Chris Cachia is an educator, rhyme-sayer, and image-maker.

As an educator, his teaching, facilitation, and counseling practice is focused on anti-oppressive, critical pedagogical, and experiential approaches to education. Chris has taught a range of social science and sociology courses, including courses in programs for those who might not otherwise experience post-secondary education. In all of his teaching, he aims to honour students’ lived experiences by engaging in collaborative processes of inquiry. Seeking to both encourage and challenge, Chris’ classes often examine popular cultural products as a way into thinking about issues of identity and power. He is the inaugural winner of the Faculty of Arts Lecturer Teaching Award at Toronto Metropolitan University and has been involved with a number of community-based projects that reflect his interests in social justice and Hip Hop culture.

As a rhyme-sayer and musician, Chris’ work is in the tradition of those golden age Hip Hop emcees who focus on lyricism to address social issues, tell stories, and enact the power and pleasure of language. His latest project is a five-track EP entitled The 27th Letter. After releasing his debut album in 2007, Chris took an eight-year break away from making music as he managed a particularly challenging period of obsessive-compulsive disorder. His return to music has been an attempt to harness his personal struggles to heal through art. His overall message is that creativity can be used as means to both address mental health concerns and issues of social injustice.

As an image-maker and artist, Chris’ visual practice is informed, in a classical sense, by magical realism, incorporating elements of the everyday and realistic with the fantastical and dream-like; in a more contemporary sense, inspiration is derived from animators and illustrators who blur the distinction between high and low arts, including through the superflat concept and style. Chris works in mixed-media and photography, most often depicting landscapes and popular cultural icons.

chriscachiaaka AT gmail DOT com