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August was born on June 22, 2000, to an American mother and a Canadian father. Growing up in Toronto's East York neighbourhood, he was aware of his dual identity from a young age due to the alternating Christmasses he spent with his relatives on the East and West coasts of the United States. He was an active member of his local Scout troop until high school, when he began to take a greater interest in film. During adolescence and university, August completed several video projects, mostly for school assignments. In 2018, he was a layout editor for his high school's yearbook team.

In 2018, he started attending the University of Guelph, majoring in Computer Science. Soon realising he was more interested in and better suited to the humanities, August changed majors, graduating in 2023 with a Bachelor of Arts - History (Hons.). As a history student, he was a co-editor for the 2021 issue of "Footnotes: The University of Guelph's Undergraduate Journal of Gender, Sexuality and Social Change" and had a paper published. For his academic achievements he was awarded both the Marion McKenzie Scholarships for Outstanding Achievement in History and the W.S. Reid Undergraduate Thesis Prize. He worked for several of his professors as a summer research assistant and transcriptionist, but his most notable position was as Webmaster for the Rural Diary Archive under Dr. Catharine Wilson. This work endeared him to primary sources and the value of archives, and in 2023 he applied for a Master of Information in Library and Information Science at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Information.

August studied at the University of Toronto from 2023 to 2025, graduating in June 2025. He was hired as a TALint student intern at the UofT Media Commons Archives, making connections which helped him apply to study at the L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation in Rochester, New York, to which he was accepted in April 2025. He also founded Film Freaks Club UofT, a student organization which hosts weekly film screenings and events, in October 2024.

August had long been interested in photography, but in summer 2024 - inspired by his work at the Media Commons Archives - he begin learning to shoot film photography. Though this did not extend far beyond that summer, the experience familiarized him with the fundamentals of photographic technique; in early 2025, he purchased a digital camera from a friend. When asked, he says he will keep it as a hobby for life.

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Born in Toronto, Ontario to Ghanaian immigrants, Alexie Ankomah spent her early childhood between Toronto and Kumasi, Ghana before her family decided to permanently settle in Toronto in 2006. In 2016, Ankomah would begin to attend A.Y Jackson Secondary School where she was a participant in the equity council, curling team, flag football team, photography club, where she began to take portrait photographs of friends and family, and the Black Student Society, where she would develop an interest in learning about Black Canadian and American history. Ankomah would graduate from A.Y Jackson Secondary School in 2020 and would begin to attend Toronto Metropolitan University (then Ryerson University).

Ankomah would major in History before transferring to the Criminology and History major in 2021. During her time at Toronto Metropolitan University, Ankomah continued to develop her interest from high school by taking a variety of Criminology and History courses related to the treatment and experiences of Black Canadians and Americans. During her third year at Toronto Metropolitan University, Ankomah would take a course focused on archives where her interest began to shift to becoming an archivist and participating in archival activism focussed on changing the physical and intellectual structures of archives in order to allow Black Canadians to have greater access to archival material as a means of bringing social change in the archival field. In 2024, Ankomah would graduate from Toronto Metropolitan University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Criminology and History and would begin to attend the University of Toronto Faculty of Information as a Masters of Information candidate in the Archives and Records Management concentration to pursue her goals.

Omar Al-Samadi is a multidisciplinary artist, researcher, and information professional based in Tkarón:to (Treaty 13) / Toronto, Ontario. Born in 1986 in Burlington, Ontario, to a Seychellois-Creole mother and Iraqi-Arab father, Al-Samadi was raised in a mixed-race household and came of age in the post-9/11 era. They experienced early educational barriers as a result of systemic racism, including academic streaming in high school that delayed access to university level education until their mid-thirties. These formative experiences continue to inform their commitment to equity, representation, and memory work.

Al-Samadi’s early professional life began in wealth management, where they worked as a financial advisor at Scotiabank and Scotia Capital from 2007 to 2009. A departure from the corporate sector led them into the music and cultural industries, where they spent over a decade as an artist manager, event producer, and community organizer. During this period, they held leadership roles at Embrace Presents and Culvert Music, co-founded Rare Beef Records and the monthly dance music event Course of Time, and later founded the consulting firm Ovātus Group while collaborating with the inclusive nightlife collective Deep Gold Presents.

Working under the artistic moniker Abandoned Affair, Al-Samadi has maintained a longstanding creative practice in photography. Using primarily 35mm film, their visual work explores portraiture, landscape, and urban documentation, and has been featured in magazine publications such as PhotoED and NAKID. Their work is rooted in narrative, contemplation, and aesthetic care.

Returning to formal education in 2019, Al-Samadi completed a Social Service Worker diploma with honours at George Brown College, followed by a B.A. in Social Development Studies from the University of Waterloo in 2024. During this time, they worked and volunteered in harm reduction, notably with Breakaway Community Services for their Pieces to Pathways program providing peer support and counselling for 2SLGBTQ+ youth who struggle with substance use.

As of 2024, Al-Samadi is pursuing graduate studies at the University of Toronto in the combined Master of Information and Master of Museum Studies program, specializing in Archives and Records Management. Their research interests include decolonial archival theory, community-driven archiving, inclusive appraisal methodologies, and the preservation of marginalized voices. A significant moment in their archival trajectory occurred in 2022 during a visit to the Seychelles National Archives, where they uncovered historical records of their East-African enslaved ancestors—an experience that continues to shape their scholarly and creative pursuits.

Al-Samadi is fluent in English and French, with additional proficiency in Arabic and Italian. Their work across disciplines is guided by a desire to build bridges between artistic expression, institutional critique, and community memory. Their fonds reflects a layered and evolving narrative of lived experience, creative practice, and critical inquiry.

Age Friendly GIANTs was a project conducted from 2017 and 2019 in Thunder Bay, Ontario. The project was organized via Age Friendly Thunder Bay and StoryCentre Canada and coordinated by Nancy Angus. "GIANTs" stands for "Grand Individuals Aging with Neighbours in Thunder Bay." The project was designed to support strategies for seniors' aging in place in the region and improve the health and well- being of seniors living alone. The project was conducted in two phases. Phase 1 (2017) provided a digital storytelling workshop to ten older adults, with a focus on neighbourhoods, communities, and aging at home. Results of the project included ten videos produced by the participants, posters and tip sheets, and several public events. Phase 2 (2019) included the development of an education kit to accompany the Phase 1 videos, Tea Talks held throughout the summer to develop community, a concluding "Giants Castle" event in October 2019 to share information about aging at home, and a series of cable television spots.