About

Emma Metcalfe Hurst (she/her)

Emma Metcalfe Hurst is an Ottawa-based artist, curator, collection manager, archivist, and librarian who specializes in artists' archives, special collections, and arts librarianship. She holds a BFA in Critical and Cultural Practices with a Minor in Curatorial Studies from Emily Carr University of Art & Design. She is also a graduate of the dual degree MASLIS program at the UBC iSchool with a concentration in First Nations information management. From 2023-2024, she was the Kress Fellow in Arts Librarianship at Yale University's Yale Center for British Art and Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library where she co-developed a hands-on Artists' Studio Archives Workshop, teaching art students, faculty, and local artists how to archive their artwork and manage their studios. From 2024-2025, she was an Archivist and Special Collections Librarian at the Rhode Island School of Art & Design where she expanded on the workshop and deepened her teaching experience. She is currently the Archivist for Private Fonds at the National Gallery of Canada. 

Yuli Sato (she/her)

Yuli Sato is a visual artist based in Ottawa, Canada. Her multidisciplinary practice, which includes photography, filmmaking, and writing, is an ongoing exploration of memory, identity, and the fluid connection between past and present. Her work is driven by a commitment to the analog process and the tactile nature of media, often re-contextualizing archival materials to create new narratives.

Sato holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography from Concordia University (2013) and a diploma in Library & Information Technology from Algonquin College (2021). She was a finalist for the Project XO Photography Award from the Ottawa Art Gallery and the School of Photographic Arts: Ottawa, and her film, Disintegration (105 Frames), was featured in the Digital Arts Resource Centre’s annual public screening (2025). Her work has been shown nationally and internationally, including in exhibitions at AXENÉO7 and Centre DAÏMÔN, and featured in publications such as Flo Lit Magazine and Nosy Mag. Sato is a Board Director for the Digital Arts Resource Centre and is also the founder of the Blue Hour Photo Zine Library.

Ben Compton (he/him)

Ben Compton is a film archivist, artist and arts programmer. He is currently completing an MA in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management at Toronto Metropolitan University. With a grounding in music and performance, Ben explores the physical presence of audiovisual culture–how sounds and images are tied to objects, people, and land. Ben currently works with the Canadian Association for the Conservation of Cultural Property and has previously worked at The Canada Council for the Arts’ Art Bank, The Canadian Film Institute, and The International Film Festival of Ottawa, where he co-curated their short film programs. Most recently, Ben worked for Visual Studies Workshop (Rochester, NY), where he was responsible for inspecting hundreds of 16mm films for degradation. He is the recipient of the Sony Pictures Scholarship awarded by The Association of Moving Image Archivists.

Martha Adem Alvarez (they/them)

Martha Adem Alvarez is an artist, musician, archivist, and librarian living in Ottawa/Gatineau. Their mixed heritage and family history of multigenerational migration has informed the multidisciplinary aspects of their artistic practice, focusing on liminality and othering of the individual within homogenous societies. They hold a Bachelor of Arts in German Literature in Language from the University of British Columbia, as well as a Master of Library and Information Studies from the University of Ottawa, with a focus on archives and preservation. In 2023, they held the Ingenium Library and Archives Research Fellowship, where they studied the development of Canadian textile technology and Victorian women’s cycling dress using the Ingenium Museum’s trade literature and rare books collection. Since 2024, they have been working at the Library of Parliament as the Preservation Technician and recently gave a talk on Senate debate reformatting for long-term preservation at the 2026 Ontario Library Association Superconference.