Our speaker for January is Elaine Carol, an artist, writer, solo performance artist, theatre and film director whose work has been seen and heard internationally. Born, raised and educated in Montreal, she has made her home in Vancouver for the past 18 years.

In 2000, Elaine Carol co-founded Miscellaneous Productions with a group of activist queers and women of colour in East Vancouver. She has been the Artistic Director since that time.

Elaine is a senior professional interdisciplinary artist with more than forty years of experience in the arts. Her community-engaged practice includes: solo performance art, video art, documentary film, experimental theatre, public art, sound art/music, hip hop music and dance, and lens-based art (photography, film and video).

As the “benevolent drill sergeant” of Miscellaneous Productions, Elaine Carol has directed, produced and co-wrote numerous ground breaking and innovative community-engaged productions in Vancouver and area with multi-barriered and mainstream youth, women, GLBTIQ youth, GLBTIQ migrants and Indigenous adults, refugees, immigrants and Indigenous adults, culturally and socially diverse inner-city youth and children.

Elaine’s approach to community-engaged practice is based on the principle of nurturing long-term relationships. Her long-standing and sustained commitment to create community-engaged art with multi-barriered youth has made Elaine a community art pioneer in Vancouver.

Using this long-term, community-engaged artistic model, Ms. Carol and her company focus on creation and production of large-scale, original interdisciplinary, hip hop and World musical performances and documentaries in collaboration with a team of professional artists and culturally and socially diverse youth in East Vancouver and throughout BC.