The Catalyst 2023 Speakers Series: Kama La Mackerel

The 2023 Catalyst Speakers Series presented cultural producers and scholars working in innovative, multidisciplinary ways across the fields of media, design, art, and theory. Curating international speakers extending from the context of Black Futures Month, International Women’s Day, Pride, and conversations around art and technology, these online dialogues aimed to create resonances with existing Scholarly, Research and Creative (SRC) activities in the Catalyst, the Creative School, and the TMU community at large. The series set out to contribute to the following institutional commitments identified by TMU’s 2020-25 Academic Plan:

• Renewing our focus on collaboration and interdisciplinary approaches 
• Broadening the university’s national and global reputation 
• Continuing TMU’s commitment to preparing students for the complex society in which they will live and work
• Furthering our focus on Indigenous perspectives

Following the guiding principles of  equity, diversity, inclusion, and access, the series addresses intersections and synergies between key strategic themes outlined by TMU’s 2020-2025 Strategic Research Plan: Culture & Creativity, Justice, Equity & Society, and Technology & Intelligent Systems. The speakers series was also curated with an eye to advancing conversations that centre on existing and emerging strategic research areas within The Creative School such as Creative AI and creative technologies; justice, equity, community, and inclusion; inter- and transdisciplinary creativity.