Congratulations to the 2025-2026 graduates!
KiKi Abbott Moore
Natalie Al Karmi
Abir Ali
Holly Anderson
Sandy Barrera
Valentine Benichou
Roya Biazar
Laken Burbidge
Amy Burdick
Annie Burgess
Grace Eunhea Choi
Michelle Conner
Jodi Crawford
Mariska Dickison
Sarah Doyle
Grace Fullerton
Stephanie Garvey
Chen Yue Guo
Jody Heakes
Atarah YingShan Huang
Hana Hubicki
Sarah Jefferies
Rachel Karantayer
Lee Kellogg
Magdalin Livingston
Caitlin MacLean
Rehaana Manek
Nafisa Mansure
Monica McArthur
Raquel McNamee
Emily Piraino
Theresa Slater
Anna Szaflarski
Lydia Tippins
Amy Tschupruk
Victoria Vickers
Nicole Wadden
Monique Yang
Annual Research Awards
Presented by Christel Bodenbender, TATI Research Advisor.
Student research contributes greatly to the advancement of the art therapy profession, and we are so very grateful for the tremendous efforts that all of the graduates put into their research projects. We congratulate everyone for their achievements.
Traditionally, TATI has two annual awards to celebrate excellence in research: The Dr. Martin Fischer Award and the Gilda Grossman Award.
The independent adjudicator for our awards is Dr. Mary Norton (RCAT, PhD), who is based in Mi’gma’gi (or Nova Scotia). All research projects completed by graduated students between May 1 to April 30 are eligible for anonymous nomination by the research advisors and second readers based on a rubric of clarity, structure, self-reflexivity, and applicability to art therapy practices and knowledge. The nominated papers are then passed on to Mary for further adjudication.
Gilda Grossman Award
Recognizes contributions to social action and transformation through art therapy. This year the award is shared by:
Rehaana Manek
Buried and Rolled Over: Racial Power Relations within Art Therapy Education
Amy Tschupruk
Art Therapy Amidst Ecological Crisis: Where We Are and Where We Could Be
Dr. Martin Fischer Award
Recognizes contributions to art therapy knowledge and theory. This year the award is shared by:
Anna Szaflarski
The Benefits of Virtual Art Therapy Group for Adults Living with Cancer
Nicole Wadden
Befriending the Black Dog: Using Art to Narratively Transform Self-Perception
*The graphic narrative is part of the research project which can be viewed as a zine in the TATI zine archive.
Guest Speaker: Mo Thunder
Mo (they/them) is a Haudenosaunee (Oneida Nation of the Thames), Anishinaabe (Aamjiwnaang First Nation) French Canadian, nonbinary, neurodiverse interdisciplinary artist, visual storyteller, art therapist and mentor. They lived in Tsi tkarón:to (Toronto) for 12 years before recently moving back near one of their home communities located in Sarnia, on Anishinaabe aki.
Mo graduated from the Toronto Art Therapy Institute (TATI) in 2022, with a BFA from the University of Lethbridge and Fanshawe College. Through their interdisciplinary art practice (painting, murals, mixed media, beading, journaling, poetry and textiles), they create visual stories about their lived experiences in connection to their personal healing. Mo is also inspired by intergenerational connections and healing, family and memories, personal and collective empowerment, and all of creation, especially skyworld and the waterways that connect us all.
TATI Executive Director Dr. Patricia Ki also shared:
“Menominee author Kelly Hayes wrote that ‘transformative change happens when we are willing to build what we know must exist.‘
And the graduates today, with the care, dedication, creativity, imagination, relational skills, and love that they bring to this work of healing through the arts, continue to convince me that it is precisely the artists who choose care practices as our lifework, who practice at the intersection of the arts and healing, who can imagine and practice a different world into being, a world in which genocide and colonial violence are not the norm.
How do we practice a different world into being? Every graduate here has completed at least 600 hours of care work in art therapy practice in the community in order to arrive at this stage. There are 38 graduates this year. Collectively that is 22,800 hours of care work and dedication poured into the community by this graduating group. With this labour practicing art therapy, the graduates brought to individuals and communities different ways to express themselves for experiences and feelings that no words can describe. They painstakingly and persistently created and facilitated alternative care and spaces of belonging for people’s needs that were often neglected by mainstream treatment models. They invited radical imagination connecting people to the roots of what they care about, for themselves and their communities, for a better future.
[…] I am so grateful for the graduating class, for your tremendous contributions to communities in our shared present, and for paving the way for future generations of people who come after you practicing care through the arts, for healing and for liberation.”
So much love and gratitude to everyone who made this event possible:
MC: Dave Cho
Photography: Macarena Pizarro
Independent Award Adjudicator: Dr. Mary Norton
Event support: Athena Bee, Christel Bodenbender, Kristina Borg, Dave Cho, Jacquie Compton, Sharlene Friedman, Anand Jaggernauth, Patricia Ki, Macarena Pizarro, Michael Young
Special thanks to the TATI Board of Directors, and Honoré Prentice (Director, left), Debbie Anderson (Chair of the Board, middle), and Belinda Ageda (Director, right) for joining us in celebration!
Much appreciation for Women’s Art Association of Canada for the ongoing support, artful venue and hospitality!
More photos from the celebration:
