2024 USA Fellowship
2024 USA Fellowship
“With my community, I dream and steward spaces for radical pleasure, asking ourselves, How can we be together? Building physical, digital, virtual, ancestral pathways to each other again and again.”
![A thin Taiwanese femme with bleached blonde hair and black winged eyeliner sits on their fire escape surrounded by basil leaves in their garden.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/95f7a391-a67d-4d4f-9086-3fa3187cbdc3/yo-yo-lin-headshot-courtesy-of-the-artist.jpg?crop=1920%2C1920%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Yo-Yo Lin
Artist
![A thin ghostly figure sits in a cube made of translucent scrims. The room is dark except for the spectral orbs projected onto the screen, which glow an icy blue, dim orange, and unnatural green-yellow.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/96a3bbdb-3edc-48cd-96dc-26691d60c303/yo-yo-lin-work-sample-1-channels-1.jpg?crop=1920%2C1280%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Channels. Multisensory performance exploring the intricate pathways of the body. By Yo-Yo Lin, Despina, and Pelenakeke Brown
Photo courtesy of The Shed.
“My artwork contemplates narratives of Black American citizenry, migration, autonomy, longing, and faith. By weaving together familial and historical narratives, mapping data, and magical thinking, my installations evoke ritual moments of physical, metaphysical, and spiritual escape.”
![A Black woman with short hair looks out beyond the camera. She wears tear drop–shaped wire earrings, a colorful patterned shirt, and poses alongside a sculpture and mural.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/2da4cf7c-69ba-413d-824a-2a2b74bc84cb/tammie-rubin-headshot-by-essentials-creative.jpg?crop=1920%2C1920%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Tammie Rubin
Ceramic Sculptor and Installation Artist
![A ceramic cone sculpture that has its base resting on a medium blue pedestal. The sculpture has also been painted a medium blue with dark-blue dots and warm-brown triangles. Towards the base of the cone are two eye-shaped holes and a square-like mouth protruding outward.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/b86749e1-8537-44bc-96d1-31c47d68ab19/tammie-rubin-work-sample-2-unknow-ritual-mask-1-scaled.jpg?crop=1793%2C2560%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Unknown Ritual Mask, 2023. Red stoneware, underglaze. I am at my best when I’m escaping exhibition.
Photo by Hector Martinez.
“In my studio practice, weaving and the loom act as a code-switching device between anachronistic technologies, elusive identities, speculative histories, and illusory desires.”
![A Punjabi-Chicanx artist with brown skin, dark-brown eyes, and dark, gray-streaked hair pulled up into a loose twist looks into the camera. They are posed against a black background, wearing a black shirt, their grandmother’s orange patterned scarf, earrings, and a nose ring.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/156a69cf-471c-4331-908a-b5cf5aef64ec/kira-dominguez-hultgren-headshot-by-definition-foto.jpg?crop=1920%2C1920%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Kira Dominguez Hultgren
Textile Artist
![A multimedia textile where the artist has handwoven brown threads into the shape of a large spider. The artist has incorporated elements of the loom to add to the body and structure of the spider.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/969ee7bd-748b-4136-85d5-ae03e770574b/kira-dominguez-hultgren-work-sample-1-split-from-center-1.jpg?crop=1920%2C1649%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Split from Center, 2022. Handspun brown wool, skins, fleeces, straps, fabrics, yarns, silks, loom bars, zip ties, sticks, and other hardware, dimensions variable.
Photo by Daniel Kukla.
“I am defiantly a weaver. Through this position, I reconsider tapestry as a modality in which image, matter, technology, and embodiment provide productive conflicts for constructing form.”
![A person in cream-colored sweater leans on a table and gazing into the camera. They are standing in a workspace in front of shelves lined with colorful skeins of thread.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/439480ee-2cac-42b0-9527-0b3b2353b366/john-paul-morabito-headshot-by-ian-vecchiotti.jpg?crop=1920%2C1920%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
John Paul Morabito
Transdisciplinary Weaver
![A vertical rectangular-shaped tapestry. The top quarter of the composition is a completed tapestry composed of grid pattern in warm purples and taupes overlaid with a stepped diagonal pattern brocaded in light blues, deep purples, warm oranges, pinks, and golds. The bottom three quarters of the composition are unwoven with intricately beaded strands of thread that create a vibrating pattern of intersecting chevrons in yellows, golds, ochres, blues, greens, and purples. A few loose strands are wisped upward creating thin U-shaped lines. Additional loose strands dangle downward to puddle onto the floor.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/e5e7eb47-573a-4d31-be08-712f920d2761/john-paul-morabito-work-sample-3-scaled.jpg?crop=1677%2C2560%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
For Félix (can’t get you out of my head), 2023. Linne, wool, gold leaf thread, and glass beads. 92 × 47 inches.
