Flash Photographic Festival Board

Leif Norman, Executive Director

Leif Norman has been an Arts and Cultural Photographer in Winnipeg for over twenty years shooting dance, theatre, music and festivals. He enjoys making random shapes with watercolour paint, making odd noises with his synthesisers and recently bought a 1980 Kawasaki motorcycle that he doesn’t really know how to drive. (Update; he also bought a a 1981 Honda CB900 custom and indeed does know how to drive a motorcycle) He started the FLASH photographic festival after visiting the CONTACT photo festival in Toronto and decided Winnipeg should also have a cool visual arts festival.

Ian McCausland

After 30 years of working as a photographer, I am still passionate about what I do. In fact I may be more excited these days than in the film days. The tools available now for story-telling are vast and allow for some amazing creativity and innovation.  Even after all these years, I still get a thrill out of seeing my images used in print, online and elsewhere.My passion for photography is fuelled by my curiosity. I want to learn, to listen, to find out what's needed and how it can best translate into images.  Working with a team of designers, art directors, account reps and even the subjects themselves, allows for collaboration, which is another great motivator in the process of creativity. The one thing that brings it all together is really connection. In this world crowded with screens, I try to create images that show human connection. As much as I love photography, it's really the art of connecting with people that I love most.

James Wagner

James has been a practising architect for over 30 years. Currently a sole practitioner specializing in historic buildings, James worked for many years in the private sector prior to joining Parks Canada. Educated at the University of Waterloo, he is a member of the Manitoba Association of Architects and a Fellow of the RAIC.

Sarah Fuller

Sarah Fuller is a settler-Canadian artist of Icelandic and British descent who works across the mediums of photography, video and installation. She has been an artist in residence at the Ós Residency in Blönduós, Iceland, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Laughing Waters in Nillumbick Shire, Australia, the Klondike Institute of Art and Culture, Yukon, Fondazione Antonio Ratti, Italy, and the Association of Visual Artists (SIM), Iceland. She holds an MFA from the University of Ottawa and a BFA from Emily Carr University.

Sarah has taught photography for 20 years and from 2005-2015 was the Photography Facilitator in the Creative Residencies programme at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. She has taught photography workshops internationally in France, Croatia, and Australia and served on the Board of the Exposure Photography Festival from 2006-2012.

Recent exhibitions include Redesigning Paradise at the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies with artists Mary Anne Barkhouse, Dianne Bos and Penelope Stewart, Terra Incogknita at PLATFORM centre for photographic + digital arts, and Refugio at the University of Lethbridge Art Gallery. Her video work has been screened at Art on the Screens(Mississauga 2019) and Photophobia (Hamilton 2019).  In 2022, Sarah collaborated with Julia Taffe, Aeriosa Dance Company (Vancouver) and Keri Latimer (Winnipeg) on the vertical dance piece Habitats and Camouflage at the Tofino Tree Festival. In 2017 she was commissioned by the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity to create the Canada 150 project Human/Nature  in collaboration with Moment Factory (Montreal).

Sarah’s work is in public and private collections including the Canada Council for the Arts Art Bank, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, the Walter Phillips Gallery, the Indie Photobook Library and Global Affairs Canada. 

Emmanuel OC Harry

Emmanuel 'OC' Harry, a passionate and self-taught visual artist with deep roots in Nigeria and a current residence in Canada. His journey in the world of art has been shaped by a relentless pursuit of creative expression, demonstrating that talent and determination are the most formidable teachers. He holds a degree in Environmental Studies and Geography from the prestigious University of Manitoba, where he further honed his understanding of the world's intricacies, which often find reflection in his art. His body of work is an ever-evolving concept, characterized by numerous journeys down memory lane. His goal is to establish connections with his audience based on shared stories on gender, religion and culture.

FlashFestival Advisory Committee

Hugh Conacher

Hugh Conacher is a lighting and multi-media designer, and a photographer. He has collaborated with choreographers, directors, visual artists, dance and theatre companies throughout Canada and around the world, in venues large and small.

