Current students, faculty, and staff
OCAD University acknowledges the ancestral territories of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Haudenosaunee, the Anishinaabeg and the Huron-Wendat, who are the original owners and custodians of the land on which we live, work and create.
The Global Centre for Climate Action (GCCA) is a research centre at OCAD University that draws on creative vision, sustainable design, and artistic practice to imagine new approaches to sustainability, climate justice, and decolonization.
We are a vibrant community of artists, designers, and scholars building cultural communities, creating arts projects, curating exhibitions, supporting creative action and research, and cultivating a global network for creative climate justice.
Our work is committed to fostering regenerative relationships between people and land and to Indigenous knowledge on sustainability. We are committed to a decolonial, social justice framework that highlights both the origins of ecological crisis and the disproportionate impacts on Indigenous and marginalized communities.
We urgently need interventions that are not simply technical but that are also cultural, social and creative. We are working to create:
This ecosystem of physical and virtual spaces, programs, and activities will cultivate the profound cultural shifts, resilience, and creative design solutions that we urgently need to respond to the climate crisis and to amplify calls for cultural transformation.
Jana Macalik is a designer, educator, and academic leader with over 25 years of experience shaping built and cultural environments. She holds a graduate degree in Architecture from Dalhousie University and is completing a doctorate in Higher Education at the University of Toronto’s OISE, focusing on studio-based art and design schools. Jana has held several leadership roles at OCAD University, including Associate Dean of the Faculty of Design and Acting Dean of the Faculty of Art. From 2023 to 2025, she served as Interim Provost and Vice-President (Academic & Research) and then Interim President of NSCAD University. For the academic year 2025/26, she returns to OCAD University as Director of the Global Centre for Climate Action. Her creative work explores “discursive spaces” that bridge tangible and intangible forms of expression to break down societal barriers. She is LEED ID+C accredited, NCIDQ certified, and serves on the editorial board of Curator: The Museum Journal, reflecting her commitment to creative, sustainable, and inclusive learning environments.
Join as a Research Associate by sending a request to climateaction@ocadu.ca
Membership criteria: Membership is open to any full-time faculty member, graduate student, or staff centrally engaged in research, creative practice, or teaching related to sustainability or climate change.
Dr. Srivastava, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Science, is a sociologist and former environmental campaign director. Her research focuses on race and social movements and the shortcomings of equity and diversity efforts in organizations. Her forthcoming book, ‘You’re Calling Me a Racist?’: the emotional landscape of racial encounters, will be published by New York University Press (2023).
Nick Puckett is the Founding Director of Puckett Research+Design, a design practice focused on creating dynamic links between software, robotics, biological agents, chemical engineering, and material behaviour that generate new potentials for the design of intelligent environments. Nick is currently an Associate Professor in the Digital Futures program.
Chair of the Indigenous Visual Culture program and Interim Advisor to the Provost on Indigenous Knowledge, Practices, and Production, Susan Blight is an interdisciplinary artist working with public art, site-specific intervention, photography, film and social practice. Her research includes visual and spatial formations of Anishinaabeg geographies of resistance.
Dr. Clarke is an Associate Professor of Biology and Sustainability. He received his PhD in Biochemistry from Queens University and has an AOCAD in Printmaking from OCAD University. He has served as an Interim Dean and Associate Dean at OCAD U. He trained as a Biologist at the Design Table (BaDT) at the Biomimicry Institute in Montana. He is part of the After Oil Collective and works with the Petrocultures Research Group at the University of Alberta. His research interests at OCAD U focus on Urban Ecology and Urban Agriculture with a specific focus on food systems as a cultural adaptation to the climate crisis and is developing new forms of low carbon emission, Non-Toxic, photographic chemistry for artists (green photo chemistry).
