2023 USA Fellowship
2023 USA Fellowship
![A group of dancers are dramatically lit on a stage. They wear matching dark blue scrubs and imitate the motions of the man standing in front of them. He faces the dancers, away from the camera, with his arms and hands shielding his face.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/871de33d-e032-4a32-a83a-9783c0aa265c/antoine-hunter-purple-fire-crow-work-sample-1-scaled.jpg?crop=2560%2C1610%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Deaf’s IMPRISONED. Choreographed and performed by Urban Jazz Dance Company and directed by Antoine Hunter.
Photo by Robbie Sweeny.
“After becoming a mother, I was concerned that I would never be able to get all of my work done and that I would have to make compromises in my practice that I didn’t want to make. Motherhood has become an asset to my practice — it has created a clarity around what projects I urgently pursue (and which opportunities I don’t), and it has shifted my work in surprising, personal, new directions.”
![Headshot of a cisgender woman with short purple hair wearing a yellow, black, and white tile-patterned shirt. The woman has pink tinted skin and dark red lips with a high gloss finish.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/08b821ee-316c-483e-88e8-eda6e3b2bedb/angela-washko-headshot.jpg?crop=1080%2C1080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Angela Washko
Media Artist
![In a windowless room bathed in red light, three people sit with their backs to the camera and facing a computer monitor. In the background is a floating wall covered in tiled images.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/419caf51-03d3-4f69-b122-67d543259a62/angela-washko-work-sample-1-01-scaled.jpg?crop=2560%2C1920%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Installation view of The Game: The Game at STUK in Leuven, Belgium. Photo by Kristof Vrancken; courtesy of STUK Arts Center.
![A horizontal wooden frame lays on top of a grassy lawn. The rectangular structure is filled with a wet mixture of blue/black pigments, hand-beaten bark, repurposed paper, and water collected during regional storms. These substances dry slowly in the sunlight.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/06effa38-7a6b-4680-a6c9-b6e3202226f9/hong-hong-work-sample-1.jpg?crop=2400%2C1552%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
A nomadic, environmental pour by Hong Hong, 2019.
Photo courtesy of the artist.
“I discovered that integrating my creative process with sacred journeying from the practice of Curanderismo has the power to transform art into a tool for conducting Limpias, a Mexican spiritual cleansing ritual used for recovering sacred essence energy that has left the body as a result of trauma.”
![A headshot of a Latinx person of Mexican-American descent wearing a serape poncho posing in front of a yellow wall. His face is slightly tilted back, and he is wearing a gold septum piercing and staring directly at the viewer.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/dc80cb8d-bd43-45b3-884c-ab1c4db55e4d/luis-alvaro-sahagun-nuno-headshot.jpg?crop=1080%2C1080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Luis Alvaro Sahagun Nuño
Interdisciplinary Artist and Ritualist
![A portrait of a man on plywood. The man's body is decked out in clothing associated with European nobility in the Renaissance, but he wears a baseball cap on his head. Around the painting is an ornate frame broken into fragments.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/e5e0544e-9410-429e-a071-b25f6b9b7f6d/luis-alvaro-sahagun-nuno-work-sample-1-scaled.jpg?crop=2560%2C1709%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Limpia no. 3 (Jose Luis “Don Chepe” Sahagun Sotelo), 2022. Charcoal, paper, amethyst, obsidian crystals, resin, beads, Gorilla Glue, rope, joint compound, gold leaf, family photos, found objects, and caulk, 77 × 66 × 5 inches.
Photo by ofstudio; courtesy of the artist and Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles.
“Becoming an artist has been the foundation for everything I value in life including self esteem, love for my family and friends, and service to my community. I have not so much been surprised by my work but affirmed in my belief that making art can sustain our humanity in the face of diminished values that favor injustice, dishonesty, and greed.”
![A headshot of a woman with light-brown skin, dark tightly sprung curls cut short, and retro tortoiseshell rimmed glasses. Her smile creates gentle lines on her cheeks.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/8165c1c3-69ec-4dc1-a4a1-793348e8d53a/syd-carpenter-headshot.jpg?crop=1600%2C1600%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Syd Carpenter
Sculptor and Ceramicist
![A metallic sculpture hung on a yellow wall. The sculpture resembles a jumble of objects on top of wooden pallets. Objects include bottles, giant clothes pins, a large tin can, a miniature house, and a button-down shirt.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/0c28aedd-49ce-407d-9e56-e6acbda0cc6d/syd-carpenter-work-sample-1.jpg?crop=1600%2C1200%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Ramshackle Fence. Clay, graphite, acrylic, wood, dimensions 30 × 75 × 9 inches.
“The contemplative pandemic year has shown me how resilient and regenerative the studio practice can be. My practice constantly surprised me and recentered me during difficult times. The studio also became a sacred space for metabolizing transformations — of material, self, and my own purpose on this earth.”
![A portrait of a South Asian artist with brown skin, dark brown eyes, and long dark hair falling on the right side of her face. She's looking straight into the camera, posed in front of a stucco wall. She is wearing a black silk blouse with spaghetti straps, and on her left ear is a hanging pearl earring from India.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/2ba2ab6b-2d6b-4045-aedf-05ce9d348d38/ashwini-bhat-headshot.jpg?crop=1080%2C1080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Ashwini Bhat
Transdisciplinary Artist
Video documentation of Assembling California by Ashwini Bhat, ongoing series.
“I’ve come to appreciate that the art I make is primarily about the relationships that I create and nurture — I have started to realize that taking a relational orientation towards my work makes my life feel more alive and connected as a whole.”
![A woman with lavender hair looks upward and smiles; warm orange light bathes her light skin. Behind her is a backdrop of hand-painted clouds floating over a body of water.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/e9040d68-60eb-4594-97c0-b1dbc2055054/alexis-hope-headshot.jpg?crop=1080%2C1080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Alexis Hope
Designer and Musician
Make the Breast Pump Not Suck documentary, 2018
“Tracking my personal growth and embracing my humanity through my practice has been surprisingly beautiful. This year my work reminded me that embracing what makes my relationship with society and food atypical gives myself and others an accessible way to create, play, and engage with the world around us.”
