All things community, art, play

The practice

Creative projects with a social purpose

I am Kseniya Tsoy, the artist behind atelier al.fergani. I work as a muralist, community-engaged artist, artistic producer, and illustrator, creating meaningful shared experiences that inspire human connection beyond our visible differences.

I am based between Toronto and Ottawa, and I am originally from Uzbekistan. My approach brings open arts and culture into conversation with community.

• Community arts & projects — murals, illustration, and artistic production.
• As a human — Portraits for Hugs and the idea of connection beyond visible differences.
• About Kseniya Tsoy — background, advocacy, and current work.

Atelier al.fergani is the working name of Kseniya Tsoy, an artistic producer and community-engaged artist based between Ottawa and Toronto. Originally from Uzbekistan, she works across muralism, illustration, and creative production, shaping projects that carry a clear social purpose. The practice sits at the intersection of public art and collective participation, where a wall, a workshop, or an illustration becomes a starting point for conversation between people who might otherwise pass each other by. The work is rooted in the belief that creative activity can create genuine human connection across visible and invisible differences, and that shared making is a form of cultural exchange rather than decoration.

The muralist side of the practice is where the work becomes most visible in the cityscape. Large-scale painted surfaces transform ordinary walls, storefronts, and shared spaces into landmarks that reflect the character of the neighbourhoods that hold them. These commissions are developed in close collaboration with residents, schools, and local organizations, so the imagery emerges from the actual stories of a community rather than from a fixed concept imposed on it. The result is art that belongs to its place: bold enough to catch the eye of a passerby, and layered enough to reward someone who stops to look more closely.

As a community-engaged artist, Kseniya Tsoy facilitates participatory processes that treat people as collaborators rather than audience. Sessions involve painting, drawing, storytelling, and collective decision-making, allowing groups to build something together that no single participant could have authored alone. Her approach favours play and experimentation over polish, which lowers the barrier to participation and makes room for many different levels of comfort and skill. The emphasis stays on the social outcome: fewer strangers, more neighbours, and a shared sense of authorship over the work that appears at the end of the process.

As an artistic producer, the role is organizational and curatorial in equal measure. That means shaping the concept of a project, assembling the right collaborators, guiding production from first sketch to final installation, and holding the many moving parts of a public artwork together. It also means managing relationships with communities, partners, and venues so that a project can continue to resonate long after the paint has dried. Producing community-centred work requires patience, clear communication, and an understanding that timelines and outcomes belong to more than one set of hands.

Illustration and visual development form the quieter, more personal dimension of the practice. Drawing offers a way to work through ideas at the pace of a conversation, capturing the humour, warmth, and cultural texture of everyday life. Handled here with a documentary instinct, illustration serves as both a record of communities and a proposal for how they might see themselves. Alongside the commissioned work, the studio maintains an ongoing interest in personal and cultural narratives that trace a path from Uzbekistan through Canada, a way of reading identity as something lived and continually remade rather than fixed.

A practice built around connection

For almost a decade, I have collaborated with World Culture Open on international projects. Before that, I participated in Art Crawl Beijing 2014 with World Culture Open.

I am currently working on an illustrated book about Uzbekistan. The project brings together my background, my illustration practice, and a continuing curiosity about how images can carry culture across distance.

Explore the atelier

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• Human→
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