Speaker Series: Syrus Marcus Ware
Syrus Marcus Ware is a Vanier Scholar, visual artist, activist, curator, and educator. Syrus is an Assistant Professor at the School of the Arts, McMaster University. Using drawing, installation, and performance, Syrus works with and explores social justice frameworks and Black activist culture. His work has been shown widely, including solo shows at Tangled Art + Disability in 2022 (Random Access Memory), Grunt Gallery in 2018 (2068:Touch Change) and Wil Aballe Art Projects in 2021 (Irresistible Revolutions). His work has been featured as part of the inaugural Toronto Biennial of Art in both 2019 and 2022 in conjunction with the Ryerson Image Centre (Antarctica and Ancestors, Do You Read Us? (Dispatches from the Future and MBL:Freedom)), as well as in the 2025 CAFKA Biennial and the Bentway's Safety in Public Spaces Initiative in 2020 (Radical Love).
He is part of the PDA (Performance Disability Art) Collective and co-programmed Crip Your World: An Intergalactic Queer/POC Sick and Disabled Extravaganza as part of Mayworks 2014. Syrus' recent curatorial projects include And the Spaces Bteween Us Smiled (Nuit Blanche, Central zone, City of Toronto, 2024), That's So Gay (Gladstone Hotel, 2016-2019), Re:Purpose (Robert McLaughlin Gallery, 2014) and The Church Street Mural Project (Church-Wellesley Village, 2013). Syrus is also co-curator of The Cycle, a two-year disability arts performance initiative of the National Arts Centre.
Syrus is a co-founder of Black Lives Matter- Canada and the Wildseed Centre for Art & Activism. Syrus is a past co-curator of Blackness Yes!/Blockorama and innovator of the Wildseed Black Arts Fellowship. Syrus has won several awards, including the TD Diversity Award in 2017. Syrus was voted "Best Queer Activist" by NOW Magazine (2005) and was awarded the Steinert and Ferreiro Award (2012). He is a board member of the Tegan and Sara Foundation. Syrus holds a doctorate from York University in the Faculty of Environmental Studies. He is the co-editor of Free to Be More: Creative Activisms in the Era of Black Lives Matter (URP, 2026), and of the best-selling Until We Are Free: Reflections on Black Lives Matter in Canada (URP, 2020), Marvellous Grounds: Queen of Colour Formations (BTL, 2018) and Queering Urban Justice (UTP, 2018). Syrus has authored several children's books including Abolition Is Love (Triangle Square Press, 2023).