Founded in 2000, Art Matters is often labeled the largest student-run art festival in North America.
An annual Art Matters festival spans 3 weeks and features about 10 exhibitions curated by and for undergraduate students.
We love new ideas, and frequently collaborate with professional festivals and organizations to create mentorships and future exhibition opportunities.
Art Matters is a non-profit, honorarium-based initiative. Our goal is to get people working together, encouraging students from different artistic practices to exchange meaningful artistic endeavors.
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
María Escalona is in her fourth, and last, year of the Major in Fibres and Materials Practices. Born in Caracas, Venezuela, she immigrated to Canada at 19 to study arts. Her work is deeply rooted in her Venezuelan origins and inspired from her Canadian present and intersects the visual, linguistic, textile, and print media realms. Her artworks, essays, and articles have been featured at the VAV Gallery, The Concordian, the feminist collective Soy Nosotras, and Bidgala, where she currently is the Director of Editorial Content.
Matt J Sanderson is a fourth year student in the Studio Arts and Art History Major at Concordia. He is originally from the unceded territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation (Ottawa). His practice includes painting, drawing, photography, writing, and curation. His work is collaborative, investigative, and meditative in nature. Working in series, he aims to use images as a means of storytelling. In this way, he navigates themes of queer identity, memory, and found family. Overall, his work reflects a consideration of art as a means of building empathy and interconnectivity.
Emily Blair is a fourth year student at Concordia, majoring in Fibres and Material Practices. Originally from the unceded and unsurrendered lands of the Wolastoqiyik in the Wabanaki Confederacy (New Brunswick), Emily's work focuses on environmentally centered data collection and its reinterpretation in woven textile fabrics. Through collaborations with sound and video, Emily produces woven installations that speak of connections to land and our personal environments.