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Vicki Van Chau (周倩瑜) is a filmmaker, curator and cultural worker based in Calgary, Alberta on Treaty 7 territory. She is the Executive Director for the Alberta Media Arts Alliance Society (AMAAS) since 2024, where she serves media artists and media art organizations across the province through advocacy work, development opportunities and bridging connections. She was formerly the Programming Director at EMMEDIA Gallery & Production Society, where she co-founded the PARTICLE + WAVE Media Arts Festival.

As a freelance arts administrator, she has worked with many non-profit organizations in various capacities including producer and consultant roles, with national organizations and initiatives like the Independent Media Arts Alliance and the CanAsian Arts Network. As a filmmaker, she has directed and produced several award-winning short films that have screened across Canada and internationally. For more information on her films, go to vickichau.com.

She is an active arts community member and volunteer and has sat on the Board of Directors for the Untitled Art Society (now known as The Bows), EXPOSURE Photography Festival, Alberta Media Arts Alliance Society, and the Calgary Underground Film Festival. She also co-founded the Calgary Chinatown Pop-Up Movie Club, an event series that shares knowledge about Chinese culture and the Chinese diaspora experience through film.

She has received the Spirit of Helen Award (2014, AMAAS), the Horizon Alumni Award (2018, AUArts) and the Echo Award (2021, EMMEDIA) for her contributions to the media arts community. In 2022, she received the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Emerging Artist Award and was inducted into Avenue Magazine’s Top 40 Under 40. In 2023, she received the Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee Medal for her contribution to the arts & culture in Alberta.

projects@amaas.ca

Sophia Lengle started working at AMAAS in March 2020 as the Sponsorship and Bursary program coordinator and have since taken on the One2One Grant Mentorship Program as well. She has also recently implemented our membership onto AMS and currently maintains and updates our database.

She has a BFA in fibre from AUArts 2020, and just graduated from the MFA program at the Gerrit Rietveld/Sandberg Instituut in 2024.

“I was born in Edmonton and grew up in Millwoods (neighbourhood). I’ve been away from Edmonton on and off for some years now, but it crops up in my works consistently. The houses my relatives have built and the gardens they’ve grown. I’m not creating copies of these places, but am interested in translating their affecting quality into my compositions. I’m building a practice around ideas of makeshift (i.e. fixing things creatively with limited resources), labour as occupying space/belonging, and personal sanctuary. I mainly weave, write and paint. Weaving is a process that allows vast mental space for dreaming while grounding me in my body. It is also self-imposed labour that grants me a sense of belonging to my family of builders, artists, labourers, writers and that one stenographer too. I’m working on a weaving practice that is reflective and generative, not weaving to make cloth, but weaving together to make sense of, composing thread by thread a porous composite that exists as process, tool and record.” – Sophia Lengle

For more information about her work, go to: sophialengle.com