Meet the Faculty of Fine Arts’ New Tenure-Track Teachers

Florian Grond, Assistant Professor, Design and Computation Arts

Dr. Florian Grond is not only a scholar but also a media artist and sonic interaction designer, bringing over 15 years of experience in research-creation, participatory design, and co-creation projects. His diverse research interests span from participatory design in the context of disability, the arts, immersive media, to assistive technology. In recent years, he has cultivated collaborations with colleagues with disabilities from both academia and the arts, resulting in significant research outputs, artistic creations, and exhibitions. Before joining Concordia as a tenure-track faculty member, he held a post-doctoral appointment at Concordia and was an integral part of the Critical Disability Studies Working Group from 2014 to 2016.

Grond received a B5 post-doctoral research creation award during his tenure at CIRMMT, the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology at McGill (2015-2017). He has also supervised various engineering capstone projects and, notably, taught a course at the University of Graz focusing on sonic boundary objects. This method, developed in collaboration with blind literary scholar Dr. Piet Devos during Dr. Grond's post-doctoral fellowship at Concordia University, employed immersive sound recording techniques for blind ethnographies. His experience extends to working as a research associate in the Sound Recording Program of the Schulich School of Music at McGill, where he pioneered the use of a 6-degrees-of-freedom sound recording system in various projects. Dr. Grond has also put his expertise to use for ZYLIA, a company specializing in microphone arrays for sound recording in AR and VR applications. In 2023, he was awarded an SSHRC Insight Development Grant as PI, partnering with David Howes, Matthew Unger (both from Concordia), and Melissa Park (McGill), to embark on a research-creation project centered on immersive sound recordings that explore atmospheres from neurodiverse and multisensory perspectives.

Cáel M. Keegan, Associate Professor at Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema

Cáel M. Keegan's research and written work delve deep into the histories and theoretical implications of queer and transgender media representation, aesthetic figuration, and cultural production. Prof. Keegan is firmly committed to intellectually and politically exploring the realms of popular culture, with a focus on transgender and queer affects, ontologies, and phenomenologies as they manifest in popular media formats, platforms, and genres. He is renowned as the author of "Lana and Lilly Wachowski: Sensing Transgender" and as the co-editor of "In Focus: Transing Cinema and Media Studies" in the Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, along with a special issue of Somatechnics (8.1) on the transgender cinematic body. In 2021-2022, he was honored as a Fulbright Distinguished Research Chair of Arts and Social Sciences at Carleton University. Currently, Keegan co-edits the book series Queer Screens with David Gerstner for Wayne State University Press.

Prof. Keegan's recent work centers on the cultural formation of the transgender imaginary and the challenges that realism and indexicality pose to the popular expression of transgender life. His ongoing research project, "Bad Trans Objects," explores the emerging phenomenon of the "good" trans subject and argues for an archive of "bad" trans media objects that might help revivify trans liberation by highlighting the imposed nature of both the male/female and cisgender/transgender binaries."

Kevin Yuen Kit Lo, Assistant Professor, Design and Computation Arts

Professor Kevin Yuen Kit Lo specializes in Communication Design and Visual Culture within the Department of Design and Computation Arts. His research lies at the intersections of graphic design, cultural production, and social change, with a particular focus on publication practices and social movements. Lo's work seeks to navigate the complex relationship between material and relational studies of design, aiming to foster greater social and political autonomy.

Lo is the founder of the graphic design studio LOKI, established in 2014. Through LOKI, he collaborates with a wide range of community organizations, non-profits, cultural and educational institutions, unions, artists, researchers, and activist groups. Together, they contribute to broader movements for social change. The studio's portfolio includes campaigns against racial profiling, protest graphics for anti-racist and anti-colonial social justice movements, advocacy materials for sex workers' rights, online platforms for critical journalism, and support for the cultural production of marginalized writers and artists through the design of publications, exhibitions, and collaborative projects.

With an MA in Typographic Design from the London College of Printing (UAL) and a background in interactive design, advertising, and fashion, Lo is a member of the Memefest network and the Justseeds artist co-operative. His first book, Design Against Design: Cause and Consequence of a Dissident Graphic Practice, is forthcoming with Set Margins press.

