Meet the Jurors of Culture Lab: Artist as Healer 2024-25

Dr. Arun Garg, has served as Program Medical Director for Fraser Health Regional Department of Laboratory Medicine for 20 years and Division Head of Medical Biochemistry for over 30 years. He is also Clinical Professor of Pathology in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia and Adjunct Professor of Clinical Services in the Faculty of Health Science at Simon Fraser University. He founded the Canada India Network Society in 2010, to build strong links between Canada and India in Life Sciences and Health services. He is a proponent of integrative thinking, and believes that bringing medical professionals, artists and traditional healers together will result in deeply integrated health solutions and societal wellbeing.

Alisha Lettman is a community-engaged artist, herbalist, and vocalist. She was the selected Artist as Healer for 2023-24 where she cultivated a medicinal healing garden as a container for living wisdom! As an artist, she has led culturally-responsive, arts and land-based learning projects that strive to nurture anti-oppressive communities towards belonging by creatively enacting a relationship of reciprocity with the land. Alisha currently serves with the City of Vancouver as the artist in residence at the Moberly Arts and Cultural Centre’s Medicinal Garden, a community teaching resource and source of nourishment and medicine for the neighbourhood. Here, she hosts workshops to engage the public around cultural relationships between food and medicine.

Alisha is also trained in western herbalism and ethnobotany rooted in Ayurvedic and Afro-Caribbean lineages, with years of experience in seed saving and land stewardship. She comes from a line of seed keepers, midwives and herbalists.

Shila Avissa is a counsellor and Registered Social Worker with over 15 years of experience working in community-based health care, social services, policy research, and political organizing in Canada and her home country, Indonesia. The countless beings–human and more-than-human Nature–she met this journey taught her a profound lesson: that our inner and outer worlds are deeply interconnected, and, therefore, inner peace is inseparable from ‘outer’ peace. She is currently pursuing Doctoral study at Simon Fraser University in Philosophy of Education, hoping to explore the political impacts of eco-contemplative practice.These days, friends know her more as an avid birdwatcher, a dedicated ecological restoration volunteer, and a devoted cook for her loved ones.

Roshni Riar (she/they) is a Punjabi poet, interdisciplinary artist, yoga facilitator, and community organizer working and playing on the unceded territories of the Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples, colonially known as Vancouver, British Columbia. Through her work, she explores the relationships between cultural and ancestral knowledge, migration, language, and the body. Her work has appeared in literary magazines such as Room Magazine, CV2 Magazine, Antigonish Review, Parentheses Journal, Canthius, Honey Literary, HIR Zine, Woodhall Press’ Non-White and Woman anthology, and more.

Pawan Deol is the Executive Director of Programming at Indian Summer Arts Society. She continues to explore the power of togetherness through multi-arts programming, creating connection and dialogue in hopes of inspiring transformation. Pawan has written and produced several Leo award-winning short films, including Unkept and Deeper I Go. Before joining the Indian Summer team in 2019, she also worked in TV and radio, bringing more representative storytelling to the forefront. Most recently, she was on the jury for Best Canadian Short at VIFF 2023.