Victoria Ho is OCAD University’s Advisor of Strategic Sustainability within the Office of Diversity, Equity & Sustainability Initiatives (ODESI). Victoria’s role is to work collaboratively across disciplines and departments to embed sustainability into curriculum, building operations, and administration. Victoria researches and provides advice on the nexus of sustainability and equity, campus as a living lab approaches, and constituent engagement models to facilitate sustainability projects, activities, and participation.
Lillian Allen's creative work and research engage with the imaginary as an iterative site for creative activities and learning in close connection with the land and finding new artistic language to explore how everything; the political, the personal, the built and the natural worlds, are all inextricably interconnected and how each affects and impacts the others. In her teaching practice, she focuses students to develop self-agency and an obligation to transform society.
Nicole Collins' artistic practice focuses on the effect of time, accumulation, force and heat on visceral materials, through painting, drawing, installation, intervention, video, and sound. Since 1994 she has exhibited extensively including solo exhibitions at The Koffler Art Gallery, Toronto
With a cross disciplinary team of OCADU faculty and external members, Professor Collins is currently developing the OCADU Sustainable Colour Lab. Centering sustainable art practices, this long-term and scaffolded project aims to gather existing studio-based material knowledge, create space and facilities for further research, and bring together students, artists, designers, curators, conservators and other interested parties to establish meaningful responses to the climate crisis through art.
(2018), The University of Waterloo Art Gallery (2013), The Art Gallery of Ontario (2013) and The Embassy of Canada in Tokyo (2001) and group exhibitions in Toronto, Hamilton, St. Johns, New York, Miami, London, Venice and Zurich.
Maya Mahgoub-Desai is an Associate Professor and the current Chair of Environmental Design at OCAD University, teaching in both Environmental Design and the Graduate Design for Health program, and a committee member of the Climate Advisory Committee for the City of Toronto (ACT). Maya’s current research is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC / CRSH) and the Government of Canada’s Sustainable Development Goals Program and investigates themes related to health and the built environment, sustainable human-environment behaviour, and access to equitable and inclusive education.
Dr. Kara is an Associate Professor of Film and New Media at OCAD University. Her research interests include contemporary eco-cinema's responses to climate change and the Anthropocene. She also teaches a graduate level course in eco-media studies, titled "Ecological Perspectives in New Media." She is an advisory board member of the Journal of Environmental Media and has reviewed articles for ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment.
Dr. Mok received a PhD in astrophysics from McMaster University and continues to contribute to astrophysics research, including on star formation process in nearby galaxies. A teaching stream faculty member in the Faculty of Arts and Science at OCAD University, Dr. Mok employs creative practices to teach the origins, processes, and effects of climate change as part of several undergraduate courses. He also works to educate community members about the latest advances in scientific research and their impacts on their daily lives.
Dr. Nimkulrat is a practitioner-researcher who intertwines research with textile practice, focusing on experiential knowledge in craft processes in the context of design research. Nithikul's active involvement in international research networks can be recognised by her leading roles as the convenor of the Design Research Society (DRS) Special Interest Group on Experiential Knowledge (EKSIG) and the leader of the Cumulus Association's Fashion and Textile Working Group.
Barbara Rauch, PhD participated in the Anthropocene Campus at House of World Cultures, Berlin, 2016; she was the rapporteur for Algorithmic intermediation and smartness in the 21st century workshop. Her interests in speculation, and object dematerialization are sparked by the climate change and environmental concerns about artistic and material production and have led to the DEEP Time conversation with biologist Oliver Hamant, University of Illinois, Chicago, 2017 and a conference paper Models and Scenarios: artistic inquiry, speculation and object dematerialization. Her studio production was showcased in the 2019 solo exhibition Trapping Methods at Howard Park Institute, Toronto.
Dr. Weston is an Associate Professor of Creative and Business Enterprise. Through her research and practice Alia explores the intersection of business, creativity and social change. She takes a critical theory perspective to question dominant research paradigms and redefine how we understand knowledge, exploring themes such as critical business practice, economic sociology, creative work in resource constraints, community empowerment and innovation, and experiential food methodology.