Photo by Tim Safranek.
“My work materializes the relationship between words and things; it manifests my ambition to understand loss and absence and how we ask words to hold meaning in the same way glass holds light.”
![An Asian woman with transparent-frame glasses, blue scarf, and light gray shirt sitting for portrait.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/352940b9-f8e3-4993-a0fd-0b73374fe4ed/helen-lee-headshot-by-kaleb-autman.jpg?crop=1920%2C1920%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Helen Lee
Glass Artist
1/f, 2018. Glass, steel, motors, 30 × 40 × 12 inches each. Video by Curtis Whitear.
“My work as a transdisciplinary designer, artist, and urbanist has been rooted in dynamic diasporic understandings of the Black experience, and I have used my craft to advocate for, design, plan with, and visually showcase the stories of communities of color.”
![A woman of African descent smiles. She has copper-colored locs past her shoulders and is wearing red lipstick and a blouse with a pink-and-white Ankara print.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/cf91d351-e7ab-44f5-8abe-4cc26c8cef15/ifeoma-ebo-headshot-by-nevill-simpson.jpg?crop=1920%2C1920%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Ifeoma Ebo
Architect, Artist, and Community-Designer
![A grayscale digital rendering of an industrial interior. The interior is long and rectangular and empty except for a few figures milling about. Hundreds of light-colored boxes line the ceiling in a grid formation, indicating some sort of light source](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/b2620507-221e-4a84-a7ee-80c9c0038b9c/ifeoma-ebo-work-sample-1-african-burial-ground-lower-manhattan-1.png?crop=1920%2C1536%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
African Burial Ground Lower Manhattan. Undergraduate architecture thesis project.
“Through design praxis I explore tangible responses to systemic injustice in space and the environment, taking action where and when people, living beings, and the planet are unfairly constrained from opportunity or access to quality of life.”
![A frontal-side view of a man with light-brown skin, a speckled goatee, and curly black hair that has been cut short at the sides resembling a mohawk.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/a23cca40-6a4f-4d6e-9aba-0a8dee835ee2/dk-osseo-asare-headshot-by-penn-state-college-of-arts-and-architecture-scaled.jpeg?crop=2560%2C2560%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
DK Osseo-Asare
Design Scientist
![An installation shot of a scaffolding-like structure made of exposed metal beams and wooden flooring. The structure resembles a pergola with two awnings fanning out like outstretched arms. On and around the structure are small, round wooden stools. Behind the structure is a projected image of itself erected in an arid landscape.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/e189e49e-93f7-4051-b892-5332bbd8cc67/dk-osseo-asare-work-sample-1-1.jpg?crop=1920%2C1280%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Agbogbloshie Makerspace Platform (AMP), Spacecraft_ZKM, 2018. By DK Osseo-Asare and Yasmine Abbas. Installation view of AMP spacecraft. Commissioned by ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe.
Photo by Tobias Wootton.
“With verbal meaning so imprecise and mutable, visual language became my way of expressing the world. Clay, whose malleability allows me to create objects that appear soft and playful, has allowed for endless possibilities.”
![A woman with shoulder-length brown curly hair poses next to a series of clay sculptures as big as her torso. One half of her hair is dyed blonde and she wears a white T-shirt with maroon-colored pants.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/e8f100a5-448a-4342-b32e-11ac05c9be29/linda-nguyen-lopez-promo-photo-2-by-meredith-mashburn.jpg?crop=1920%2C1920%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Linda Nguyen Lopez
Ceramicist
![A grouping of sculptural objects of various colors and sizes. The objects are covered in drooping textured pieces that give them a dust-mop appearance.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/4b4c4188-ccda-49c5-9f91-57690a1f3cfa/linda-nguyen-lopez-work-sample-1-1.jpg?crop=1920%2C948%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Dust Furries, 2019. Porcelain.
Photo courtesy of the artist.
“I want to create channels of access for indigenous populations to engage and embed their worldviews within architectural design and actively reintegrating suppressed identities and indigenous knowledge as valid within the context of the architecture field.”
