Members and collaborators of Unpack Studio in Toronto and Havana.
Alexandra Majerus
Director | Founder
Alexandra Majerus (aka Alex, aka Sandy) is a multidisciplinary lens-based artist. With a half-Caribbean background that can be traced for 400 years in the anglo-Caribbean, she has migrated repeatedly between Barbados and Canada, lived in France for five years and spends time in Cuba. She has a BFA Honours from York University and an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts, Media and Design from OCAD University in Toronto, Canada. Majerus has exhibited in Canada, the Caribbean, Bulgaria, Portugal and Paraguay. She has attended residencies in Trinidad, Toronto Islands, and Newfoundland. She has served on several committees at Gallery 44 and is currently on the Special Events and Fundraising Committee.
Omar Estrada
Curator | Co-founder
Omar Estrada is a Cuban visual artist who works with interdisciplinary installation, sound, video, interactivity, and narrative text. His artwork explores the tensions between art, science, technology and history in the context of social structures by questioning the validity of political, cultural and scientific approaches as absolutes.
Since 1983, Estrada has had solo shows in Cuba, the Caribbean, both South and North America and has participated in group exhibitions in Peru, Paraguay, France, Spain, Korea, Canada, Cuba and the USA including the 12th International Havana Biennial (Cuba 2015), the 1st International Asuncion Biennial (Paraguay 2015), the 1st Caribbean Triennial in Santo Domingo, (Dominican Republic 2010) and the International Biennale of Art Absolute LA (USA 2003).
Estrada received his Master of Fine Arts from the University of the Arts (ISA) in Havana, Cuba. He has taught at both the bachelor and master degree level for more than 20 years and has been a curator at Unpack Studio Platform and Art Residency since 2013. He lives and works between Havana and Toronto.
Dannys Montes de Oca Moreda
Curator | Art Contact
Dannys Montes de Oca Moreda (Matanzas, Cuba, 1967) is a researcher, curator and art critic based in Havana. Graduated from the School of Art History at Havana University in 1989. She is a member of the Critics, Curators and Research Section of the Union of Cuban Artists and Writers (UNEAC) and the Cuba Section of International Association of Art Critics (AICA). Curator at the Wifredo Lam Center of Contemporary Art, and Havana Biennial, 2003-2016 and Director of it 2016-2018. Since 2017 is curator to the Art Residence Unpack Studio Havana-Toronto and artistic adviser to Génesis Galerías de Arte in Havana from 2020.
Montes de Oca is co-author of Memories: Cuban Art of the 20th Century, California International Art Foundation, Los Angeles, 2002; Mariano Rodríguez, Escandón Impresores, Sevilla, 2003; Labores Domésticas. Versiones para otra historia de la visualidad en Cuba: Género, Raza y Grupos Sociales, Ediciones UNION, Havana, 2004 and José A. Figueroa: Un autorretrato cubano, TURNER, 2009. She is included in the Encyclopedia Cuba: People, Culture, History, Charles Scribner’s Sons, Parte de Gale, Cengage Learning, USA, 2011. Her art criticism and reviews appears in numerous cuban and international publications. Among her curatorial projects are: El Oficio del Arte, Center for Development of Visual Arts, 1995; Comment peut-on être cubain?, Maison de L’ Amerique Latine, Paris, 1998; Doble Seducción, Sala Amadís, INJUVE, Madrid, 2003; Labores Domésticas: Género Raza y Grupos Sociales en Cuba, Center for the Development of Visual Arts, 2004; Contacts and mediations: Digital Poetics in Contemporary Cuban Art, Dunlop Art Gallery, Regina, 2006; Torbellino, Habana Gallery, 2011; Open Score, XI Havana Biennial, 2012/ Museum of the South Florida University, 2013 and Between, Inside, Outside, XII Havana Biennial, 2015. She was co-curator to the I, II and III Asunción Biennial, Paraguay, 2015, 2017, 2020 and Curitiba Biennial, 2017 and 2019. She is the winner of the 1995 Curatorial Prize in Havana, and of the 1998 and 2001 Guy Pérez Cisneros National Prize for Art Criticism. Her residencies and fellowships include 1997-Hunter Collage, CUNY; 1998-Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Aachen; and the 2003-Canadian National Council for the Arts. Her lectured about contemporary cuban art and the Havana Biennale in Cuba, Canada, USA, México, Chile, Algeria, Pakistan, Germany, Spain and France.
Enedys Seijo Planes
Daily Coordinator
Enedys Seijo (aka Ene) obtained her Bachelor of Art History from the Faculty of Arts and Letters at the University of Havana in 2018.
Although her area of expertise is curatorial studies, she is also professionally experienced in production and cultural management. Her work is focused in the inter/transdisciplinary practices in Visual Arts as well as the systemic analysis of digital media in the Cuban context.
Ene is currently a Curator at the collection of the Visual Arts National Council in Cuba and coordinates Unpack Studio‘s art residency program in Havana.