Mentors

Learn more about the mentors and their offerings before clicking the register button below.

Mentees may have a maximum of three (3) meetings with their selected mentor. Additional meetings can be requested and will be approved by program staff and mentor. Mentees may submit an additional registration form if they would like to meet with another mentor at any time.

Meet The Mentors

Pam Lau (she/her) is a photographer and educator. Ambassador for Canon Canada and Curatorial Advisory Board Member for PhotoED Magazine. Recipient of the Applied Arts Young Blood Photography Award and received Honourable Mention in the Community Artist category at the North York Arts Grow North Awards. Pam teaches Location Photography at Humber Polytechnic and has led workshops for ArtReach, Art Starts, North York Arts, Workman Arts, JAYU, and Cultural Pluralism in the Arts Movement Ontario. Frustrated with a culture of gatekeeping and lack of transparency, Pam co-founded Ecru; a grassroots educational initiative for those who face financial, cultural and institutional barriers to entering creative industries. Funding recipient of ArtReach, Park People, Helping Hands. She is a past mentor for Gallery 44 Mentorship for BIPOC Photographers, Canon FUTURES incubator, Business in the Streets Monetize Your Art program.

Connect with Pam if you need support with:

• Grant or Proposal-writing/Review
• Project Design
• Communication Skills Improvement
• Strategic Planning
• Arts Education
• Professional Network Expansion
• Self-Care and Wellness

Marta Keller-Hernandez (she/her) Originally from Spain, Marta is an arts administrator who moved to Toronto in 2012. She holds Degrees in Tourism and Humanities from the University of Alicante (Spain), and is a graduate of the Culture and Heritage Site Management program at Centennial College. In Toronto, Marta has worked with a wide range of arts and culture organizations such as Black Artists’ Networks Dialogue, Latin American Canadian Art Projects and Sur Gallery, Heritage Toronto, and Art Starts. Until September 2025, she was Managing Director at Mural Routes.

She is also the recipient of the 2017 & 2022 Newcomer and Refugee Artist Mentorship grant from the Toronto Arts Council in the capacity of mentor and a 2018 Toronto Arts Council Leaders Lab fellow.

Connect with Marta if you need support with:

• Community Arts programming 
• Visual Arts & Public Mural Art 
• Arts Administration 
• Project or Grant-writing feedback 

Jenn Goodwin (she/her) is a Tkaronto based dance artist, curator and programmer. Much of her art and producing practice focuses on dismantling barriers to art for both artists and the public. Her work and collaborations often explore the play, power, and politics of the body in motion, the feminization of public space, women’s presence, absence, and resilience, and the choreographic of the everyday. She was the Curator of Public Programs at The Toronto Biennial of Art for the 2024 edition. She works at the City of Toronto Arts on Nuit Blanche and was central in Nuit’s move into Scarborough, and was a recipient of the RISE Community award which works to amplify voices and artistry.

Goodwin is a graduate of the Master of Curatorial Studies program at the University of Toronto, where she won an award for her exhibition all our days are full of breath.  Prior to that she received a degree in Contemporary Dance from Concordia University with a minor in Video Studies. She is currently working on her new show The Changeover to premiere in 2027 and is artistic in residence at The Theatre Centre. She has written for the Journal for Curatorial Studies, the Canadian Theatre Review, ANANDAM Dance Theatre, and The Dance Current. She is the mom to two amazing teens.

Connect with Jenn if you want support with:

• Nuit Blanche, Curation, Visual Arts, Dance, Multi-Disciplinary
• Being an artist voice within institutions
• Finding steadiness while wearing different hats

A.J. Demers (he/him) is a Toronto-​based award-​winning playwright, screenwriter, and producer. He holds an M.F.A. from UBC in creative writing. A.J. wrote and performed one hundred episodes of The Spin (winner of the Sam Ross Award) for CityTV. His writing includes shows on Viceland, CMT, and CBC. A.J. is an alumnus of the 2018 Canadian Film Centre’s Bell Media Prime Time TV Program and the National Screen Institute’s Feature First Program. In addition to his writing, A.J. has performed in well over two thousand improvised stage shows around the world and spent three years touring with the ABBA tribute band Bjorn Again.

Connect with A.J. if you want support with:

• Film or Theatre-based projects
• Reviews/feedback on writing grants, scripts, budgets, and more
• Navigating a career in the arts