Hugh’s love of photography and extreme climates has taken him from the Arctic to the Antarctic in order to capture the changing beauty of these unique landscapes. His expedition to the Antarctic led to a photographic residency with Banff Mountain Film Festival. His decades of experience as a theatrical designer have given him unparalleled access to dancers in theatres and he well known for his dance photography.

Hugh serves on the boards of several arts organizations and has been the curator for the gallery at the Gas Station Arts Centre since 2002. His photographic work resides in private collections and has been published worldwide.

Hugh is a member of the Associated Designers of Canada and l’Association des professionnels des arts de la scène du Québec.

www.Pellucid.Me

Leona Herzog

Leona Herzog graduated with a BFA (Honours) in 1975, and completed a Master of Arts with a focus on Curatorial Practises in 2012.

As Director/Curator of the Buhler Gallery, St. Boniface Hospital, from 2016 to 2022 she created more than 25 exhibitions featuring the work of contemporary Canadian artists.

Herzog is committed to the arts and has volunteered on numerous boards, including 12 years with Manitoba Opera, and acted as Co-chair of Manitoba Crafts Museum & Library (MCML). She now serves as Chair of the Board of Directors for Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art (MAWA) and is a member of the Advisory Council for Flashfest, Winnipeg’s premier photography event. She continues to pursue her own artistic career while mentoring others in the arts community.

Sam Baardman

Sam Baardman is a singer-songwriter and photographer living in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He is a co-founder of the River on the Run Collective, a group of artists that creates work based on their shared experience of living within the Lake Winnipeg Watershed. Integrating a variety of art forms and disciplines, and working in collaboration with biologists and climate scientists, their work investigates the increasingly fragile relationship between humans and their habitats. Environmentalism has been an enduring theme both in Sam’s music and visual art. His music is known for its lyrical depth and superb, singable melodies, while his photography has been exhibited in galleries in both Canada and the U.S.

Diana Thorneycroft

Diana Thorneycroft is a Winnipeg artist who has exhibited various bodies of work across Canada, the United States and Europe, as well as in Moscow, Tokyo and Sydney. She is the recipient of numerous awards including the 2016 Manitoba Arts Award of Distinction, an Assistance to Visual Arts Long-term Grant from the Canada Council, several Senior Arts Grants from the Manitoba Arts Council and a Fleck Fellowship from the Banff Centre for the Arts.

Her early work was the subject of national radio documentaries and a CBC national documentary for television. From 2000 - 2002, Thorneycroft's photo-based exhibition, The Body, its lesson and camouflage toured to eight venues. Several images from this work show were included in the 2002 Phaidon Press publication Blink, which presents "the work of 100 rising stars in photography". The artists were selected by 10 world-class curators, each proposing 10 photographers who they consider to have emerged and broken ground in the last five years.

Thorneycroft is perhaps best known for her photographic work depicting facets of Canadian identity. Some of the work is humorous, sometimes dark, frequently both. From 2007- 2014, she completed four series: The Canadiana Martyrdom Series, Group of Seven Awkward Moments, A People's History and Canadians and Americans (best friends forever... it's complicated)). Canadian Art Magazine selected the Group of Seven Awkward Moments as one of The Top 10 Exhibitions of 2008.

Signy Thorsteinson

Signy  Thorsteinson is a community photographer focussed on black and white Street Photography. Her photographs have been shown in the Buhler Gallery,  New Iceland Heritage Museum, Gas Station Theatre, and Dr. Paul H.T Thorlakson Gallery. Signy is also a Director  on the board of directors of the Icelandic Festival since 2016, responsible for the festival art show. Signy is thrilled  to have been on Ace Burpees list of top 100 Most Fascinating Manitobans for her part in executing “illumiskate” The Night - an outdoor disco inspired roller rink during the Blanche.