The latest Awesome Ottawa award goes to Kiana Simmons to support the Ottawa Miniature Gallery – a miniature portable gallery for miniature art.

“The Ottawa Miniature Gallery,” explains Kiana, “is a 6-foot travelling gallery that aims to showcase the work of all types of artist across Ottawa and beyond. We set the gallery up in unconventional places like cafes and shops to make the gallery as accessible as possible to the public.”

The gallery has interior lighting, hardwood floors, and 12 showrooms on three levels, and has featured hundreds of tiny art pieces by numerous artists since its founding in 2022. Kiana took over the gallery from glass artist Jennifer Anne Kelly in 2025.

Kiana is an Ottawa-based miniaturist and artist who left a desk job last year to pursue more creatively stimulating work – including Miniature Veg, a small business that teaches the creation of miniature foods with polymer clay.