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Born January 1st, 1995 in Markham, David Slipetz grew up north of Toronto in Newmarket, ON. Here he attended Notre Dame Catholic Elementary School and Sacred Heart Catholic High School. He lived between Singapore and Malaysia in the summers of 2009 - 2012 during the summers of high school with his father that worked abroad. In 2012 he began his degree at McMaster University studying Anthropology. He lived and studied abroad in Japan for the school year of 2016 - 2017. He continued his studies of Anthropology with a focus on archaeology and participated in two academic archaeological expeditions during the following summers in Italy and Greece respectively. Upon return, he graduated with his degree in Honours Anthropology in 2018. He returned to graduate studies in 2024 as a Master's Graduate Student at the iSchool of University of Toronto studying Archives & Records Management & Museum Studies in the Combined Degree Program.

David Slipetz also travelled extensively. Living abroad for multiple months to years at a time. In 2022 he travelled to New Zealand and Australia where he lived for a year abroad on a Working Holiday Visa. After this year abroad he moved to Portugal in 2023 to partake in another Working Holiday Visa. As David extensively travelled around the world for his personal, professional and academic life he built a substantial photographic record. It appears that photography acted as an avenue of documentation and an artistic outlet for David which marked the beginning of his career in travel photography. As such, much of the fonds consists of the records of David's travel, photography and as persistent representations of the activities he engaged with.

Alston So was born to Chinese immigrants on May 3rd, 1999 in Vancouver, BC. He was an experienced artist, writer, and amateur archivist. At a young age, Alston was interested in drawing and writing, hence why some sketchbooks and journals have survived to this day.

He studied fine arts at Emily Carr University in 2017. He specialized in the ceramic and drawing medium. Through the art community, Alston participated in many student-run art shows that supported queer artists. In 2019, Alston So decided to drop out in order to take a break from academics.

During this break in 2020, Alston was generating a large amount of textual material through creative output. A self inspired project, he created many journals that detailed serious issues, his life, and the mundane. He took on many odd jobs, such as a baker, bartender, library page and a clown at one point.

Alston was accepted into the University of British Columbia in 2020. He obtained his Bachelor’s Degree in Asian Studies and creative writing minor at the University of British Columbia in 2024. Many of his research and publications during this period focused on the Asian Diaspora, through a critical queer lens.

By 2022, Alston relocated to Tokyo University of Foreign Studies to further his academic knowledge. He began exploring Tokyo’s underground art scene, taking in inspiration for his own writing and art. Between 2022-2023, Alston So created hand-bound zines and distributed them between emerging artists across Japan. At Tokyo University of foreign studies, he focused his learning on Japan and Asia as a whole. There, he met Dr. Iris Haukamp, a professor of Asian film and art studies. Under the tutelage of Dr.Haukamp, Alston completed his senior thesis titled “Evolution of Asian Art through the Asian Diaspora”. After, Iris became a close confidante and supported Alston’s studies back in Canada.

In 2023, Alston returned to Vancouver to complete his studies. One of the most significant publication Alston released, is “A Study of Asian Ceramics: 1000 years of history” (2024), commissioned by Keishirou Nakamoto, a professor at the University of British Columbia. The partnership between Keishirou and Alston was fruitful, as his report went on to help in the creation of an exhibit hosted at the Museum of Anthropology. After graduating from UBC, Alston was accepted into the Master of Information program at the University of Toronto. He chose to focus on Archives and Record Management and Library Information Sciences.

Unfortunately, Alston was unable to complete his studies. On March 10th, he was declared missing and was last seen at Crother Woods. Alston So’s body was found on March 17th and declared deceased.

Margarita Stappas is a Toronto-based mixed queer Asian artist and community organizer born in Markham, Ontario.

Margarita earned an Honours Bachelor of Arts from the University of Ottawa in Women's Studies and History. They are pursuing a Master of Information at the University of Toronto.

They started playing tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) in 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, first through a Dungeons and Dragons campaign before joining other campaigns that used home brew systems. Margarita joined the Wyndermere Academy Campaign after meeting Sage through the Asian Community AIDS Service's youth program, Queer and Trans Asian Youth (QTAY) in 2021.

