Category: Author Bio

I am Paul Hogan, an Artist-in-Tuition from Canada who works with image, story, myth and theatre in collaboration with people from communities affected by civil disorder, natural disaster, poverty and social dislocation the world over. I was a founding member and performer in the Apparitional Theatre of the Chong in Toronto the early 1970’s. In 1983, I helped to establish the Spiral Garden at the Hugh MacMillan Rehabilitation Centre (now Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital) for physically challenged children. In 1994, working with the Centre for International Health at McMaster University in Hamilton Ontario and local partners in Sri Lanka, I signed on as creative advisor for the Butterfly Peace Garden in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka from 1994 to 2016 during a time of ethnic conflict and post conflict rehabilitation. At the same time and I assisted friends in Cambodia to set up the Mango Tree Garden for children who survived the Khmer Rouge genocide. The Butterfly Peace Garden has been cited in the U.S. Congressional Records as a “Best Peace Practice” with war-affected children. I received an Ashoka Fellowship in 2003 for my work in Sri Lanka. I now live and work at Falling Sky Studio in Toronto where I wrote two books, Beautiful Nonsense and Playing for Real (commissioned by the Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research) and collaborate with friends at Garden Path Serendipity (GPS) Inc. on creative projects with youth at risk in the city.