Arts AccessAbility Network Manitoba

Arts AccessAbility Network Manitoba is a registered charitable organization (# 09135809RR0001). We provide charitable receipts for all donations! Donate now!

AANM 2024 Grant Winners

AANM’s grants are generously funded by the Manitoba Arts Council.

Congratulations to the winners!

Hailley Rhoda

Hailley Rhoda Bio

Hailley Rhoda is a theatre artist based in Winnipeg Manitoba.  Diagnosed at a young age with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and Von Willebrand’s Disease, Hailley’s work often explores what the perception of Disability is versus the lived reality. Since graduating from the University of Winnipeg’s Theatre and Film department, she’s become more interested in creating her own works. She creates under the company name Chronically Ch(ill) Productions, and has created pieces on invisible disability for Sarasvati Productions and Sick+Twisted Theatre. She is an active member of the Winnipeg Puppet Collective. When not working on pieces about invisible disabilities, she focuses on retelling Greek and Roman myths from a female perspective, and building puppets who die in spectacularly entertaining ways. 

Katrina Craig

Katrina Craig bio

Katrina Craig is a visual artist and craftsperson living in Winnipeg, Manitoba on Treaty 1 Territory. Originally from Prince Edward Island, Katrina Craig attended the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD) receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Textiles and Fashion. 

Her background in textiles and fashion are found in her work through her use of fibre, three dimensional soft sculpture forms, and the use of textile techniques and needlework in her mixed media projects. While Craig’s work has a continuing thread of textiles, her work often engages with other modes of making including: photography, video, hand lettered text, drawing and writing. 

Craig uses an innate feature of craft based practice: time, labour and process, as a means to explore the intersection of the body and the mind. Her work often references or interacts with the body. It may be worn, referenced in the artwork’s form, or the work may be draped overtop of wire body forms. Craig utilizes her own body through recording herself working bit by bit on her projects, often transforming everyday objects into new structures using needlework, weaving, or other textile techniques.

Exploring topics such as chronic illness, grief, change and transformation, Craig uses visual metaphor to express the subtle changes and invisible labour of internal life. She gives particular focus to how these internal changes translate into and are encouraged by somatic experience in the body. 

Lindsey White

Lindsey White Bio:

Connection is at the core of a groovy folk-rock sound that is the heartbeat of all music created by Lindsey White and her community. Her soulful compositions are complimented by earthy piano and guitar, powerful vocals and unmistakable passion. The result is an intersection of straight forward groove and complex balladry with a rich, informed lyrical landscape underpinned by hope. Her sound has been described as “the lovechild of Regina Spektor and Florence and The Machine”.

White established herself in the Winnipeg music scene early on as a passionate, expressive voice and an honest, thoughtful songwriter. She went on to create and facilitate community music programming that met people of all ages where they are at. This work landed her a nomination for a Winnipeg Arts Council “Making a Mark” award, five “Women of Influence” Canadian Women Entrepreneur award nominations and a designation as one of the CBC Manitoba Future 40.

It is White’s insightful and forthright approach that results in a sense of trust and relatedness for listeners, co-creators and observers of her work. Whether on stage or in session, she is able to weave memories and learnings in a way that turns adversity into awareness while leaving all feeling more understood.

Sacha Kopelow

Sacha Kopelow Bio:

achieves an ethereal, gemlike colour quality, contributing to an intimate and vulnerable sensibility in her work. Greatly influenced by the intersection of her experience as disabled and her interest in social justice, she explores loneliness, belonging, feminism, minutiae, animal sensitivities, and the nature and collection of life moments.

Born and raised in rural Manitoba, Sacha worked around the globe in environmentalism and social justice before returning to Canada to earn a BFA at NSCAD University. Neurodivergent since birth, she became physically disabled through chronic illness in 2003, and returned ‘home’ to Winnipeg for adaptive care. Having learned to navigate the world as a disabled artist, she has since built a comprehensive studio which allows her to work in metalsmithing, glass casting, painting, drawing, textiles, electronics and photography. Disability has both shrunk and expanded her world – living below the poverty line with limited physical and mental resources. This provides a more nuanced understanding of the struggles of others as well as the opportunity to deeply witness and express her experience of her own life and the world around her.