Shiyang Sun (2002– ) is an archivist and museum collections professional whose interests focus on cultural preservation, curation, and language revitalization within galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (GLAM).
In 2018, Sun enrolled in the Faculty of Arts and Science at the University of Toronto, where she pursued a double major in Linguistics and East Asian Studies. Her undergraduate coursework and research explored intersections between Chinese culture, history, and sociolinguistic changes, particularly emphasizing the adaptation of Chinese languages in North American contexts. In her third year, Sun worked as a research assistant in the Heritage Language Variation and Change (HLVC) Lab under the supervision of Professor Naomi Nagy. In her fourth year, she conducted independent research analyzing linguistic variations within Chinese communities in North America, presenting her findings at national academic conferences. Sun graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 2023.
In 2024, Sun started her graduate studies at the Faculty of Information (iSchool), University of Toronto, shifting her academic focus toward applied cultural preservation, archival practices, and the management of cultural heritage collections. She continued integrating her linguistic and cultural studies background into her professional objectives, completing her combined Master's degree in Information and Museum Studies in 2027.
After graduation, Sun worked at the Canada Language Museum as an exhibition assistant and later became the Archives and Special Collections Manager there. Her responsibilities encompassed language documentation and collaboration with curators to create and deliver language-focused exhibitions throughout Canada.
Throughout her academic career, Sun was actively involved in volunteering. Between 2020 and 2022, she provided online English tutoring to students in remote regions of China, simultaneously coordinating volunteer recruitment and program administration. From 2025 to 2027, she volunteered at the Multicultural History Society of Ontario, assisting with collections management and improving accessibility for researchers.

history

Niloofar (Nil) Taghipour is a visual artist, photographer, and emerging archivist whose work explores themes of memory, everyday life, and personal storytelling through lens-based media. Born and raised in Iran, she developed her artistic voice over three decades before relocating to Canada, where her practice expanded to include archival methods and self-publishing through photo books.

Nil holds degrees in photography and art studies from institutions in Iran and Canada and is currently pursuing graduate studies in Information and Archival Science at the University of Toronto. Her artistic practice spans analog and digital photography, often using 35mm color film to document intimate, unnoticed moments of urban life. Her work emphasizes the quiet poetry of daily experience, frequently curated into periodical photo projects or exhibition prints.

The Nil Tag Fonds reflects this ongoing practice, comprising photographic negatives, scanned digital images, writings, correspondence, and curated artist books. The materials document not only the evolution of her visual language but also the cross-cultural and geographic shifts in her life and work — from Tehran to Toronto, with projects created across multiple cities during periods of travel.

Nil’s work has been exhibited and collected privately, and her archive is actively maintained by the artist as both a personal and professional record.

Chloe Thierstein (b. 1999) is a graduate student pursuing her Master of Information in Archives and Records Management at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information. Her academic and professional interests involve cultural memory preservation, forgetting, large-scale digitization, information management, and appraisal.

She grew up in Edmonton Alberta, where she attended the Victoria School of the Arts (Formerly known as the Victoria of Performing and Visual Arts) and McNally High School. In these institutions, Chloe gained an appreciation for arts and culture, practicing ceramics, drawing, photography, and other visual arts. In 2017 she enrolled at the University of Alberta, earning a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology. Her coursework focused on a wide ranges of subjects such as demography, secularization, and slavic history. During a study abroad term, Chloe studied in Cortona, Italy where she learned about global iterations of crime and punishments and economic history. Following her graduation, she attended the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information’s Bachelor of Information program. In this program, she gained an interdisciplinary knowledge of the information field, exploring UX/UI design, GLAM, culture and technology, and data science. This experience broadened her horizons and led her to apply to the Master of Information program following her graduation.

Since joining the program,Chloe has continued to explore the social-cultural impacts of cultural institutions and influence of AI, here she integrates her interdisciplinary background to aid in her studies. She has also continued her artistic pursuits. She has become well integrated into digital ceramics and knitting communities, developing glaze recipes and knitting patterns. She has also continued in her passion for travel and photography, ensuring key moments of her life are preserved.

Lauren Tremblay was born in Ajax, Ontario, and grew up in Oshawa, Ontario. Her family hails from Oshawa and Windsor, Ontario. As a hobby, Tremblay enjoys painting and reading biographies and art history texts, reflecting her strong interest in both visual arts and historical scholarship. Furthermore, Tremblay has worked as a ski instructor, and is passionate about fitness and travel. Tremblay pursued a Bachelor of Arts in Art History and Curatorial Studies at the University of Toronto, Scarborough from 2019 to 2024. During this time, she developed a passion for art history and curatorial practices. In 2024, Tremblay traveled abroad to Paris, France, to further immerse herself in her passion for art before returning to Toronto in September 2024 to begin her studies in the Master of Information program at the University of Toronto, specializing in Archives and Records Management.
Tremblay currently resides and works in Toronto, Ontario. She works as a bartender and as an archival intern at a bank, gaining practical experience in the field of information management while continuing her graduate studies.