Mission
At Whippersnapper Gallery we are committed to the underdog artist*. We provide emerging artists and cultural workers with a platform to expand the parameters of their practice and develop ethical, rigorous relationships with communities, particularly racialized, queer, disabled and working class people.
Our teeny tiny gallery is viewable by the public 24 hours a day through fully exposed street level windows. Whip is structured to encourage peer-to-peer mentorship and create innovative programming that catalyzes social transformation. We offer space to experiment and confront displacement in the ever-gentrifying urban core in which we are situated.
We are redefining the nature of artistic practice in Toronto and beyond.
We create a culture that is a catalyst for social transformation.
We believe learning and artistic development is for everyone with no prerequisites.
We aim to challenge the usual relationships artists have to galleries, as well as the relationships galleries usually have to their neighborhoods.
We are not a clique. We believe in the power of the collective.
The underdog does not survive in isolation.
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Whippersnapper is an non-profit artist-run gallery that features the newest and most exciting artistic voices in the city. Creating critical and experimental community-engaged programming, we are here to create a more equitable future for the arts in Canada.
History
December 2004: Whippersnapper Gallery, an artistic venture fueled by the creative passion of Luke Correia-Damude, Ryan Enn Hughes, and Patrick Struys, emerges onto the artistic landscape. United by their frustration over limited opportunities for young artists, they establish Whippersnapper Gallery.
2004-2005: For a duration of nine months, Whippersnapper Gallery finds its initial residence in a former 7000 square-foot print shop at 184 Front St. This space becomes a canvas for 75 young artists to showcase their talents, attracting an audience of over 2500 individuals.
July 2006: Whippersnapper Gallery relocates to a new site just west of Bathurst Street on College St. in Toronto’s bustling downtown core. This strategic move broadens the gallery's horizons, providing a platform for emerging artists from diverse disciplines such as performance arts, music, theater, and dance. It also transforms into a hub for discussions, conferences, and presentations.
2009: A significant breakthrough occurs as Whippersnapper Gallery secures its first art council funding. This newfound support enables the gallery to organize a notable project, Emergence 1 & 2, and remunerate artists according to CARFAC specifications.
2010: Whippersnapper Gallery receives operating funding from the Ontario Arts Council (OAC), prompting a move to its current location at 594B Dundas St. W. The transformation into an Artist Run Centre is marked by the inaugural show in September 2010, under the guidance of Co-Directors Joshua Barndt and Adrian DiLena.
2011: The gallery embarks on its first major community art project in Alexandra Park, a collaborative effort in partnership with Toronto Community Housing (TCH) and Arts Starts.
2012: Under new leadership with Maggie Flynn at the helm, Whippersnapper Gallery sees the addition of new members to the Board of Directors and the formation of the Working Collective, including Mohammad Rezaei and Laurie MacInroy.
2013: A stronger bond is forged with the surrounding Chinese community under the stewardship of Alvis Choi. The gallery initiates community partnerships with Concrete Roses and Alexandra Park Community Centre, overseen by Monica Gutierrez, Anneka Lynch, and Danilo McCallum.
2014: Maggie Flynn and Mohammad Rezaei take on the roles of co-directors, introducing innovative programs such as Sidewalk Screening and PEERS to elevate emerging artists.
2016: A structural transformation unfolds within the gallery, appointing Joshua Vettivelu as Director of Programming and Maggie Flynn as Executive Director. Anique Jordan assumes the role of the new Executive Director, placing the PEERS program at the forefront, focusing on educational engagements with the sector while remaining devoted to emerging artists.
2018: A significant development takes place as the Black Artist Union (BAU) takes over a section of the gallery space with support from the Ontario Trillium Foundation's Youth Opportunities Fund. Alicia Hall manages this project as Program Manager, pioneering an incubator model.
2020: The BAU incubator project concludes, and raven lam commences research supported by the HORIZON Project. lam endeavors to collate ideas from various collectives, exploring models to maximize Whippersnapper’s extensive history, valuable partnerships, and limited space capacity.
2021: A new chapter begins with the appointment of Marina Fathalla as Director of Programming. Working alongside Lam, their mission is to continue supporting emerging artists and underscore the strength of working in a small, collaborative capacity.
2024: With support from an Ontario Trillium Foundation Capital grant, Whippersnapper undertakes essential renovations in collaboration with SHEEEP Studios to address safety issues and improve accessibility throughout the gallery. The project revitalizes the beloved Kensington Market space, creating functional meeting areas and opening the basement as an accessible community hub. As one of the last artist-run centers in the neighborhood, these improvements ensure the gallery can continue serving racialized, working class, and marginalized artists and community members.
