Our Team

Layal Shuman (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of Design Studies in The Creative School at Toronto Metropolitan University. She holds a Ph.D. in Educational Studies from McGill University, a Master of Design in Visual Communication Design from the University of Alberta, and a Bachelor of Science in Graphic Design from the Lebanese American University. Her research areas are at the intersections of critical design studies and teaching and learning in higher education. She is the Co-Director of the Studio for Critical Media & Design at Toronto Metropolitan University, the Editor-in-Chief of RUBIX, Journal for Creative Research & Practice, and the Co-Vice President of the ARTS SIG in the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies.

Francisco-Fernando is a visual artist and student in the Media & Design Innovation PhD program. His research aims to understand how abstraction and practices of refugee inscription into readymade forms of subjective cultural and political recognition may become a means to queer modes of relationality at the intersection of visual and performance art. This project creates new paths of knowing by deviating from the practice of learning about the refugee experience to render it as data, turning instead towards learning from those experiences through the singular and unverifiable path of the aesthetic.

Having had an international career as a dancer and choreographer—and described as “[one] of Toronto’s finest dancers” (Paula Citron, Toronto Life)—after graduating from TMU’s Performance Dance program, Shawn earned his PhD in Cultural Studies at Queen’s University. He has taught in the Department of Gender Studies and the Department of Film and Media at Queen’s, the Department of Dance at York University, and in Performance at TMU. Currently, he is the Senior Manager, Research & Impact at Toronto Arts Council and Toronto Arts Foundation where he oversees both organizations’ research projects and partnerships, as well as devises strategy and planning for research and program evaluation. Previously, he was Executive Director of Public Access and Managing Editor of PUBLIC: Art | Culture | Ideas. His research and teaching center social justice, representation, and power in cultural production and policy.

Deanna Armenti (Fae/Faer, She/Her) is a Queer Genderfae poet, zine creator, and textile researcher. Deanna completed the Fashion Master’s program at Toronto Metropolitan University in 2023. She is a current student of the Media and Design Innovation PhD program at TMU, having received the Ontario Graduate Scholarship. Deanna’s practice-based research has been featured in festivals such as DesignTO 2024 and galleries like Abbozzo Gallery.

Deanna’s research is practice-based and explores queer, kink identities through the lens of embodiment and affect to investigate the queer erotic form. She seeks to combat the pathologization and stigmatization of the queer kink community through demystifying the lifestyle. Her creation of accessible material installations is an embodied practice which invites folks to engage with the community. Deanna's research focuses on queer temporalities, seeking liminal spaces and 'slices in time' as a means of conveying the non-linear spectrum of queerness. She explores the community's use of signalling as semiotics, investigating alternate forms of communication such as sign-based discourse. Deanna’s work most recently investigates the intersections of Gender Studies, Folklore, and Ecology as a means of bringing into focus the ephemeral shimmers of the Faegender experience.

Deanna has editorial assistant experience, having worked with the open-access journal Fashion Studies during her Master’s degree. Her article Subspace: An Internal and Liminal Place was published in Volume 5, Issue 1 of Fashion Studies in January 2024. She is a guest editor for issue 14 of Feral Feminisms, Feminist Forms of Submission. Deanna also curates her own publication, The Sapphic Printing Press, which publishes queer writers worldwide in a collaborative zine called SAPPHIC. Her creative writing has received publication in zines such as Feels Zine, Carousel Collective, and Sinister Wisdom. Her poetry zine I Know My Own Heart was nominated for best Litzine at the Broken Pencil 2022 zine awards.