Anouchka Freybe is a visual arts researcher, creative writer and the Executive Director of the Similkameen Artist Residency, and a dedicated advocate for the community-strengthening impact of arts and culture.
Born on the unceded territory of Tiohtià:ke, also known as Montréal, she was a quiet child who liked to watch snow fall. Her mother refers to her as a late bloomer, which she generally agrees with. After just two winters in Quebec, the family returned to the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations, where they settled on the north shore of Vancouver and built a flat-roofed home with skylights. Home became the sound of rain and the scent of wet wood.
She is honoured to participate as a Board Director for both PEN Canada and the National Gallery of Canada Foundation, and as a Trustee of the Freybe Foundation. She holds a BFA (‘93, Bishop’s University), an MA (‘00, York University), and has held internships at the Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Italy, the Neues Museum Weserburg in Bremen Germany, and the Art Gallery of Ontario, and held positions in education and exhibition research at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection.
She is grateful to live in a rural space with her husband and kids on the traditional territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation of the Anishinaabe people, otherwise known as Erin, Ontario, and is equally grateful to return to the west coast often. She is committed to SAR’s growth as a creative space with heart, and is indebted to talented staff, advisors, foundational partnerships, and the opportunity to work and learn on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded land of the Syilx Okanagan people.
Her first book-length eco-fiction manuscript is slowly in the works.
My name is Alexandra Bischoff, but you can call me Ali. I am a prairie-born settler currently based in syilx-Okanagan territory. As a durational performance artist and writer (BFA: ECUAD, 2015; MFA: Concordia University, 2021), I am interested in cultivating intimacy and researching archives. I moved to Keremeos in December, 2022 to be the second Long-Term Artist in Residence at SAR, and have spent the intervening time building out my role as Residency Manager. For the past decade, I’ve worked for various artists, arts organizations, and universities (Artspeak; Concordia University; PAARC; the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery; Rennie Museum), through which I have honed a skillset in administration and project management. Working for SAR has tasked me with with facilitating over 70 residencies; this includes encouraging artists to rest, supporting them as they take creative risks, and coordinating professional development opportunities such as exhibitions, artist talks, community workshops, and an onsite sculpture garden.
I recently joined SAR as the Communications & Programs Manager and am so thankful to become part of a team as amazing as this one! I’ve lived in and around the Okanagan for over a decade, and have a background in Administration as well as my own artist practice of digital art and painting.
Working with SAR combined my passion for the Arts as well as utilizing my skills and education as an admin. It’s like my two worlds collided and landed me with this wonderful opportunity with SAR!
Rosie the cat is sweet and shy. She stays with her humans in the Long-Term Artist in Residence half of SAR’s log house, but has been known to drop in on group meals if the piano room door is left ajar. Some of Rosie’s favourite moments are spent on her front patio in a barrel of dirt and cat grass. In the mornings, she can be readily found loafed around, following sunbeams as they crawl across the kitchen floor.