About the Artists

Jessica Gabriel (she/they) is a queer, mixed race, multidisciplinary artist from the Sunshine Coast BC, currently based in Vancouver BC on the unceded, stolen and occupied territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. She is co-artistic director, creator and performer with Mind of a Snail Puppet Co. Jessica is also a founding member of The Assembly: an intersectional feminist collective of self-identifying clowns. She creates experimental music/found sounds and videos under the name “tay_ploops” (pronounced tape loops). Jessica has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting from UBC and also studied at l’École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-arts in Paris, France. She is a professional art model at Emily Carr University, La Salle College and other universities across the Lower Mainland. Jessica approaches life and creativity through the playful lens of “compost-modernism” where ideas are continually being mulched and recycled, rotting, dying and made new again.

Chloe Ziner (they/them) is a queer, non-binary multi-disciplinary artist, director, performer and co-founder of Mind of a Snail Puppet Co. They also are a director/coach for puppetry, visual storytelling & physical comedy, with an emphasis on devising and collaboration. Shows they have worked on include Scantily Glad Theatre’s Something in the Water, Kleine Compagnie’s La Petite Sirène, Aaron Malkin’s Thunderfoot, Isabelle Kirouac’s Habitats, Devon More’s Hits Like a Girl and The ASSEMBLY clown collective. They have studied Pochinko-style clowning with David MacMurray Smith, mask with Gina Bastone, Bouffon with Nathaniel Justiniano and Deanna Fleysher as well as workshops in performance & improvisation with Raina von Waldenburg (I Am One Who/Grotowski), David Diamond (Theatre for Living), Ruth Zaporah (Action Theatre) & Mary Overlie (Viewpoints). Chloe can also play a dozen different musical instruments and does the sound design for Mind of a Snail.