![A woman of Mexican descent is photographed from her left profile. She smiles and is dressed in a dark gray sleeveless dress as she looks over her left shoulder at the camera. Her long black hair falls straight behind her left ear that is adorned in multiple gold earrings.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/dc1a3bfa-2b11-4232-84b2-d310579dfa2b/selina-martinez-headshot-by-carlos-valencia.jpg?crop=1920%2C1920%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Selina Martinez
Architect in Training
![A digital illustration featuring a tree whose branches are topped with soft pastel-colored circles with white text. The text of the topmost circle reads, "YOO ANIA ‘enchanted world.’" Three symbols surround the tree and include a crescent moon, downturned triangles, and a square cross. Below the tree is a seed that branches into white text on a black background.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/2d4dd3d9-59df-4245-937a-2f46a8cbcab8/selina-martinez-work-sample-1-bachia-1.jpg?crop=1920%2C1314%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Bachia: Yaqui Cultural Keystone Species by Selina Martinez, 2020. Digital Illustration.
“My films are personal, psychedelic, and spiritual — aiming to challenge genre norms and authentically represent Indigenous stories, often in the Navajo language.”
![A man stands in a projection booth, one elbow propped on a table next to him, looking into the camera. He has black hair that has been slicked back, a clean-shaven face, and light brown complexion.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/8bfc4ea7-fe68-4191-814a-e15f6e081ccf/blackhorse-lowe-promo-photo-1-by-chuck-foxen.jpg?crop=1920%2C1920%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Blackhorse Lowe
Filmmaker, Writer, Director, and Producer
![A flier with text and movie studio logos on a black background advertising a film screening. The flier includes two film stills. The top image shows four red, letter-shaped helium balloons that form the word, "GUSH” The bottom image is a close-up of a person's face with yellow text that reads, "I AM HOME." They have soft features, a medium-brown complexion, and straight, black hair that has been pulled back. They wear jewelry made of turquoise.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/ff57e9ad-84b8-4d6e-bbed-26fd983c61dc/blackhorse-lowe-work-sample-2-1.jpg?crop=1920%2C2400%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
CINEDOOM program poster, 2023. A film series showcasing 35mm films and Indigenous cinema to local audiences at theatrical art houses.
“In my methodologies of working with the body I look for authenticity: an exploratory dance composition that is combative, romantic, sublime, sexual, absurd, and indecipherable. For me, this achieves changes in the behavior of human thought.”
![An older woman with long brown loose hair smiles softly at the camera. She is wearing a patterned blouse and hoop earrings.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/107ee857-b228-405d-a2f9-9d0de24f1cee/petra-bravo-headshot-by-ricardo-alcaraz.jpg?crop=1920%2C1920%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Petra Bravo
Choreographer
Excerpts from “Hincapié/danza/pintura/urbana/film, 2022.” 40 minutes. Video by Juan Carlos Malavé.
“Whether the content is real or fictional, I want audiences positioned in front of my characters, not above or below, with no chance to look away. It’s not a Dickensian gaze. It’s laser focused on the dirt, so you can see the flowers grow.”
![A woman smiling in front of blue-gray ocean waves. She has shoulder-length brown hair that flies in the wind and is wearing glasses and a khaki blazer.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/f6f36419-8327-4978-a5b0-56362e78b6a0/ciara-leina-ala-lacy-headshot-by-bruna-hort.jpg?crop=1920%2C1920%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Ciara Leina`ala Lacy
Filmmaker
Out of State teaser, 2017. Video courtesy of the artist.
“My dance work lives at a place where social environments, contemporary performance forms, and dancing collide. With an aesthetic orientation that sits on a pop-fringe borderline, my work is born from house parties, mosh pits, spectacle, music videos, nightlife, and dance teams.”
![A white woman with golden brown, shoulder-length hair and a beauty mark above their right eyebrow smiles and looks down towards the ground. They wear a black button-down shirt with a black leather harness laid over it.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/0aa6a367-83dd-458f-bf14-5016d8da3135/erin-kilmurray-headshot-by-chloe-hamilton.jpg?crop=1920%2C1920%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Erin Kilmurray
Dance Artist
the Function, 2022. 60 minutes. The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Video courtesy of the artist.
“As a filmmaker living in the empire, I have the unique position to use my privileges to create films that contribute to efforts to decolonize US imperial legacies.”
![A person of Asian descent with black hair in a mohawk style gazes to the left. They are wearing an unzipped black leather jacket.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/b79023a9-e1d5-47f5-872a-f39df328b731/pj-raval-headshot-by-erik-tanner.jpg?crop=1080%2C1080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
PJ Raval
Filmmaker
Who We Become, 2023. Official trailer.
