History of Spiritual Cabaret Lab

Spiritual Cabaret Lab is a Toronto-based artist-led collective and newly incorporated non-profit organization working across visual art, music, accessibility, cultural dialogue, and community participation.

The collective began in 2019 through artist-led gatherings, concerts, workshops, cultural conversations, and collaborative projects. Over time, these informal activities developed into recurring public programs, community partnerships, exhibitions, choir collaborations, festivals, and interdisciplinary arts initiatives presented in Toronto and across Ontario. In 2026, the collective incorporated as a non-profit organization to support its growing body of work and strengthen its capacity for future public programming.

The collective's programming has grown across music, visual art, performance, education, and community festivals, often combining ceramic sculpture, storytelling, choral music, installation, and public participation.

Accessibility is central to the organization's development. Spiritual Cabaret Lab has delivered clay sensory workshops for CNIB participants and supported exhibitions that make sculpture accessible through touch for DeafBlind visitors. These projects reflect the organization's commitment to creating arts experiences that engage multiple senses, including touch, sound, movement, conversation, memory, and shared making.

Major activities and accomplishments include organizing music programs for children, families, and community participants; presenting public concerts and performances; delivering low-cost arts workshops; organizing the multicultural SOL Festival; and supporting collaborations between ceramic artists, musicians, performers, and community members.

Recent projects include Porcelain Narratives: Sculpture, Installation, and the AVE Choir, a sculptural exhibition and immersive installation by Tanya Besedina created in collaboration with AVE Choir and supported by the City of Toronto and the Ontario Arts Council; Remembrance Every Day, a ceramic art and choral performance project presented at the Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery in Waterloo; La La Larks Choir community music initiatives; AVE Choir collaborations; and the multicultural SOL Festival.

Spiritual Cabaret Lab is led by four core members with complementary expertise in artistic creation, music, research, project management, digital media, and technical production: Tanya Besedina, award-winning visual artist and sculptor; Sofya Voronko, singer-songwriter, composer, choir conductor, and founder of SOL Festival; Kiril Nagornyj, art historian, researcher, project manager, and digital media creator; and Vlad Tsyrulnik, digital artist and technical designer. Together, the team brings the artistic, administrative, community, and technical capacity to deliver accessible, interdisciplinary, and community-engaged arts programming.

Spiritual Cabaret Lab is now building on several years of collective activity to create meaningful connections between artists, audiences, cultures, and communities through inclusive public arts experiences.