![A brown-skinned Black woman with shoulder-length locs standing in front of a domed plant conservatory with shrubs and plants in the background. She is wearing a sage-green leather beret and an off-the-shoulder cream-colored sweater.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/220b69e0-0693-4351-beaf-6b5060e7145b/krystal-c-mack-headshot.jpg?crop=1080%2C1080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Krystal C. Mack
Food Designer and Social Practice Artist
![A triptych of brightly-light photographs depicting a brown hand holding up a spoon and a rolling pin against a white backdrop. In each image, the hand holds the utensils in various combinations and poses.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/27896c52-31ca-4f5a-8512-59986e4844b7/krystal-c-mack-work-sample-1.png?crop=2794%2C1314%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Artifacts Of Resistance, 2019.
Photo courtesy of the artist.
“In 2022, I rediscovered craft’s ability to realign and revive my spirit through the grounding, haptic pleasures of handwork in the face of a painful and uncertain experience of houselessness during the pandemic. Making didn't solve the problem, but it kept me alive long enough to meet a solution.”
![A headshot of a Nigerian-American woman taken against a white background. She has deep brown skin, a coily, close-cropped salt-and-pepper afro, and is smiling directly at the camera. She is wearing a soft black cardigan over a yellow knit sweater, a pair of thin gold hoop earrings, and a delicate gold necklace.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/3be8c9e8-a9b9-4c3f-8007-9c089248d6f5/bukola-koiki-headshot.jpg?crop=1080%2C1080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Bukola Koiki
Conceptual Fiber Artist
![A black-and-white image of a cloth drawstring back with words embroidered on it. The text reads "Barclay's Bank, (Dominion, colonial, and overseas), Formerly the Colonial Bank, Capital authorized 10,000,000 pounds, incorporated by royal charter 1836." Most of the text is just an outline and has a line striking through, however certain words are emphasized and unbroken including "Barclay's Bank, formerly, 10,000,000 pounds, and 1836."](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/330c8165-e4fe-47b3-b17e-9d9231141ef7/bukola-koiki-work-sample-2-scaled.jpg?crop=1872%2C2560%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
The Nigeria Handbook Series 2. Black carbon ink collagraph print on cotton BFK Rives printmaking paper, dimensions 30 × 22 inches.
“The sway of native grasses in the wind, the warmth of the sunlight on skin, geese improvising with water, and the traveling clouds in the empty sky resonated and affirmed, "Dance has power to bring us back to our origins, grounding ourselves, reminding us who we are, and celebrating life.”
![A headshot of a Japanese woman wearing a gray turtleneck sweater and green cardigan. She looks over her right shoulder to stare directly at the viewer with brown eyes. She has long, black hair and is slightly smiling.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/29cd9c78-985c-4506-9ae9-ad55172c523c/ayako-kato-headshot.jpg?crop=1080%2C1080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Ayako Kato
Experimental Dancer, Choreographer, and Improviser
Works from 3Klang Tage Festival, Zug, Switzerland.
“my practice is not in silo. my current body of work is an invitation to collaborate with me, weaving connection and community with one another. it is an invitation to return home to ourselves as we all have movement within us. in this way, we build steady relations with self, others, and the lands we are from, living on, or occupying.”
![A sun-skinned, mixy transmasculine person rests against a tree with a ball cap on looking directly into the camera. They have scraggly chin beard, gold septum piercing, and they wear a denim gray button-down shirt.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/700583f8-eda9-4ef0-a565-0e519af0117a/devynn-emory-headshot.jpg?crop=1080%2C1080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
devynn emory
Choreographer, Dancer, and Multidisciplinary Artist
![Two performers in blue medical scrubs hang an IV bag. In front of them, a medical mannequin lays on a red table covered in a red sheet. In the background of the set is a projection of a woman's face and two statue-like figures draped in yellow.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/d34b98f3-6ccf-43c8-9c62-1284efe17e4f/devynn-emory-work-sample-1.jpeg?crop=1357%2C785%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Still from Part 2 of the #mymannykinfriends trilogy. Image from the rehearsal of “Grandmother Cindy.”
Photo still by Jorge Cousineau.
“I've learned there is no limit to the exciting experiences or beautiful places and people your art will bring you to when you approach every day with joy, grace, and gratitude.”
![A woman of color with long hair and top knot bun wearing a black vest and black-and-white patterned top smiles and looks to her left against a white background.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/90f8da8e-c29c-48a9-90fd-c3188b388920/ayodele-casel-headshot.jpg?crop=1080%2C1080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Ayodele Casel
Choreographer and Tap Dancer
The Sandbox.
“Over the past year, I have been practicing collaboration, allowing others deeper into my process both materially and analytically. Contrary to my usual, more insular way of working, this exercise is teaching me new things about my own predispositions, forcing me to negotiate ideas in new and meaningful ways.”
![Headshot of an artist in his studio. He looks directly at the camera and wears a gray blue T-shirt that is torn along some of the seams. He has light tan skin, a shaved head, and a thick brown mustache.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/d2f76706-ab99-445f-a1e4-50a754418c78/angelo-madsen-headshot.jpg?crop=1080%2C1080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Angelo Madsen Minax
Interdisciplinary Filmmaker
A Body To Live In (Teaser for film in-production).
“The waning days of the pandemic have found me diving deeper into my practice to unfurl generally-accepted stories about our wider society — and even about myself — that are far more intricate, haunted, and yet somehow more glorious than I could have realized before. We are at a real spiritual, ecological, and evolutionary crossroads as a species, and the arts have never been more essential to helping us chart the strange terrain of what both we and our world are becoming.”
![A black-and-white portrait of a Black man with a mustache, beard, and shoulder-length locs wearing a back button-up shirt and silver, circular glasses.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/3628ef8c-ba79-4fd7-880c-74751932fd49/jason-fitzroy-jeffers-headshot.jpg?crop=1080%2C1080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Jason Fitzroy Jeffers
Filmmaker and Civic Media Worker
Papa Machete, 2014.
“There is a beauty of truly letting go and allowing myself to evolve fluidly and vulnerably.”
![A black woman stands grinning against a black wall with the street out of focus behind her. She wears glasses, a red T-shirt, and a blue hat.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/806b1cb4-5e5f-4a7e-a916-a60ac76d73dc/jlin-headshot.jpg?crop=1080%2C1080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Jlin
Electronic Composer
Jlin performs at Sonic Cloisers, 2021. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
“This year I have learned that I can handle a lot of things: activism, healing, mutual aid, and art making. I have been able to donate a lot of time to the church and do fundraising and still maintain a studio practice.”