“I love my transgender body, and I love choreographing dances from the graceful, informed, and powerful location of my transgender body.”
![A light-skinned trans-masculine person with a warm and confident smile. He is wearing a black T-shirt, glasses, and has a short brown pompadour.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/b22a8a02-a35b-4b52-b765-0302aab73ae3/sean-dorsey-headshot-by-lydia-daniller.jpg?crop=1920%2C1920%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Sean Dorsey
Choreographer, Dancer, Educator, and Trans Activist
The Lost Art of Dreaming, 2022. Video trailer. 65 minute dance-theater performance. Videography by Rapt Productions.
“To tell the Asian-American story, it must be the whole story of this country. One must investigate not just one’s own community but its intersectionality with other marginalized communities.”
![A man with short gray hair and glasses smiles slightly with his arms crossed in front of him. He wears a multi-colored, patterned scarf and a dark pinstriped blazer.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/3a1dcacb-c026-48c7-b174-11266882af99/philip-kan-gotanda-headshot-by-diane-takei.jpg?crop=1920%2C1920%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Philip Kan Gotanda
Playwright and Filmmaker
Excerpt of The Dream of Kitamura, 2018. Zellerbach Playhouse, UC Berkeley, CA.
“Vodou culture has always been my source of inspiration as it introduces abstract compositions that encapsulate new ways of thinking and creating. Each rhythm produces its own unique set of resonances, and all of these sounds have at some point influenced one another, merging into a vibrational ocean of Haitian ancestral legacy.”
![A person with short-cropped blonde hair sits in front of a set of drums, hands resting on their drumsticks.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/05a10ab8-9e4a-410e-8517-b8f68e431499/val-jeanty-aka-val-inc-headshot-by-richard-louissaint.jpg?crop=1920%2C1920%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Val Jeanty aka Val-Inc
Afro-Electronica Composer, Turntablist, and Drummer
“The Electric Vodou Sound of Val-Inc.” Video by BESE Meets.
“My work is aimed at directly impacting the prison industrial complex, by creating art that explores the daily realities of structural violence, incarceration, detention, and policing in communities across the United States.”
![A mixed-race person with tan skin, mid-short cropped hair, short beard, and a black-and-silver outfit gazes beyond the camera.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/f914fa98-379f-48b6-be56-230ec479427a/samora-pinderhughes-headshot-1-by-ray-neutron.jpg?crop=1920%2C1920%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Samora Pinderhughes
Multidisciplinary Composer
“Masculinity,” 2022. Music from Samora Pinderhughes’ album GRIEF. Single-channel 35mm and 16mm film projection; color, sound, 07:34 minutes. Film directed by Christian Padron and Samora Pinderhughes.
“In classical composition, I use the wonderfully flexible and colorful orchestral tools to express my experience as a Chickasaw person.”
![A Chickasaw man with braided hair smiles brightly. He is wearing a dark suit jacket and a traditional shell-carved medallion.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/ca33dae6-e01d-4ce1-be1f-40b872feeec6/jerod-impichchaachaaha-tate-headshot-by-shevaun-williams.jpg?crop=1920%2C1920%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Jerod Impichchaachaaha Tate
Chickasaw Classical Composer
Loksi' Shaali' (Shell Shaker): A Chickasaw Opera. Official trailer. Premieres October 2024. Video courtesy of the artist.
“Emotionality, spirit, presence, and transformation are the foundation of my composition and performance style; the kind that triggers a cathartic experience — this is where I dwell as an artist.”
![A person with brown skin, brown eyes, and short black hair, looks into the camera. They are wearing a red shirt, one blue earring, and have small tattoos on their neck.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/9d38eda1-5618-48fb-ad78-23424654ff7c/holland-andrews-headshot-by-ariel-crocker.jpg?crop=1920%2C1920%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Holland Andrews
Composer, Vocalist, Clarinetist, Producer, and Performer
“Rules.” Sample featuring Nils Frahm; mastered by Zino Mikorey.
“Stories are at the heart of my work; they are where Indigenous knowledge lives.”
![An older Native woman with short gray hair and glasses smiles widely. She wears a pink shirt, a beaded necklace, and earrings.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/405c0084-ce89-4b17-9cd7-cec71a2cc688/muriel-miguel-headshot-2-by-auden-barbour.jpg?crop=1080%2C1080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Muriel Miguel
Theater Maker and Story Weaver
Red Mother, 2012. Spiderwoman Theater. Starring Muriel Miguel as Belle; directed by Murielle Borst-Tarrant. Video by Dan English.
