Join leading voices in anti-oppresive museum education, Wendy Ng and Syrus Marcus Ware for a conversation with the AGO’s Audrey Hudson and Devyani Saltzman.

Museums and cultural institutions face unique opportunities and challenges. This series of conversations invites professionals from around the world who are thinking about art and audiences, and learning in different ways.

Wendy Ng is a senior education and programming specialist with a focus on social justice in museum education. She has worked to change institutions by holding space and building platforms for authentic voices historically marginalized by museums and galleries. Wendy has extensive experience overseeing education and program development including at the Ontario Science Centre, Royal Ontario Museum, and Art Gallery of Ontario. She is a published author writing on diversity, equity, and inclusion in museums, and currently serves on the Board of the Museum Education Roundtable. Wendy has degrees from George Washington University and York University, and is an Ontario-certified teacher.

Syrus Marcus Ware is a Vanier Scholar, a visual artist, community activist, researcher, youth-advocate and educator. For 12 years, he was the Coordinator of the Art Gallery of Ontario Youth Program. Syrus is currently a facilitator/designer for the Cultural Leaders Lab (Toronto Arts Council & The Banff Centre). He is the inaugural artist-in-residence for Daniels Spectrum (2016/2017). Syrus is also a core-team member of Black Lives Matter Toronto.

Audrey Hudson is an educator, researcher and futurist. Hudson is Associate Curator of Schools & Early Childhood Programs at the Art Gallery of Ontario. She holds a PhD from University of Toronto/Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (UT/OISE). Most recently, Hudson co-edited a groundbreaking text entitled, In This Together: Blacknesss, Indigeneity and Hip-Hop, and an article, What Can Hip-Hop Teach Us: Learning From A Young Indigenous Artist. Hudson believes that the arts are a way to bring rich knowledge and voices of young people into spaces to discuss social change, environment, culture and relationship building.

Devyani Saltzman is a Canadian writer and curator with a deep interest in relevant, multidisciplinary, programming at the intersection between art, ideas and social change. She is the Director of Public Programming at the AGO, and the former Director of Literary Arts at the Banff Centre, the first woman and first woman of colour in that role, as well as a Founding Curator of Luminato, North America's largest multi arts festival. Her work has appeared in The Globe and Mail, National Post, The Atlantic and Tehelka, India's weekly of arts and investigative journalism. She sits on the boards of the Writers’ Trust of Canada and SummerWorks Performance Festival, and has been a juror for the National Magazine Awards, Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council and The Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction. Saltzman has a degree in Anthropology and Sociology from Oxford.