![A bearded person stands in profile looking off camera. His long, dark hair is woven into two braids. He wears a black bandana around his forehead and a black shirt with colorful embroidered accents.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/cf4768a0-2fa1-4e39-86ff-4809ebb363f0/guadalupe-maravilla-headshot.jpg?crop=1080%2C1080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Guadalupe Maravilla
Transdisciplinary Visual Artist, Choreographer, and Healer
![A gallery installation features a large abstract sculpture centered between two pillars. The sculpture is made of black fibers and a gong and arches out like the jawbone of a whale. A hammock suspended from the ceiling drapes over the top of the structure. The pillars are each painted with abstract designs centering on imagery that resembles an anatomical heart.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/99568e8b-eccd-4d64-b1e1-580acf889348/guadalupe-maravilla-work-sample-1.jpg?crop=2500%2C1667%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Installation view of Disease Thrower #0 in the Tierra Blanca Joven exhibition at Brooklyn Museum, New York.
Photo by Danny Perez.
“This year I have focused on the value of knowledge that comes in the forms of dreams or visions. I am interested in the unknowable, the unthinkable, and the indescribable.”
![Headshot of a woman with tan skin and long brown hair in front of a dark background. She wears a black long-sleeved dress, silver chain, and wide-brimmed black hat.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/37aaf5d6-5e7c-411e-9e97-34ab5428b510/kite-headshot.jpg?crop=1080%2C1080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Kite
Artist, Composer, and Academic
[EXCERPT]
I’m dreaming my body into existence.¹
I am liquid birds poured from a Blue Woman’s hands.²
You have to break an egg if you are to know what’s inside.³
Where did the bird land? Or maybe it weakened and was swallowed by the waters, no one could know.
Who are you?⁴
Bone/muscle No studies Inhibition of periodontal bone formation; and alveolar wound healing No studies So if you have Uranium inside you, a lot of it is on the DNA (nuclear scientists say it’s on the phosphate in the bones, but DNA is phosphate also), it then acts as an antenna sitting on the DNA—converting background radiation into photoelectrons which smash up the chromosomes like an egg whisk.⁵
I’m dreaming of my death.⁶
How the impact to the neck bone will cause rupture and death, how the ‘demon metal’ does its damage. You want to approach my metals in a Good Way? You should apologize now. Each of my metals holds a ghost, wrenched from the earth, each with its name.⁷ I inhale slowly and dirt fills my lungs.
¹ “With relief, with humiliation, with terror, he realized that he, too, was but appearance, that another man was dreaming him.” Jorge Luis Borges, “The Circular Ruins,” in Ficciones (New York: Grove Press and Atlantic Monthly Press, 1994).
² Blue Woman ushers the Lakota soul through the Big Dipper onto this realm. See Ronald Goodman, Lakota Star Knowledge (Mission, South Dakota: Sinte Gleska University, 1992).
³ Most language in this text has been prompted by the first line and modified slightly, generated by Gpt-2 and trained on a curated library of texts. Openai/Gpt-2, Python (2019; repr., OpenAI, 2021)
⁴ See Mamoru Oshii’s anime Angel’s Egg (Studio Deen, 1985).
⁵ Chris Busby, “Uranium: The Demon Metal That Threatens Us All,”CounterPunch (January 2, 2014).
⁶ “A physical computing device, created in a Good Way, must be designed for the Right to Repair, as well as to recycle, transform, and reuse. The creators of any object are responsible for the effects of its creation, use, and its afterlife, caring for this physical computing device in life and in death.” Jason Edward Lewis (ed.), Indigenous Protocol and Artificial Intelligence Position Paper (Honolulu: The Initiative for Indigenous Futures and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, 2020. ⁷ Corey Stover told me this over the phone.
Androids Made of Mourning Metals
“Because of certain insecurities about my unorthodox training as a musical artist, the first years of my musical journey were marked by isolation. I would create, compose, write, and, once I had something ready, I would then open up to my band members and other collaborators. At this stage of my career, and in part ignited by all the hardships that have come with surviving in this colony, I have opened up my work process more and more, and I have learned to allow others to bring their differences and surprises into my work. I am learning to relinquish control and enjoying the richness that this has brought to my work and to my personal life.”
![A portrait of a person wearing pale makeup accented by bright pink and turquoise around the eyes. He has a gray beard and face-framing wavy gray hair that reaches his bare shoulders. He wears sequined arm-length turquoise gloves and leans his head on one hand against a dark backdrop.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/2e9b4995-c76e-42df-8ba0-6774c7e842be/eduardo-alegria-headshot.jpg?crop=1080%2C1080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Eduardo Alegría
Queer Storyteller
Alegría Rampante. El Concertazo (en vivo desde Bellas Artes, Santurce).
“I have learned that trusting yourself — editing out things, projects, and people that do not resonate with you — and that purely creating what you want to make will eventually align, honor your truth, be seen, be heard, and be loved on a very high frequency.”
![A Pakistani woman poses against a black background, leaning over a table with crossed arms. She wears a black and gray blazer with gold rings on her fingers and looks to the left of the camera.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/088d53e0-c803-4ce7-a8ce-ce0858c955b6/arooj-aftab-headshot.jpg?crop=1080%2C1080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Arooj Aftab
Musician
Tiny Desk (Home) Concert
“To build infrastructure for trans liberation we've had to integrate radical experimentation into our work. It has required consistent internal inventory, as well as a firm commitment to periods of rest and play created for us, by us. We encourage everyone to be curious about how they provide room for other Black trans artists to do the same.”
![A photograph of two Black people, indee mitchell and Nathalie Nia Faulk, laughing and looking fantastic in front of a sparkling purple-and-white backdrop. They are both wearing black and white. mitchell stretches their leg and white platform boot out in front of them. Faulk is bent to the side with a wide grin, arm raised to touch their forehead.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/947d51c1-b23b-4c28-b764-6f991cd5c64f/kattoris-bang-headshot.jpg?crop=1080%2C1080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Kattorris Bang! (Nathalie Nia Faulk and indee mitchell)
Cultural Organizers and Performers
The Black Trans Digital Care Package. Co-curated by indee mitchell and Nathalie Nia Faulk. This care package holds music created by Black Trans Women, original affirmation videos, breath work videos, and shorties by Nathalie Nia Faulk. Commissioned and distributed nationally through the Transgender Law Center’s Black Trans Circle Initiative.