2025: Following an experimental hiring process that invited applications from both individuals and collaborative partnerships, Whippersnapper welcomes Jody Chan and Anna Malla as Co-Directors. This collaborative approach to succession reflects the gallery's values of experimentation and care, creating space for a slower, human-centered transition that deepens Whippersnapper's commitment to place-based practice and its role as a vital resource for emerging artists in Toronto's west-end arts ecology.
Staff
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Co-DirectorJody Chan is a poet, performing artist, arts educator, care worker, and community organizer. Jody's practice as an artist and arts administrator is rooted in disability justice, abolitionist, and anti-imperialist lineages, having found political homes over the years in groups like the Disability Justice Network of Ontario, Toronto/Tkaronto Mutual Aid, Toronto Street Medics, and No Arms In The Arts. They love internationalism, art as propaganda, art as community-building, co-curated playlists and reading lists, and bringing creative and collaborative projects to life (with you!). Jody is honoured to take on this role with their co-director Anna, and so grateful to get to learn from - and make beautiful things with - outgoing directors Marina and Raven, the Board, the wider Whip ecosystem, and the people and neighbourhoods and movements that continue fighting to make this city livable and real, despite all its violences.
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Co-Director
Anna Malla is a community organizer and educator, arts administrator, and performing artist with two decades’ experience working at the intersections of artistic and political community-building spaces. Over that time, Anna has dedicated herself to grassroots movements for social change, primarily rooted in migrant and health/disability justice, anti-poverty, abolitionist, and anti-imperialist organizing. She often finds herself in both creative and organizing spaces, and is interested in the liberatory power of the place where the two meet. She has held leadership positions in a range of community and arts initiatives and organizations (QPIRG McGill, Caregivers Action Centre, The AMY Project, The Switch Project, The Hamilton Social Medicine Response Team), has led community-based research and artistic mentorship projects (Towards Just Care, South Asian Visual Arts Centre), and has supported several grassroots groups and non-profit organizations as an organizer, educator, editor, and facilitator (Butterfly: Asian and Migrant Sex Worker Support Network, Daily Bread Food Bank, Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, Keeping Six, AGIR Montréal). Anna looks forward to working closely with her co-director Jody Chan, the Board of Directors, and the broader Whip community to continue the incredible legacy of the outgoing directors, and to further root Whippersnapper in the neighbourhood and city that it holds space within, in all of its contradictions and complexity.
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Producer, Special Projects (PEERS)
Noor Khan is an artist, producer, and curator specializing in public art and exhibitions. Their expertise includes the design and delivery of temporary and permanent artworks across diverse mediums and disciplines, with a strong focus on community-engaged, public-facing programming. Rooted in migration and nomadic lineages, Khan draws on postcolonial feminist thought, using art as research and relational practice. They hold an MFA in Community Arts from MICA and a BA in Community Development from the University of Toronto. Their work has been presented at Nuit Blanche, MUTEK, Toronto History Museums, Toronto Public Libraries, The Bentway, and across municipalities in Ontario. At Whippersnapper, Noor has the joy of co-producing PEERS: Public Projects with outgoing Director of Programming Marina.neighbourhood and city that it holds space within, in all of its contradictions and complexity.
Board of Directors
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Mitra Fakhrashrafi
Chair
Mitra Fakhrashrafi (she/her) is a curator and researcher interested in all things placemaking, border abolition, and Toronto. Mitra is co-founder of Way Past Kennedy Road, a collective supporting artists living at the margins in producing, exhibiting, and profiting from their storytelling practice. In her spare time she grinds cardamom and listens to music that emerges from Toronto; a since-always queer, Black, Indigenous, and diasporic city.
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Maximilian Suillerot
Vice-Chair/Secretary
Maximilian Suillerot (they/them) is a French-Mexican queer mixed-media artist and cultural worker currently living and working in Toronto. Born and raised in Mexico City, Maximilian began their artistic training in Paris (France) at Les ARCADES. They continued their studies at the University of Toronto where they obtained a B.A (Hons) specializing in Visual Art Studies. Their work touches upon the duality of presence and absence in queer settings. Grief and fiction meld with aspects of personal narrative to reveal a comical discomfort and rituals are created as coping mechanisms to deal with life.
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Vince Rozario
Treasurer
Vince Rozario (they/them) is an independent curator, critic, writer, arts administrator, and community organizer focusing on issues of decolonizing the canon, multiple modernities, queer diasporas, and transnational futures. Their writing deals with issues around community accountability, representation, and equity in the Canadian contemporary art sphere. Their work aims to explore modes of art production and circulation that circumvent traditional modes of exhibition and dissemination.
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Fathima Cader
Director
Fathima Cader (she/her) is a writer and lawyer. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications, including Guernica, The New Inquiry, The Funambulist, and legal journals. She has served as a Visiting Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School and at the City University of New York. She holds a Marlee G. Kline Essay Award from the University of British Columbia's Faculty of Law for her academic research on sexual assault laws. She is currently based in Toronto.
