Jillian is an artist,
a creative leadership coach, and
a strategic designer
She works at the intersection of storytelling, wellbeing practices, and systems transformation through design, futures thinking and performance.
Jillian believes in co-creating spaces where connections can flourish through different ways of knowing and being, in relationship to one another, the land, the past, present, and collective future.
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Jillian is currently a candidate for a Master’s in Design at OCAD University in Strategic Foresight & Innovation. Her Major Research Project is a deep dive into the complexities and challenges of organizational leadership in the Canadian performing arts industry. For more information, you can view the project here.
She is pursuing a Life & Executive Leadership coaching certification through the IFCE, as well as a certificate in Conflict Management at the University of Waterloo.
She is a conflict mediator, a creative facilitator, and a certified yoga instructor (Nidra & Ashtanga). -
Jillian was a founding member of Diasporakidz, an artist collective in collaboration with the Arrivals Legacy Project, exploring the intersection of the ancestral and digital, across cultures and creative practices. They were artists in residency at the mai (Montreal 2020), the Goethe Institut (Toronto, 2021), the LĒNA Artist Research & Residency Centre (Galiano Island, BC) and Playwrights Workshop Montreal in 2022. Diasporakidz performed NO ONE KNOWS YET at Prismatic Arts Festival in Halifax, 2023. Additionally, she was an Artist in Residence with Seedpool - a pilot project hosted by Arrivals in 2022.
With support from Canada Council for the Arts, and a residency at PAF (France), Jillian is currently developing an interactive performance piece on community justice strategies, reality TV and Greek mythology.
In 2016 she co-founded Cabal Theatre, producing and performing in four major projects of varying scale and style earning awards for their original (and ever queer!) content and striking designs. Their last show was Chattermarks, a new text co-produced by the Centaur Theatre and Theatre La Chapelle in 2020.
As a writing practice, Jillian tends to a blog where she posts musings on spirituality, creativity, wellbeing, and culture.
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Jillian recently played in Star Wars: Outlaws, and in 2020 she was the voice of Mint in Ubisoft’s battle royale video game, Hyper Scape. In 2022, she performed in the radioplay WASP - an award-winning drama by Rhiannon Collett, produced by Harlot X and safeword in Toronto. The text was published by Playwrights Canada Press.
She played a lead role in the indie sci-fi hit Dead Dicks (Postal Code Productions) which was the winner of Fantasia International Film Festival's 2019 Best Canadian Feature and has gone on to win numerous awards from festivals around the world. She was nominated for Best Actress (Vancouver Badass Film Festival), and was the shared recipient of Best Ensemble (Other Worlds Film Festival, Texas).
Other credits include Be Mine Valentine (Incendo), Swept Up By Christmas (Hallmark), The Voyeurs (Amazon Prime), Saint Narcisse (CBC) and Fatal Vows (IDTV). IMDB
Jillian loves to help fellow actors with accents and dialects. She speaks four languages herself and self-identifies as linguistics nerd.
I am currently living and loving on the traditional territories of many Indigenous nations, including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishinaabe, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and the Wendat peoples. As a creative, connector, and futures thinker a meaningful reconciliation practice is an emerging inner+outer journey. This looks like knowing who I come from, challenging systems of harm, honouring Indigenous knowledges, cultures and practices, and staying active in dialogues on reconciliation, responsibility, and decolonization. The futures I dream of are shaped by Indigenous wisdom and guided by principles of love, equity, and collective liberation.