“With each project, I aim to create something new that reflects current connections between people and place only to find the echoes of repressed expressions that belong to my Ancestors in a joyful, brilliant, and endless future.”
![A CHamoru person with light-brown skin and a goatee smiles warmly at the camera. They are wearing a woven pandanus hat, spondylus necklace, and white button-up shirt.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/e66c2d4a-0ecd-4850-82f5-113299bbeb98/roquin-jon-quichocho-siongco-headshot.jpg?crop=1080%2C1080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Roquin-Jon Quichocho Siongco
Weaver and Fashion Designer
![Image of a body laid on top of a woven mat, surrounded by necklaces and other jewelry made of white, black, and coral-colored shells arranged around it. The body is turned on its side, without a head. Several pieces of jewelry are draped over the thigh, chest, and waist.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/b7899aa5-b708-40fc-9aa0-b12374156c15/roquin-jon-quichocho-siongco-work-sample-1.jpg?crop=986%2C1228%2C0%2C0&width=986)
Tai Ulu, 2021.
“With SoulWork, I am enjoying teaching the teaching of the method as an embodied pedagogical practice. I am constantly reminded that the art of teaching performance deserves the same rigorous attention and study as the creative practice of performance. An artist training in SoulWork as a creative practice alone is not qualified to teach it. Teaching SoulWork requires an advanced, multilayered expertise and journey of training that is distinct from the training one undergoes solely as a performer or practitioner.”
![A Black woman smiles warmly into the camera. She wears a royal blue headwrap and large silver earring hoops.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/b823f44a-4f0e-4ca0-84d6-86dfbeb59e8f/cristal-chanelle-truscott-headshot.jpg?crop=1080%2C1080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Cristal Chanelle Truscott
Ensemble Theatre Artist and Culture Worker
![A group of performers pose in period attire from the 1940s. Two women kneel in front with their hands reaching to the audience, while the performers behind them crouch in different positions. All look out towards an audience behind the camera.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/8630a580-0279-4406-bb60-588da0d8168a/cristal-chanelle-truscott-work-sample-1-scaled.jpg?crop=2560%2C1771%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Image from The Burnin'.
Photo by Melissa Cardona.
“I've noticed many of my Navajo students are going back to the old ways. Acquiring sheep, shearing, and processing wool yarn in the traditional ways. A lot of weavers tend to buy commercial, so it is nice to see the young ones rediscovering their roots.”
![A woman with shoulder length black and gray hair smiles at the camera with her hands clasped in front of her. She is wearing a black traditional Navajo outfit and traditional turquoise and silver jewelry, including bracelets, rings, and necklaces.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/31ef7eb2-c1a4-45bb-af61-ab13b2bb9927/barbara-teller-ornelas-headshot.jpg?crop=1080%2C1080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Barbara Teller Ornelas
Navajo Tapestry Weaver
![A blanket with a red background and three large diamonds in the center. The diamonds contain borders of teal, cream, and maroon lines radiating out from a red cross at the center of each shape. Smaller rows of smaller black and white diamonds border the top and bottom of the blanket.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/ad6399d0-896d-43c2-b6a1-7f7a648797b5/barbara-teller-ornelas-work-sample-3-scaled-e1674059392242.jpg?crop=1920%2C2560%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
A miniature revival piece of a child's blanket using a pattern from the early to mid–1800s. Aniline dye, respun wool, 16 warps to the inch, 120 weft to the inch, dimensions 10 × 12 inches.
“Rest is important and so is Land Back.”
![A photograph of a woman with brown skin and dark brown eyes gazing directly into the camera with a serious expression. Her long, voluminous curly black hair falls around her shoulders and fills the frame of the photo.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/7e4014c3-ce55-4680-a391-c09498d6262c/natalie-ball-headshot.jpg?crop=1080%2C1080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Natalie Ball
Visual Artist
![A sculpture vaguely shaped like a person sits atop a white pedestal. Converse sneakers peek out of the bottom of a trunk made of textiles and quilts wrapped with bands of material around a bundle of sticks. The sleeve of a T-shirt is visible at top left.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/4b043c05-7d2c-4a84-bbc5-75363204f686/natalie-ball-work-sample-2-scaled.jpg?crop=1794%2C2560%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Toes Out, 2021. Converse shoes, spur, elk hide, textiles, leather, wood, dimensions 36.67 × 15 × 12.67 inches.
“I learned I am part of a community of breadth, depth, and spirit. That revelation was surprising to me because I had never before felt I was a meaningful part of a community.”
![A person with short gray hair smiles warmly, their gaze off camera. They are wearing a flower-patterned vest, earrings, and a necklace and standing in front of a grassy backdrop.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/ffcb8e57-639c-4022-8ba5-dd120e1ea71c/ernestine-hayes-headshot.jpg?crop=1080%2C1080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Ernestine Shaankaláxt’ Hayes
Writer
[Excerpt]
Each summer, our family gladly returned to a worn trail on a tall mountain to find our favorite berries. We licked from our hands the juicy tart hope of baskets full of ripened life. Along the trail in awakened light and awakening shadows, we boasted and teased and called out our various dreams. We measured our distance from one another by those calls: sons, daughters, eager grandchildren. And melancholy elders, whose rheumy eyes reflected images of always-one-more child running up a trail to test precocious summer berries, always-one-more almost-woman drawn forward by the unyielding embrace of a future walking toward her on two legs.
And as I followed that man who walked on four legs, that bear who walked on two, I saw that what I had thought a mountain was only a log, and what I thought logs were no more than cedar embers glowing in bundled fire. We greeted yesterday’s smokehouses now watched by haunted rivers, we chased nested godwits, we followed trails created in the image of runaway boys. Backs bent, we scrambled across lowbush willow and walked along riverbed and shore, through every timbered edge of alpine tundra. I began to love the twilight. I already loved the man.
