Nicole Bazuin

Nicole Bazuin is an artist and a film/theatre director based in Toronto, Ontario. Her work involves a strong focus on social innovation, highlighting women's issues and promoting the empowerment of children and youth. Nicole's work as a film director with the Mammalian Diving Reflex art atelier has resulted in projects including teen thoughts, (CBC) a meditation on the roiling emotional depths beneath the surface of the teenage mind, and High School Health, (Luminato Festival) an innovative sex education series featuring special guests (Canadian luminaries Atom Egoyan, Dan Hill, Ann-Marie MacDonald, and more) fielding love and sex questions from curious teenagers. Episodes of High School Health have been exhibited at the Art Gallery of Ontario alongside her film Sleeping With Family, a documentary which explores shared sleeping arrangements in a low-income Toronto neighbourhood. Nicole has directed dramatic and musical works for the stage, notably including the revival of J.B. Priestley's play The Glass Cage, (Snowdrop Productions) as well as visually driven music videos and dance films such as The Music Box ballet, part of Air Canada's Enroute in-flight movies. She is driven to create projects that promote discussion and at times, participation, as seen with her interactive film Honey, I'm Home!, (Scotiabank Nuit Blanche Toronto) a comedic '90s style sitcom. Randomly selected participants play the "dad" and are live-broadcast into the pre-taped episodes in front of a live audience to challenge the representation of gender roles and diversity in popular entertainment. Nicole is a founding director of Madeleine Co., an all-female art collective which creates socially innovative multimedia artworks. She is a recipient of the Universal Studios Scholarship, the HSBC Filmmaker's Award, and the Social Entrepreneurship Fellowship. Nicole holds a BFA in Film Studies from Ryerson University (2010).