who works at the intersection of computational and material processes. His moving-image works have been exhibited internationally at venues such as: Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Alicante, Alicante, Spain; Festival ECRÃ, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung, Taiwan; B3 Biennale of the Moving Image, Frankfurt en Main, Germany; Hesse Flatow (Crush Curatorial), Jeff Bailey Gallery, Robert Miller Gallery, Interstate Projects, Eyebeam, and MoMA PS1 Print Studio, New York, NY; as well as numerous festival screenings in countries such as Australia, Greece, Ireland, New Zealand, Turkey, and Vietnam. His work has been featured in The New York Times, The New York Post, The Huffington Post, and Dossier Journal. DeYoung is appointed Associate Professor of Electronic and Time-Based Media at Carnegie Mellon University. He previously taught at Yale University School of Art (2008—2018), where he was appointed Senior Critic and Director of the Center for Collaborative Arts and Media, and at the Yale School of Drama, where he was appointed Lecturer in Design.

Dr. Gustavo Alfonso Rincon (Ph.D., M.Arch., M.F.A., B.S, B.A.) earned his doctorate in Media Arts and Technology at UCSB. Rincon is educated as an architect, artist, curator & media arts researcher. His academic works have been exhibited nationally & internationally along with serving clients globally. His dissertation “Shaping Space as Information: A Conceptual Framework for New Media Architectures,” led to a Postdoctoral appt. at the AlloSphere Research Facility, affiliated with the Media Arts & Technology Program, California NanoSystems Institute at the University of California, Santa Barbara.