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.
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.
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.
history
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.
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.