Kay Slater

Pronunciation: Audio Clip.

Public Programmer and Multidisciplinary artist, kdot.ca

Kay Slater is a multidisciplinary artist, accessibility consultant and arts worker.  As a consultant, they work directly with artists and organizations to build accessibility in at the planning stage, and to incorporate sustainable, grass roots strategies that support evolution in artistic presentation. Their work is rooted in anti-oppression practices, and they employ open source and community-engaged approaches to support ongoing knowledge transfer with makers and creators at all stages of their careers. They are a proud volunteer and social coordinator at Queer ASL, and have completed the Rick Hansen Foundation’s Accessibility Certification program. Kay created and produced the public program, ArtStarts Explores, for 4 years encouraging makers of all ages to explore and experiment with process-based play with the following 3 rules: respect, no expectations, and nothing is for keeps. They are passionate about sharing knowledge with the wider arts community and creating space for people to try, learn, fail, and try again. Kay is queer and trans non-binary, hard of hearing and lives with mental illness. They use They/Their/Theirs pronouns as they fumble and learn as an uninvited “guest” across Coast Salish territory.

Visual description: Kay is a white, middle aged person with greying midback-length hair, the colour and texture of wet west coast sand. They have shaved sides and often wear their hair up and away from their face. They have brown eyes, a triple-pierced nose and lip on opposing sides, and large rosy cheeks. They have a large smile that crinkles the corner of their eyes and exposes their yellowed teeth below a fringe of facial hair. They are an average to large build, and stand 5’6 or 168 cm. Through their appearance and voice, they are often perceived as femme, and their clothing and gender presentation is neutral and casual.