Vie Jones - Project Lead 

(they/them)

As part of the Maritime saying, I am a “come from away.” This term refers to the fact that like many others, I am not from the Maritimes. I grew up in Northern Ontario, both on and off - reserve. From a young age my parents actively nourished my connection to my Anishinaabek roots through access to language classes throughout primary school, ceremony, community connection, and connection to the land. My relation to the land was not the same as my peers, and the wonder I found existed not in the activity of the land, but its moving stillness. To me it became a place of stories, as I also learned the stories of Nanabush and the land itself. My effeminate queer nature was home in this space, but could not find a home in reality.

Moving from this community of connection and support into rigid bureaucratic systems of compulsory secondary education led to many struggles. Before being able to identify and support my needs, I had experienced incredible social difficulty, unemployment, and temporary homelessness. I am fortunate enough that now at the age of 33, I have finished two college programs and a BFA, and enrolled in a Master’s program. My education has presented me with many opportunities, and I find it part of my own responsibility to give back to the communities that have supported and loved me, because I wouldn’t be here without them. 

My chronic illness, responsibilities of my divergent brain, and experiences of mental health have made evident the need for care to be at the forefront of how I work, and how care is regularly unsupported and hard to access within the systems we find ourselves. This project is built on an ethic of collective care and accommodation of difference from an intersectional perspective. It is my hope to invite what traditionally gets left behind in spaces like these, and the need to perform as a digestible version of our authentic self in order to access these opportunities. 

LUCID came from the idea of bringing our dreams to life. Dreams offer the opportunity to defy limits with just a thought. Can we blur the lines of impossible dreams and bring them into reality?

Sylvia Bell - Production Manager

(she/her)

I have been working as a stage and production manager for over 20 years and am confident that those who know me, know I do things a little differently.  Making space for the dreaming, the hard conversations and the ever changing schedules and budgets; it is all important. And it is important that it be done with kindness and truth leading the way. Lucid asks the question “what kind of future do you dream of?” I dream of communities leading the way with truth, acceptance and adaptability with an understanding towards the lives we live outside our working selves. A world where the  perception of self and identity do not overshadow the truths of our hearts we wish to share. A world where it is okay to show up just as you are and it is safe for you to do so. Heist unabashedly insists on truth speaking and embracing the discomfort of learning in public. Through our previous and continued work with Vie and the LUCID project I hope we send more humans into the world who have experienced a creation process built to serve their best selves. A process that speaks to the interconnectedness between us humans and all the living things we interact with each day.  A process that confirms there is a better way. 

Aaron Collier - Technical Director 

(he/him)

I have had the privilege of working in the performing arts in multiple capacities for the past 20 years including as a musician, designer, writer, actor, and technical director. My white settler heritage is from mixed European backgrounds including predominantly English and French and the realities of how I have come to be born and raised here, in Mi’kma’ki, are being revealed to me in myriad illuminating ways. Working with Vie has always been a process that involves whole selves, not just the people we are at work or as artists, but the people we are in our truth, even if we’re just trying to figure that out. LUCID to me is the opportunity to share knowledges and create art that is about and for true selves in community, that prioritizes long-term well being over short term comfort or success, that normalizes care and reciprocity among the human and non-human worlds, and that ultimately dares to imagine that a better future already exists. 

Richie Wilcox - Producer

(he/him/they/them)

The pandemic and continued social rights movements have led us to reflect on how things are done, what systems are in place to allow what voices to get heard and how. LUCID feels to me like a way in which we continue to question and challenge how we approach living in this world, who makes art and how they make it. It is a way to shake up the colonial system an dream about art and art-making in ways full of collaboration, care and respect. The chance to collaborate with Vie Jones, to learn as a person and an artist and to support and uplift the work of other artists is undeniably exciting to me. As a fiercely queer artist who thrives on community, I can't wait to extend our HEIST family with the participating emerging artists and knowledge keepers and see what futures we can imagine together.