I counted the changes come over me. I admired my forelimb claws. Newly uncovered beetle grub delighted me. Soft flesh. Thick, wormy savor. Who knows how many steps we took before we reached his village, who knows how long we stayed. After a while we left. We found a hermit’s mountain and made our home at the frayed hem of time, at a place between worlds where now-thin forest meets waiting, snow-covered rock.
Bear Woman
“Brancusi was a Romanian sculptor living and working in Paris. African art was a confirmation and an extension of a tradition he was already working in. In much the same way, Brancusi and Noguchi are important to me because they confirm and extend what I do.”
![A black man with a white goatee looks into the camera with a small smile. He is wearing a patterned cap and a checkered sweater over a tan collared shirt and is seated in his studio with wooden sculptures arranged behind him.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/bbb00665-cd1d-4aa6-92f4-03e1b8a88b27/thaddeus-mosley-headshot.jpg?crop=1600%2C1600%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Thaddeus Mosley
Sculptor
![Photo of a sculpture formed from several pieces of wood in which the grain and natural shapes are still visible. The pieces are balanced together into a tower evoking a group of acrobats.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/2e992164-3b2f-4da5-a4ad-b8bf202bd6b0/thaddeus-mosley-work-sample-1.jpg?crop=1600%2C1795%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Inverted Dancer, 2020.
Photo courtesy of the artist and Karma.
“I write that my words may become obsolete. I’ve been thinking a lot this year about the way writing is always a rebuilding practice — always the blank page to face, always a new world to usher into being. The dream is that we remake the world and then the cycle of art repeats, the present becomes the past and the world again anew.”
![A white, transmasculine, nonbinary person with short, dark hair stands against a shingled wall. Their arms are crossed, and they wear a white shirt, black-and-white tie, and black leather jacket. Bubbles float through the picture; one hovers over their Adam’s apple.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/fc0ff7c4-478e-400f-90c3-d3fa0a91c126/alex-marzano-lesnevich-headshot.jpg?crop=1080%2C1080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Alex Marzano-Lesnevich
Writer
[EXCERPT]
7. Futurity, noun: yes, alright, future time, the sense that there will be a future. The very thing we are all trying to hold onto, as we wait for it to arrive. The projected shape that future makes. The shadow (or light?) it casts over the present.
But also: futurity, noun: a race for two-year-old horses, into which they are entered before they are born.
8. As a metaphor for gender, maybe that’s a little obvious. But also: futurities offer some of the richest prizes in horse racing.
9. From the windows of my study, I can see the largest hospital in Maine. By law the ambulances must turn off their sirens this close, and so periodically when I look up from my desk now, two months into the at-home time, I see silent flashing lights. After a few days of this constant screaming silent alarm, and of the helicopters that land on the hospital roof at all hours, their thrum so loud as to consume me in the beat of metal wings, I write a prayer with a blue Sharpie onto a purple index card and thumbtack it to the wall between the two windows, right in my line of sight: May they be safe. May they be happy. May they be healthy. May they live with ease.
10. When we learn that men are dying at an exponentially higher rate than women from this virus, a friend asks me if I’ll keep taking testosterone. I mutter something about how, well, I’m not going to go off a drug without medical advice, and my doctor has other things on her mind right now.
That answer, I know, is bullshit. One of the purported benefits of the daily gel I use, versus a weekly shot, is that its progress is slow, and each day I must choose to apply it, must reaffirm my choice of who I am, of who I am transforming to visibly be. I could choose no.
What I really mean, but don’t say, is that men have shorter life expectancies, more heart attacks, higher rates of dementia, and that I already knew all that. The trade-off did occur to me.
But I do ask the doctor if I will lose my hair.
That’s what Rogaine’s for, she says. It’s not a reason not to live your life.
Obviously, I want to live my life. I’d just like to live it with hair.
11. Here is how, researchers say, we slot one another into genders with a glance: the shape of the hairline, the shape of the eye socket, the ratio of hip to waist, the shape of the jawline, the shape of the chest. Clothing, hair length, manner of standing. Where fat is distributed. Quickness to smile.
You Can Tell by the Nose: the title of a 1995 study.
We look for patterns. We look for what we know how to see.
And I get that with the bodily factors, I’m talking about sex, not gender.
But what I am really speaking of is how people perceive. The slotting, the conflation, that happens the instant they perceive.
That instant’s what I keep thinking about. Just an instant—but in it, a whole narrative (my life) unfurls.
12. Imagine the horse’s owner perusing the pages of racing magazines, loading websites late at night in an office tucked in beside the tack room in a stable, the smell of sweat and dirt thick over the printouts of lineages that litter the desk. Perhaps there is a cup of coffee beside them. Perhaps a pregnant mare whinnies from down a long line of stalls, pacing before settling into her bed of hay. The owner sips from the coffee, clicks the mouse to scroll down the page, searches the list of the races in several years’ time. (You have pictured the owner either male or female; which? Doesn’t matter, the owner is not the one we care about here, but—which?)
Shadows pool around the blue light of the laptop. At the foal’s birth, and then regularly thereafter, there will be fees to pay for each race in anticipation of when the horse will be ready. There must be a budget, calendars to be planned, a choice of projections in which to invest, the mapping out of finances and a life.
13. Imagine, too, that equine fetus, long limbs folded beneath it, not yet ready to run; tiny hooves still soft and shredded, not yet hardened by the pounding of movement; how now it rests and grows curled in the warm wet womb for eleven months. The owner clicks and sips and allots money and decides which racing ovals will inscribe its future path, where bets will be placed, where its hardened hooves will someday run. I have a twin brother. We had a triplet sister, a sister in chromosomes at least. She would die too young for any of us to know anything about her, so here is what little we knew; the blue eyes of a baby, tiny like us and like us premature, girl.
One of each, and me.
Two girls and a boy! the announcement.
At eight, I became aware I wasn’t a girl.
“Futurity”
“A surprising thing I’ve learned through my practice of writing this year is that, despite the tremendous challenges our society has been going through in the last couple of years with the pandemic and other global concerns, there is always the opportunity to look upward and see the beauty of nature and what it still has to offer. Particularly in the Sonoran Desert where the beauty is so unique and astounding sometimes. I find solace and rebirth by simply looking out at it and maybe taking a short walk. This desert for me is home just as it has always been for my ancestors. It offers comfort and safety like a home is supposed to.”
