Artist & EPIC Facilitator

Gilad Cohen is an Jewish-Canadian Toronto-based artist, photographer, podcaster, public speaker, and advocate for human rights. Since 2008, Gilad has worked as a community mobilizer with a focus on connecting audiences to urgent and compelling stories through multimedia arts.

In 2012, Gilad founded JAYU, an award-winning Toronto-based charity that serves the arts community through the annual Human Rights Film Festival, The Hum, a human rights podcast which he produces and co-hosts, as well as the iAM Program, an initiative that provides arts and social justice mentorship to more than 200 equity-deserving youth from across the GTA each year.

Gilad is deeply passionate about mental health, often speaking about it publicly and advocating for better practices in the arts and non-profit sectors. In 2020, this led him to shifting his organization to a 4-day work-week, extended paid sick and vacation leave, and more.

As a photographer, Gilad specializes in portraits and travel photography.

He is an alumna of the Toronto Arts Council Leaders Lab and the Rothschild Fellowship at Cambridge University in the UK. He has sat on the Board of Directors for several arts and human rights charities including Global Youth Volunteer Network, Scarborough Arts, and RISE Edutainment. He currently sits on the Board of HanVoice, Canada’s largest North Korean human rights advocacy group.