Dr. Whyte's research reveals legacies of eighteenth-century art and culture that are commonplace in and relevant to the early twenty-first century. His recent work addresses fashion, gastronomy, and cross-cultural exchange in eighteenth-century print culture. He is also undertaking an ongoing research-creation project documenting Toronto pollinators. His recent photographic exhibition Pollinator raises important questions about the impact of climate change on pollinators.
Natalie Majaba Waldburger has been the lead faculty member in Life Studies since it began in 2012. As a specialisation in the Faculty of Art, Life Studies focuses on interdisciplinary approaches to sustainability through studio art practices bringing together the arts, sciences, and humanities. Life studies prompts students to consider the role of art and culture in climate action and the role of artists in addressing current and future scenarios as a result of climate change. Natalie has been a member of the university's Sustainability Committee since 2017 including co-chairing the committee with Maya Mahgoub-Desai in 2020-2021.
Cindy Poremba has maintained an experimental gamemaking and curatorial practice for almost two decades with a particular interest in captured media practices, and emerging technologies. They are an Associate Professor in Digital Futures, and Co-Director of the game:play Lab. Their curatorial and award-winning experimental videogame work has been featured in both game and digital art exhibitions internationally.
Recent projects
Cindy Poremba, Kara Stone, Ian Garrett, and Ben Abraham. “Exploring Sustainable Gamemaking Through an Artgame Residency.” In The Game Needs to Change: Towards Sustainable Game Design, eds. Patrick Prax, Clayton Whittle, Trevin York. CRC Press (forthcoming 2026) https://www.routledge.com/The-Game-Needs-to-Change-Towards-Sustainable-Game-Design/Prax-Whittle-Yor…
Invitation to participate in GAIA (Game Arts International Assembly) to speak on renewable/ecocritical artgames residencies (upcoming, October 6-10, 2025, Barcelona, SP).
Cindy Poremba and Kara Stone, “A Renewable Artgames Residency: exploring sustainable practices for art game design,” DiGRA 2024. June 30-July 5, 2024, Guadalajara, Mexico.
Creative practice
M*55, narrative game for solar server (web/in progress).
TR33, data-driven game from Foresta Inclusive (stand-alone/in progress).
Hall's Island Residency (with Jane Tingley).
Funding
Being in Relation (as Collaborator; PIs Jane Tingley-York and Roberta Buiani -UoT)
Deans Micro-Grant, LAS: Digital Futures Solar Server*
Canada Council for the Arts Digital Greenhouse Grant, 2022, Renewable Artgames Residency prototype (Kara Stone primary applicant; $20 000)
*currently in the process of installing this on the roof of the tabletop
Trans Europe Halles, an international, social incubator based in Sweden that has created a European network of grassroots arts and cultural centres created from preserved and restored abandoned buildings https://teh.net.
ERA Architects, specialists in adaptive reuse and urban cultural planning https://www.eraarch.ca/profile/
Local Environmental Organization (TBD)
Heritage Building Construction
On-going exploration of Indigenous community partners
City of Toronto
The City of Toronto has committed approximately $10 million in external funds to renovate the structure and surrounding plaza. The City’s agreement to, on completion of the renovations, provide a 5-year lease to OCAD U at a nominal fee also represents a significant contribution that helps to ensure the financial health of the Centre
Contact: climateaction@ocadu.ca
The primary sites for the Centre are the main OCAD U campus and the Bathurst Quay Silos, originally the Canada Malting Silos.
Precipitated by a partnership with the City of Toronto, which owns the site and is leading its ongoing renovation, the Silos will eventually form a symbolic hub and physical site for the Global Centre for Climate Action. The plan is for the Centre to animate the North Silo with interior exhibitions and exterior access for public art programming and projections.
As our first major creative project, we will be activating the Silos with a series of three exhibitions in spring, summer and fall 2024. Each series will celebrate intergenerational and interdisciplinary practices that highlight climate action through art, design and research in a way that invites public engagement.