Heather McLaughlin, Assistant Professor, Creative Arts Therapies 

Heather McLaughlin carries her unwavering conviction in the therapeutic potential of the creative process and interpersonal relationships into her diverse clinical career, which spans more than two decades. Throughout her journey, Heather has helped hundreds of individuals of diverse backgrounds and ages through various life challenges. Her work as an art therapist, couple and family therapist, psychotherapist, and clinical supervisor is firmly grounded in social justice, with an increasing focus on addressing the climate crisis. In addition to her private practice, McLaughlin has been a core faculty member at the Argyle Institute, actively contributing to the Marital and Family Therapy program.

Her inspiration draws from her BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, along with an exchange program at l’École National Supérieur de Beaux Arts in Paris. She recognizes the profound impact of the relational, expressive, and healing aspects of the artistic process and expanded her expertise by pursuing studies in psychology and art education in her undergraduate years. Her journey continued with a Master's degree in Art Therapy from Concordia University, complemented by a three-year diploma in Marriage and Family Therapy from the esteemed Argyle Institute of Human Relations.

She joined Concordia in 2014 as a limited-term appointment faculty member, transitioning to an extended-term appointment in 2016. Her dedication to the field has led her to serve as the graduate program director for the art therapy program. More recently, McLaughlin was a presenter at the Canadian Art Therapy Association conference and participated in a workshop titled "Art Therapy and the Ecological Crisis: Creating Community, Vision, and Action." She is also the founder and director of the Concordia Arts in Health Centre, an on-campus creative arts therapies clinic fostering community partnerships. This center, designed around an applied learning and community service model she developed, provides students with applied learning opportunities while extending creative arts therapies services to the community, including the first-ever Concordia Art Therapy practicum in the Cree community of Mistissini, Quebec.

Alisi Telengut, Assistant Professor, Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema

Alisi Telengut is a Canadian artist of Mongolian origin, renowned for her unique approach to animation. She meticulously crafts animation frame by frame, employing mixed media to create movement and explore hand-made and painterly visuals in her work. She is not only a Canadian Screen Award nominee, but also a Québec Cinéma Awards - Prix Iris winner in the Best Animated Film category. Her artistic endeavors have also garnered multiple international awards and nominations, including recognition at prestigious events like the Stockholm Film Festival (Sweden), Mammoth Lakes Film Festival (USA), Brussel Independent Film Festival (Belgium), and the Aspen Shortsfest (USA). Telengut’s work has been featured at renowned institutions and festivals worldwide, including the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures (USA), Sundance Film Festival (USA), TIFF (Canada), Kunstmuseum Bonn - Museum of Painting and Contemporary Art Bonn (Germany), OSTRALE Biennale (Germany), Canadian Cultural Centre at the Embassy of Canada in France, CICA Museum - Czong Institute for Contemporary Art (South Korea), UNESCO World Heritage Site Zollverein (Germany), Images Festival (Canada), Image Forum (Japan), and more.

In addition to her role as a tenure-track assistant professor in Film Animation at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema, she has served as a guest lecturer in the Moving Image study area at the Berlin University of the Arts - UdK (Germany). She is also pursuing a Ph.D. in Scientific-Artistic Research (wissenschaftlich-künstlerische Forschung) at the Filmuniversitaet Babelsberg Konrad Wolf (Germany). Telengut earned her Master's in Fine Arts in Studio Arts with an option in Film Production and a Bachelor in Fine Arts in Film Animation, both from Concordia University.

Gabriel Vigliensoni, Assistant Professor, Design and Computation Arts

Gabriel Vigliensoni is an electronic music artist, performer, and researcher whose work currently explores the creative affordances of the machine learning paradigm in the context of sound- and music-making. His practice merges formal musical training with extensive studies and experience in sound recording, music production, music information retrieval, human-computer interaction, and machine learning to explore and develop novel approaches to music composition and performance. 
 
Vigliensoni views sound and music as shared experiences that are completed through audience interaction. Over his extensive career, he has experimented with techno and breakbeat, merged krautrock with electronica, explored vocal-driven songs outside traditional pop formats, and utilized procedural composition techniques to challenge the liveness and immediacy of digital music production.  
 
Vigliensoni's creative work and research have been showcased internationally at venues and conferences such as CCA (QC), CMMAS (MX), MUTEK (CL, QC), ICCC (CA, PT), IKLECTIK (GB), ISEA (CA), NMF (GB), NIME (US), ICMC (US), and ISMIR (BR, CN, FR, US, NL). He earned a PhD in Music Technology from McGill University and currently serves as an Assistant Professor in Creative Artificial Intelligence in the Department of Design and Computation Arts at Concordia University.