WELCOME TO OUR MULTIVERSE
RAFAEL ZEN is a Brazilian-Canadian multimedia performer, experimental sound artist, and educator based in Vancouver/BC. From the stolen territories of the Guarani and Xokleng communities, in the stolen territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh communities. With deep respect for the stories, resistances, and stewardship of these lands.
Holding an MFA in Contemporary Artistic Processes (Brazil, 2016), they are currently researching New Media and Sound Art at Emily Carr University.
Rafael’s work explores colonial-capitalistic hauntology, queer futurities, eco-dreams, and decolonial storytelling through multimedia performance, noise composition, sound theater, and stage design.
Rafael is a creative director at Why Whisper Studio alongside Khalil Alomar, and together they curate Durations Festival, a volunteer-run sound art + live performance event supporting emerging artists with free venues and multimedia resources (Vancouver, 2023–2026).
Rafael’s performances often channel the malfunctioning cyborg (a hybrid of body and electro-junk) through DIY circuitry, interactive sonic systems, noise-making masks, and multimedia performance. With over 10 years in interdisciplinary arts across Brazil and Canada, they remain committed to collaboration and experimentation.
Recent projects + collaborations include: Vancouver Biennale, BC Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, Vancouver Contemporary Art Gallery, Emily Carr University, Vancouver International Film Festival, SUM Gallery, the Canadian Association for Sound Ecology, City of Vancouver, Massy Arts Gallery, What Lab, Lobe Studio, rEvolver Festival, Stand Festival,
and Theatre Replacement.
KHALIL ALOMAR is a Lebanese-Canadian sound artist and interdisciplinary media composer based on the unceded Coast Salish territories. Working at the intersection of queer futurity, ecological care, and speculative technology, Khalil creates immersive sonic environments, tactile installations, and collaborative compositions that blend analog circuitry, digital systems, and more-than-human relationships.
Inspired by Pauline Oliveros, Tarek Atoui, and José Esteban Muñoz, Alomar’s practice resists extractive listening and genre boundaries, favoring living systems that invite attunement and ecological tenderness. His multimedia compositions incorporate contact microphones, sensors, responsive circuitry and vibrational languages.
Recent projects include FOREST / FLUX / FREQUENCY (SUM Gallery, 2024), a queer eco-futurist collaboration with Rafael Zen exploring speculative soundscapes; and Earth Love and Future Dreams, where plants become co-performers through touch-based sound systems. Other installations, like The Night Garden and Speculative Terrain, explore artificial ecologies and sensory fragility.
Omar co-leads the Durations Festival, curates sound for the Near Dwellers podcast, and has facilitated research groups like Listening in Relation, blending decolonial thinking with community-based practices. His work challenges binaries between human and nonhuman, nature and machine—centering tenderness, resistance, and radical kinship as methods of survival.