![A Native American woman with gray hair, brown skin, and dark eyes poses wearing a light purple-colored blouse with a necklace of seashells. Desert mountains are in the distance behind her, along with a saguaro cactus, brush, and trees.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/65c43eb5-daee-4732-8094-a644cdad8608/ofelia-zepeda-headshot.jpg?crop=1080%2C1080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Ofelia Zepeda
Poet
[EXCERPT]
Ha-ka: ‘ac g ñeñei’i mo ’am kaidaghim
’Am kaidaghim taṣ huḍnig wui.
’Am kaidaghim si’alig ta:gio.
’Am kaidaghim ju:pin tagio.
’Am kaidaghim wakolim tagio.
‘Am ’ac ha’icug ’id ṣa:gid.
mo ’am kaidaghim
S-ap ta:hadag ’o g t-i:bdag.
S-ape ’o g t-cegǐtodag.
S-ape ’o g t-jeweḍga.
S-ke:kaj ’o, ñia ’an g ‘i- ñeid.
S-ju:jpig ’o, ñia ’an g ‘i- ñeid.
Ka: ’ac g ka:cim ṣu:dagi t-miabǐ ’at.
Ka: ’ac g ge’e jegos t-miabǐ ’at.
Ka: ’ac g s-ke:g hewel t-miabǐ ’at.
Ka: ‘ac g s-ke:g nene’i t-miabǐ ’at.
Ka: ‘ac g s-ke:g ñeñe’i t-ai ’at.
<em>In the Midst of Songs</em>
We hear the songs resounding.
They are resounding toward the sunset.
They are resounding toward the sunrise.
They are resounding toward the north.
They are resounding toward the south.
We are in the midst of songs.
Our heart is full of joy.
Our mind is good.
Our land is good.
The land is all beautiful, take a look.
There is light rain all around, take a look.
We hear the ocean in the distance.
It has come near us.
We hear the beautiful wind in the distance.
It has come near us.
We hear the dust storm in the distance.
It has come near us.
We hear a beautiful song in the distance.
It has come near us.
We hear a beautiful song in the distance.
It has come upon us.
Ñeñe’i Ha-ṣa:gid
“I've learned to embrace contradictions and am trying to find inspiration in the things I find most personally and creatively challenging.”
![An Asian American woman with shoulder-length black hair with gray highlights looks into the camera. She is wearing glasses and a black shirt against a polka-dot background.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/785a2608-843b-4718-921e-6173b7b62c4d/grace-lee-headshot.jpg?crop=1080%2C1080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Grace Lee
Filmmaker
And She Could Be Next Official Trailer, 2020. POV, PBS.
“This year has opened me up to new ways of collaborative creation and has deepened my appreciation for the exercise of design, art, architecture, and making as an act of trust-building in culture and community.”
![A Black man with a Caesar haircut sits in front of a stack of newspapers. He wears a green long-sleeved button-down shirt and denim jeans.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/bad8ec9a-ceac-4cef-8868-92d987819f52/bryan-c-lee-jr-headshot.jpg?crop=1080%2C1080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Bryan C. Lee Jr
Design Justice Architect
![Tall vertical panels are affixed to an iron gate creating the illusion of one long rectangular banner. On the banner are collaged photographic and graphic images of an overpass, hands reaching up to the sky holding houses, and a portrait of a faceless woman with medium-brown skin and a hibiscus flower in her hair.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/98375eef-e418-474f-aa3c-b59bc240c3d6/bryan-c-lee-jr-work-sample-1-scaled.jpg?crop=2560%2C1695%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Remember When. Remember Then. Digital collage on ACM, dimensions 10 × 40 feet. New Orleans African American Museum.
Photo by John Ludlam.
“It's so vital for artists to have a deep connection with spirit and faith.”
![A close-up of a person's face wearing black shades and a golden headdress with a golden halo. They have medium-brown skin and a neatly trimmed beard. Their face is partly obscured by their outstretched hands.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/cdac3e9d-7d03-4c60-bab7-58de4cb30b1e/abdu-ali-headshot.jpg?crop=1080%2C1080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Abdu Ali
Musician and Multidisciplinary Artist
![A performer stands behind a microphone stand covered in vines. They wear a gold headdress and long red garment made of a shimmering material. Surrounding the performer is a semi-circle of dirt, flowers, and candles on the floor. Behind the performer is a second person standing by a table covered in photographs of people.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/a058bd8f-5859-4da8-ac56-726e02e11eab/abdu-ali-work-sample-1-scaled.jpg?crop=2560%2C1707%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Performance and Sonic Sermon for Pique Festival.
“I’m a workhorse, but with the experience I've built over the years, rigor is a given. A more telling measure of success for me now is how much joy I’m generating, moment to moment.”
![a black woman with curly hair wearing a denim tank top smiles while looking down on a balcony overlooking the skyline of Mannahatta.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/6201facd-6fbc-41af-abee-24973f8b7fee/eisa-davis-headshot.jpg?crop=1080%2C1080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Eisa Davis
Writer, Composer, and Performer
![Two performers seem to play tug of war with a piece of black rope on a stage hung with shimmery, translucent curtains. The performer on the left is partly obscured by one of the curtains, as is a bright, circular light behind them, which looks like the moon.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/5a4aec6d-6a0f-4deb-b99c-bf212096face/eisa-davis-work-sample-3.jpg?crop=2251%2C1500%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Eisa Davis and Jennifer Harrison Newman in a pop up performance at Carrie Mae Weems' The Shape of Things, 2021. Park Avenue Armory, New York.
Photo by Briana Blasko.
“I was introduced to the Sphagnum peat moss by a group of amazing women in Karukinka, Tierra del Fuego. This little moss has erect terminal heads that resemble a starry shape. They can store large quantities of water and have been accumulating carbon over thousands of years, making them an invaluable carbon sink.”
![A woman with short, dark brown hair looks directly at the camera with a small smile. She is wearing burgundy lipstick and a traditional woven dress from northern Mexico. Her arms are crossed loosely in front of her, showing a large snake tattoo wrapping around her right arm and a tattoo of three lines on her left forearm. The background is out of focus and shows an empty, wooden white hallway.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/e7c63c81-64ce-45fd-8284-84095058de36/carolina-caycedo-headshot.jpg?crop=1080%2C1080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Carolina Caycedo
Artist
Reciprocal Sacrifice, 2022. Single-channel HD video. 12:40 minutes.
