We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Alisha Khanna Haig & Kate Dockeray a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Alisha Khanna Haig & Kate Dockeray, thanks for joining us today. Risk taking is a huge part of most people’s story but too often society overlooks those risks and only focuses on where you are today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – it could be a big risk or a small one – but walk us through the backstory.

When we first met, Kate was a freelance photographer, and Alisha worked at an advertising agency as a producer. With the both of us feeling uninspired, we often discussed our shared frustration with the marketing industry – not only did we find it to be male dominated, but we also found there was little to no space for BIPOC voices. By the time projects came to us in the pipeline at our day jobs, there just wasn’t enough space for us to have a say in our work or flex our creative muscle. This seemed to be a shared sentiment amongst our friends in the industry. It came to a point for us where there was an obvious gap that needed to be filled and a need for representation. The biggest risk we’ve taken is jumping in, somewhat blindly, and starting our agency together. We were ready to take this sense of unfulfillment into our own hands, and finally work with clients we believed in and had interest in working with.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Bizarre Studios is a women-founded, Toronto based, full scope creative agency, with a focus on photography, production, and campaign work. The both of us realized how many talented creatives there were in our network that didn’t have the opportunity to work on out-of-the box projects. We’re women founded, and believe that there is an untapped market of women-founded and BIPOC businesses and brands in Toronto – our goal is to work with them all. Our strengths lie in our ability to be flexible, nimble, and professional. We are nice people that like to work with nice people, and we aim to make our set days fun, inclusive, and safe. We’ve recently had work featured in Variety, BUST Magazine, Roll Up Magazine, 17:23, and have done work with HBO, Apple, and many local creative brands. With our one year anniversary coming up at the start of 2023, we’re excited to launch some large-scale creative campaigns we’re proud of.

We’d love to hear about you met your business partner.

The two of us met on a photoshoot for a client, and found we worked well together right off the bat. We continued to collaborate a few more times, realizing the ease of working together. As we became close friends, we began to share our goals, and we realized that we both had a dream to make a change in our respective careers. We were feeling frustrated with both sides of the industry, and decided to take the leap together in co-founding our business.

Have you ever had to pivot?

We believe that creating Bizarre Studios together was a true pivot, in itself. Remaining in the same industry that was causing us so much grief, but approaching it as a stronger team. Navigating creative spaces in your career isn’t easy, but giving yourself room to be flexible and try new things with a great partner is incredibly liberating.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.bizarrestudios.co/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bizarrestudiosco/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bizarre-studios

Image Credits
All images taken by Kate Dockeray.