FLASH Board
FLASH’s board brings thoughtful guidance and steady support to the organization. Through their shared commitment and hands-on involvement, board members help sustain and strengthen the festival’s work.
Diana Thorneycroft
Diana Thorneycroft is a Winnipeg artist whose work has been exhibited across Canada, the United States and Europe, as well as in Moscow, Tokyo and Sydney. Her honours include the 2016 Manitoba Arts Award of Distinction, Canada Council and Manitoba Arts Council grants, and a Fleck Fellowship from the Banff Centre for the Arts.
Best known for photo-based work exploring Canadian identity through humour and darkness, she created the acclaimed Group of Seven Awkward Moments, named one of Canadian Art magazine’s Top 10 Exhibitions of 2008. As chair, she brings extensive artistic experience and knowledge of the visual arts to FLASH.
Chair
Emmanuel OC Harry
Emmanuel 'OC' Harry, a passionate and self-taught visual artist with deep roots in Nigeria and a current residence in Canada. His journey in the world of art has been shaped by a relentless pursuit of creative expression, demonstrating that talent and determination are the most formidable teachers. He holds a degree in Environmental Studies and Geography from the prestigious University of Manitoba, where he further honed his understanding of the world's intricacies, which often find reflection in his art. His body of work is an ever-evolving concept, characterized by numerous journeys down memory lane. His goal is to establish connections with his audience based on shared stories on gender, religion and culture.
Vice Chair
James has been a practising architect for over 30 years. Currently a sole practitioner specializing in historic buildings, James worked for many years in the private sector prior to joining Parks Canada. Educated at the University of Waterloo, he is a member of the Manitoba Association of Architects and a Fellow of the RAIC.
Treasurer
James Wagner
Sarah Fuller
Secretary
Sarah Fuller is a settler-Canadian artist of Icelandic and British descent who works in photography, video and installation. She has been an artist in residence at Sointula Art Shed, Skaftfell and Ströndin Studio, Iceland, the Ós Residency in Blönduós, Iceland, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, the Klondike Institute of Art and Culture (KIAC), Yukon, and Fondazione Antonio Ratti, Italy.
Sarah holds an MFA from the University of Ottawa and a BFA from Emily Carr University. Recent exhibitions include Submersed Landscapes at the Banff Mountain Film Festival (2026) and Gallery 881 (2025), Remold at the C2 Centre for Craft (2024), and Aesthetic Paralysis at Deluge Contemporary (online) (2024),
Sarah’s work is in public and private collections including the Canada Council for the Arts Art Bank, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, the Walter Phillips Gallery, the Indie Photobook Library and Global Affairs Canada.
Leona Herzog graduated with a BFA (Honours) in 1975, and completed a Master of Arts with a focus on Curatorial Practises in 2012.
As Director/Curator of the Buhler Gallery, St. Boniface Hospital, from 2016 to 2022 she created more than 25 exhibitions featuring the work of contemporary Canadian artists.
Herzog is committed to the arts and has volunteered on numerous boards, including 12 years with Manitoba Opera, and acted as Co-chair of Manitoba Crafts Museum & Library (MCML). She now serves as Chair of the Board of Directors for Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art (MAWA) and is a member of the Advisory Council for Flashfest, Winnipeg’s premier photography event. She continues to pursue her own artistic career while mentoring others in the arts community.
Leona Herzog
Daisy Wu is a photo-based artist living in Treaty 1, Winnipeg, Canada. she graduated from the University of Manitoba School of Art in 2023, where she received an Undergraduate Research Award. The following year Wu participated in an Early Career Banff Residency at the Banff Centre of Arts and Creativity. Her practice involves photography, installation, and video.
Daisy Wu
Sam Baardman is a singer-songwriter and photographer living in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He is a co-founder of the River on the Run Collective, a group of artists that creates work based on their shared experience of living within the Lake Winnipeg Watershed. Integrating a variety of art forms and disciplines, and working in collaboration with biologists and climate scientists, their work investigates the increasingly fragile relationship between humans and their habitats. Environmentalism has been an enduring theme both in Sam’s music and visual art. His music is known for its lyrical depth and superb, singable melodies, while his photography has been exhibited in galleries in both Canada and the U.S.
Sam Baardman
Sarah Hodges-Kolisnyk has been the Director and Curator at MHC Gallery in Winnipeg since 2022, where she thrives on sharing the stories and vision of artists from a wide range of experience and media.
She has an Master of Arts focused on curatorial practice and a Communications Degree from the University of Winnipeg. She taught Creative Imaging and History of Photography at PrairieView School of Photography for over 10 years and has led a wide variety of art talks and discussions for organizations like First Fridays in the Exchange, Mentoring Artists For Women’s Art, The School of Art Gallery, and the Winnipeg Arts Council’s ArtWalk/ArtBike program.
Sarah’s own arts practice focuses on both digital and analogue photographic techniques exploring nature, memory and identity as well as the medium itself.
Sarah Hodges-Kolisnyk
FLASH Team
Leif Norman
Festival Founder
Leif Norman has been an Arts and Cultural Photographer in Winnipeg for over twenty years shooting dance, theatre, music and festivals. He enjoys making random shapes with watercolour paint, making odd noises with his synthesisers and recently bought a 1980 Kawasaki motorcycle that he doesn’t really know how to drive. (Update; he also bought a a 1981 Honda CB900 custom and indeed does know how to drive a motorcycle) He started the FLASH photographic festival after visiting the CONTACT photo festival in Toronto and decided Winnipeg should also have a cool visual arts festival.
Ken Harasym
Festival Manager
Kenneth Harasym is a visual communicator whose practice spans art, multimedia design and cartooning. Working in photography and drawing, he explores the ordinary and overlooked, reframing familiar elements of the built and industrial landscape to reveal quiet symbolism, humour and occasional absurdity.
His multimedia design work is guided by a strong design sensibility, with an emphasis on clarity and lasting visual impact. Drawing on his background in hotel management, Ken brings thoughtful leadership and organizational skill to his role as festival manager.