“I am a collaborative creator. I truly get the most joy from working across disciplines and media.”
![A Black woman with medium-brown skin, corkscrew curly brown shoulder-length hair, brown eyes, and dimples. She smiles at the camera with a warm expression and gentle smile lines.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/dbef0d94-eb57-40a0-9f5f-a2610af5b994/deanna-van-buren-headshot.jpg?crop=1080%2C1080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Deanna Van Buren
Architect and Analogue Immersive Installation Artist
Soul Tree Forest. San Francisco, California.
“Many members of the McIntosh County Shouters are elderly and will shout as long as they are physically able. As the group's youngest member, my mission is to carry on the legacy of the McIntosh County Shouters and my ancestors.”
![A black man sits against a wooden wall, gazing into the camera. He is wearing a straw hat at an angle, a collared shirt under denim overalls, and colorful beaded necklaces.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/c4f5f172-c75b-486d-8628-fcec2344cc33/brenton-jordan-headshot.jpg?crop=1080%2C1080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Brenton Jordan
Storyteller, Stickman, and Ring Shouter
McIntosh County Shouters - "Blow, Gabriel" (Live on eTown).
“FREEDOM. Time moves on with or without artists or art in this society. Therefore, USA becomes a critical element in our lives and practices. Hopefully, its continued support will allow all artist to speak freely through their works”
![A slender woman with brown skin sits for her portrait, smiling slightly. She wears a light pink turtle-neck sweater, dangling earrings, and magenta head wrap.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/bc9827dc-14a2-425e-85b3-7e52fad9d587/winnie-owens-hart-headshot.jpg?crop=1600%2C1600%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Winnie Owens-Hart
Ceramic Artist
![A ceramic vessel shaped like the body of a person whose arms meet in the center and are painted with red fingernails. Dots of color surround the neck and the bottom of the vessel like a jeweled necklace and belt.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/ef1f4198-69d1-423f-accd-82724c0069a0/winnie-owens-hart-work-sample-2.jpg?crop=1600%2C2086%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Adorned, “Little Women” series, 2006. Clay, dimensions 3 × 2.5 inches.
“This year, I've been surprised to discover how much work I've done and how deeply connected I feel — even though the pandemic forced me to slow down, say no, and stay put much more than I ever have in the past.”
![A multi-gendered, gray-haired, African-American lesbian artist poses in front of a bookshelf with a big smile. They are wearing a black shirt and a necklace with a light blue stone.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/48b1e92b-5084-4164-b0ca-df349d823ef4/sharon-bridgforth-headshot.jpg?crop=1080%2C1080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Sharon Bridgforth
Writer and Performing Artist
![Two black women, both wearing white dresses, pose on a stage covered in colorful, patterned textiles. One woman leans over the other, who is kneeling, and seems to whisper in her ear.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/a50f3ec7-36f2-4b4a-8f0c-7c0adf35a94c/sharon-bridgforth-work-sample-2.jpeg?crop=1600%2C2400%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
River See, premiere, 2014. Links Hall, Chicago.
Photo by Dan Plehal Photography.
“I’ve learned how important it is to slow down. I’ve been rushing to make my feature since the first draft. Four years later and x number of drafts, I have an ending that surprises and excites me. I needed that time and space, and I have a little more patience now.”
![A slender person with dark, shoulder-length hair stands on a dirt road at sunset, smiling with their arms crossed at their waist. Behind them are a few Joshua trees.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/6d40c324-652f-4cd1-af8c-2ac25a3b9a5a/mg-evangelista-headshot.jpg?crop=1080%2C1080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
M.G. Evangelista
Writer and Director
Fran This Summer trailer, 2018.
“My practice this year has been impacted by life circumstances, which has provided an unexpected spaciousness and slowness into my practice, a need to reconnect, and an opportunity to rebuild from the roots back up. I have learned how to observe and find inspiration in new, simple, unexpected, everyday things.”
![A Black person with brown skin, short hair, and red lipstick standing inside of a large warehouse in the GBAR Experiment at CERN, the largest particle physics laboratory in the world.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/fef27d62-55e0-486c-ac3e-80c8b6fff0ef/rasheedah-phillips-headshot.jpg?crop=1080%2C1080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Rasheedah Phillips
Interdisciplinary Artist and Experimental Writer
[Excerpt]
I. Introduction: Time in the Law
Early on, many of us are taught to map out major events, world history, and even our own lives onto a timeline that runs horizontally from past to present to future. The timeline typically looks like a straight line, with major events representing discrete points on the timeline, where time comes from behind us and moves forward. Linear time on the standard timeline represents “an irreversible progression of moments, yielding cardinal conceptions of past, present, and future, as well as duration.”¹ Carol J. Greenhouse describes how “[t]he Western cultural capacity for that belief [in linear time] was established a thousand years ago, or longer, when institutional and social structural changes gave linear time a path from the sacred domain to the domain of the everyday.” She argues that this belief becomes “reproduced in the juxtaposition of institutional forms and temporalities which constitute everyday experience in the modern world.”²
Thus, the role of time and temporality is inextricably linked to a variety of systems and institutions that touch the moment-to-moment lives of people. This is glaringly true of the legal system, where, as Rebecca R. French puts it, “time enters every part of how we practice, analyze, project, and balance legal arguments; it is integral to our daily schedule, our client appointments, our classroom teaching time, our court dates, our tickler files, our view of our careers.” Despite time’s entrenched nature in the legal system, “we rarely think about how ‘time’ actually works, presuming that it is the simple linear measuring device that the clock creates for us.”³ Renisa Mawani agrees that “law is fundamentally about time.”⁴ She notes that “few have examined how law appeals to particular conceptions of time, whether linear, chronological, circular, or instrumental,” while “even fewer have asked how law produces time, how it orders the nomos through its own temporalities, aspiring to assimilate and absorb other temporalities in the process.”⁵
I would argue that fewer still have taken up closer examinations of constructions and intersections of race, time, and the law. Although much has been written about legal constructions of space and race, the time dimension is not covered with the same breadth, despite playing a daily and crucial role in how people—particularly Black, poor, disabled, and other marginalized people—are valued, treated, punished, erased, or underserved by and within the legal system.⁶ The timescapes and temporal structures of legal systems are especially underexplored in substantive areas of civil rights, poverty, and public interest law, as are the ways in which class oppression and institutional racism are reinforced by the union between time and the law.
