Maud Joiret was born in 1986 in Brussels. She is a poet and performer (on stage, on video, sometimes in front of a camera), and a literary columnist.

Cobalt, her first book of poetry (published by Tétras-lyre) received the First Work Prize of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation in 2020 and was adapted to video. Her second book, JERK, published in 2022 by l'Arbre de Diane, was brought to the stage in a production that combines text, music and dance. Marées vaches, her third book of poetry, is published by Le Castor astral in 2023. Her poetry is a willing hybridization of registers and genres, seeking the limits of sensations and narratives, to give rhythm to a quest for meaning.

Maude Veilleux is a writer and interdisciplinary artist from Beauce, Canada. She develops a practice at the intersection of writing, digital literature, and performativity. She writes poetry collections and novels. Over the years, her work has been showcased in various institutions and festivals across Canada, Europe, West Africa, and Asia. More recently, Le Marchand de feuilles published an anthology of her poetic texts.

Léa Boudreau (b. 1993) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal who works with electronics, sounds and places. Her work questions interspecies relationships by considering nonhuman existences (nonhuman animal life, artificial life, the non-living, etc.) as ground for reflections on hierarchies dividing our world. She works following a DIY approach (do it yourself) favouring knowledge sharing and a critique of consumerism.

Among other places, her work has been presented in the Symposium International d'Art Contemporain of Baie St-Paul, FIMAV (Victoriaville), OTTOsonics Festival (Ottensheim, Austria), Akousma Festival (Montréal) and Sonorities Festival (Belfast). She holds a bachelor's degree in Digital music from Université de Montréal and a MFA (Studio Arts, Intermedia) from Concordia University.

Boris Tia is Chief Accessibility Officer at CBC/Radio-Canada. He plays a key role in ensuring that the organisation is accessible to both its audiences and its employees. He also has 14 years' expertise in business intelligence. Passionate about emerging technologies, he has covered the annual Consumer Electronics Show for the past 10 years and completed a certification in artificial intelligence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

An independent artist and curator, Ariane Plante develops projects in the visual, media and technological arts with a wide range of artists and organisations. For nearly 15 years, her reflections have focused on the conditions of our coexistence with the living world, the territory and the environment, and have been embodied in non-linear works and narrative forms. In 2024, as principal creator, she completed a project of sound, narrative and interactive installations produced by the National Film Board of Canada - studio interactif and the City of Quebec. Entitled Ce qui brille dans le noir, the work has been designed to be as accessible as possible. It will be on display at the Gabrielle-Roy library until 2025.

Cécile Petitgand is president and founder of Data Lama, a Quebec-based company specialising in data management and AI training for digital democratisation. She provides AI training for public and not-for-profit organisations in the cultural (INIS, ANEL, etc.) and scientific (IVADO, CHUM, etc.) sectors. She is also a data management consultant at the CHUM research centre and manager of the Réseau Santé Numérique du Québec. Cécile Petitgand holds a doctorate in management science from the Université Paris-Dauphine and the Université de Sao Paulo (Brazil), and did her post-doctorate at the Hub santé : politique, organisations et droit (H-POD) at the Université de Montréal on the theme of AI implementation in hospitals.

With a degree in Language Sciences, Emilie Peltier is a communicator, accessibility consultant and film-maker. She is self-taught in photography, film, writing and printing techniques. Her deafness from birth influences her relationship with the world, and she is drawn to visual and aesthetic projects that are instinctively and necessarily militant. She has made three short films, including the poetic Matin Ecchymose, presented at some thirty festivals around the world, and a medium-length documentary for television.

Anne Jarry is a member of the Board of Directors and the Cultural Access Committee of the Regroupement des Aveugles et Amblyopes du Montréal Métropolitain (RAAMM). She holds a master's degree in adult education, a 2e cycle in visual impairment rehabilitation and a BA in psychology. After losing her sight at the age of 24, she devoted her adult life to helping blind and partially sighted people cope with the world and facilitating their access to information. She held the position of Executive Director of the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB Quebec) from 2001 to 2007, and then that of Professor in the 2e cycle option Intervention en déficience visuelle at the Université de Montréal School of Optometry from 2008 to 2020.

Thomas Gaudy has a doctorate in computer science and is co-founder of Ludociels pour tous, a Montreal-based social economy enterprise dedicated to promoting digital inclusion. He is interested in all forms of digital projects with a social vocation, as well as the accessibility of video games. The organisation contributes to the creation and promotion of inclusive, participatory and collaborative digital leisure activities and cultural facilities.

Mouloud Boukala is an anthropologist and full professor at UQAM's École des médias, Canada Research Chair in Media, Disability and (Self)Representation and co-director of the Handicap, Sourditude et Innovations (HSI) Laboratory, his research is part of an anthropology of the media, focusing on the study of situations of disability and how they are portrayed in film, television and comic strips.

Snack Witch Joni Cheung 🍡 is a grateful, uninvited guest born—and knows she wants to die—on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm, Skwxwú7mesh, Stó:lō, and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh peoples. They are a Certified Sculpture Witch with an MFA from Concordia University (2023). She holds a BFA with Distinction in Visual Art (2018) from the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University. As a wicked #magicalgirl ✨ who eats art and makes snacks, she has exhibited and curated shows, off- and online, across Turtle Island. Currently, they are based on the stolen lands of the Kanien’kehá:ka peoples. Aside from art-making, Joni likes wandering down grocery store aisles and drinking bubble tea.