¹ Carol J. Greenhouse, A Moment’s Notice: Time Politics Across Cultures 223, 230 (1996).
² Carol J. Greenhouse, Just in Time: Temporality and the Cultural Legitimation of Law, 98 Yale L.J. 1631 (1989); see also Jeremy Rifkin, Time Wars 146-47 (1989)
³ Rebecca R. French, Time in the Law, 72 U. Colo. L. Rev. 663, 664 (2001).
⁴ Renisa Mawani, Law as Temporality: Colonial Politics and Indian Settlers, 4 U.C. Irvine L. Rev. 65, 71 (2014).
⁵ Id.
⁶ See work by Michelle Bastian, Emily Grabham, Renisa Mawani, and Sarah Keenan.
Race Against Time: Afrofuturism and Our Liberated Housing Futures
“This past year, I have come to understand that, as an artist, the more of myself that I pour into the work — both my shadows and my light — the more the work can serve as a spiritual offering or medicine for the collective.”
![A Black woman with a light brown complexion wears glasses and a turquoise blouse with dark-blue and orange accents. Her long hair is in silver braids that reach to her mid-back. She sits in front of a yellow background looking decisively at the camera.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/354d5b83-4c2f-4f23-ad88-5aae67427ee5/loira-limbal-headshot.jpg?crop=1080%2C1080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Loira Limbal
Filmmaker
Through The Night official trailer, 2020.
“I am learning new languages and methodologies that allow me to further accept, access, love, contrast, and name my own as well as PISO’s practices, experimentations, and processes. I am learning to release, thread, and build relations in new ways through allowing myself new choices. I am holding space to receive and experience even more sensation in my own body, deepening and expanding.”
![A Puerto Rican artist with light skin smiles while standing in front of lush green foliage. She has short, curly dark-brown hair with wisps of gray strands. Her head is tilted slightly to the left, and her mouth is open wide with an expression of joy.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/0671b450-2547-4eb4-9905-8e92f507fdc2/noemi-segarra-ramirez-headshot.jpg?crop=1080%2C1080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Noemí Segarra Ramírez
Movement Artist
![Two people laugh and smile on either side of a lavender table in front of microphones. The person on the left has medium-brown skin, close-trimmed hair and beard, and wears a red-and-white striped shirt. The person on the right has long dark hair pulled back into a low ponytail and wears thick black headphones, wire-rimmed glasses, and a gray sleeveless shirt.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/cd6d6166-0674-4cff-b5dc-d352b4ae01ff/noemi-segarra-ramirez-work-sample-2-scaled.jpg?crop=2560%2C1920%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Taping of ArchivoVIVO, a podcast that shares PISO’s praxis through the stories of past collaborators, 2021.
“[I’ve learned] to receive a dream — and to give the hours, days, life.”
![A person wearing rimless glasses and a purple sweater sits in front of a stone wall looking slightly away from the camera.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/035ccedd-dc06-4875-9aee-eb2c2f485e99/ilya-kaminsky-headshot.jpg?crop=1080%2C1080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Ilya Kaminsky
Poet
[Excerpt]
If I speak for the dead, I must leave
this animal of my body,
I must write the same poem over and over,
for an empty page is the white flag of their surrender.
If I speak for them, I must walk on the edge
of myself, I must live as a blind man
who runs through rooms without
touching the furniture.
Yes, I live. I can cross the streets asking "What year is it?"
I can dance in my sleep and laugh
in front of the mirror.
Even sleep is a prayer, Lord,
I will praise your madness, and
in a language not mine, speak
of music that wakes us, music
in which we move. For whatever I say
is a kind of petition, and the darkest
days must I praise.
Author's Prayer
“...The play's the thing..." Shakespeare. This past year affirmed the play is not "the thing," but the community. When putting people first, the collaboration is richer and more complex with inclusivity and intersection of identities, and the art, the play, can then reach an excellence that honors our collective humanity!”
![A Japanese American woman with an olive complexion and shoulder-length black hair smiles from behind her laptop computer. She is holding a red coffee cup in one hand, and a vase of lovely white roses rests on the table behind her.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/f2c3e97b-84f5-40a4-9fc2-17ff2029057a/leslie-ishii-headshot.jpg?crop=1080%2C1080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Leslie Ishii
Theatre-Maker and Social Justice Activist
Reclaiming Our Voices. Documentation of the birth of Tsuru For Solidarity (TFS). Rally on the grounds of the historical Tule Lake US Concentration Camp/Segregation Center. Video courtesy of the artist.
“The innovations of the past are considered traditions of the present. The same is true for what we consider innovations today and how the future will look back on them. Creativity is constant and the stories we preserve through our practice is what stitches time together.”
![A man with brown skin and black goatee poses wearing a black, long-sleeved collared shirt with a net woven from natural fibers draped over his left shoulder and a carved pendant hanging from his neck. Behind him is a large bush with elongated green leaves.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/f6078b98-ac87-4c5c-8126-b23da1af78e5/marques-hanalei-marzan-headshot.jpg?crop=1080%2C1080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Marques Hanalei Marzan
Fiber Arts Knowledge Bearer
![Photo of a woman standing on rocks by the waterfront wearing a netted flowing dress, a heavy cord belt, and holding a plaited fan in her outstretched hand.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/e3b22ef4-cd1f-4fdc-86d3-a06dfe327e77/marques-hanalei-marzan-work-sample-1-scaled.jpg?crop=2560%2C2080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Naʻau (Seat of Emotion). Processed pig intestines and natural fibers.
Photo by Koji Hirano.
![Image of a large-scale artwork covering the interior white wall of a building. The words “Time Owes Me Rest Again” are written in black against the wall, given motion by sweeping comic book style lines that imply the words are bouncing across the wall or being hurled from the sky.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/0b204206-c093-431c-9956-5a127c689f1c/christine-sun-kim-work-sample-1-scaled.jpg?crop=2560%2C1707%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Time Owes Me Rest Again, 2022. Mural, dimensions approximately 35 × 100 feet.
Photo by Hai Zhang; courtesy of the Queens Museum.