“I’m uninterested in the traditional hierarchical structures of filmmaking and am much more informed by experiences with collective creation and improvisation in theater, which is a practice based on mutual trust and care.”
![A woman with short black-and-silver hair is smiling. She is wearing magenta lipstick, a black top, and a yellow knotted necklace.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/78079234-3142-4eab-9341-f1610e68ee09/sofia-gallisa-muriente-headshot-courtesy-of-the-artist.jpg?crop=1080%2C1080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Sofía Gallisá Muriente
Visual Artist
Celaje, 2020. Video courtesy of the artist.
“It’s no surprise that when I came into my own, the music I would compose and perform would be informed by the world that came before. Balancing the aesthetics of today and yesterday has been a challenge and a guide for me.”
![A photo taken from a low angle shows a man with clear-framed glasses playing the clarinet with eyes closed. The horn of the instrument extends beyond the frame.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/390ce4e0-247b-4252-9d66-7d2030d0130c/michael-winograd-headshot-by-lloyd-wolf.jpg?crop=1920%2C1920%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Michael Winograd
Musician
![Michael Winograd video 2 thumbnail](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/4aa6b1aa-fb78-45d3-a08d-08d53364e52b/MichaelWinogradvideo2thumbnail.png?crop=1969%2C1108%2C88%2C0&width=1000)
“Early Bird Special,” 2023. Live at the Krakow Jewish Culture Festival. Museum of Engineering and Technology, Krakow Poland. Presented by the Jewish Culture Festival.
“I need rooms of compassion and I need my Art to be able to be the container of my pain, my tears, and the joy that I deserve. The joy that you deserve too. We are a tired nation. A tired world.”
![<span style="font-weight: 400;">Rendered in grayscale with purple accents, a person smiles up at us while holding a white electric guitar. Their hair is buzzed on the left side and long and flowing on the right. Their theatrical makeup shimmers and sparkles with glittery rhinestones placed in a semicircle around their left eyebrow.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/a36d00a8-a51b-4885-9d91-ddb0091a470a/diana-oh-headshot-alternate-by-haley-varacallo.jpg?crop=1920%2C1920%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Diana Oh “Zaza D”
Multi-Disciplinary Maker, Musician, Actor, and Writer
{my lingerie play} year in review. Video by Joy Burklund.
“I enjoy researching history and creating something out of nothing with my own hands but my real fuel is the impact my work has on the next generation; it feeds our youth’s sense of self and identity as well as their cultural awareness.”
![A Black woman in her early seventies looks out beyond the camera. She wears silver hoop earrings, red lipstick, and a checkered top with a paper beaded necklace and a jade pendant. The white, angular planes of the King Memorial sculpture in Compton, CA, rise up behind her.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/c7612c1f-1cd0-4323-ad19-16cc356d009f/karen-collins-headshot-by-chris-merchant.jpg?crop=1920%2C1920%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Karen Collins
Narrative Miniaturist
![A diorama with four stylized miniature sculptures of Black cowboys riding four horses. While the cowboys look hand-crafted, the horses appear to be store-bought and machine-made. Behind the figurines is a white fence and multicolored dots representing faces in a crowd. Hovering at the top of the display are glittering gold letters that read, "Compton Cowboys."](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/ed6e6af6-a5c6-402f-a974-130aec5a2bac/karen-collins-work-sample-1-compton-cowboys-1.jpg?crop=1920%2C1334%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Karen Collins. Compton Cowboys, 2022. Commissioned by the Autry Museum of the American West for Imagine West: Black History in the American West.
Photo courtesy of the Autry Museum of the American West.
Vitruvian, 2023. Video by Cayla Simpson.
“I use traditional teachings from the past to create weavings that share my voice as an artist and activist living in today's world, looking ahead for sustainable solutions to ensure the continuation of traditional teachings and sustainable practices for future generations.”
![A photo of a woman with dark brown hair and a happy smile. She wears a blue scarf, a black shirt, and dangling earrings that resemble butterfly wings.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/71104764-e6a5-4f43-86df-64007eac22d1/kelly-church-headshot-by-tom-pich.jpg?crop=1920%2C1920%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Kelly Church
Artist Activist
![[ID: A small, oblong sculpture constructed from knotted strands of fiber. The fiber resembles that of dried grass: golden beige in color and fragile with fraying edges. Perched on top of the precarious structure is a solitary butterfly with purple, blue, and black beaded wings.]](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/1d3bc257-cf42-4456-a5e9-4451724bac11/kelly-church-work-sample-1.jpeg?crop=1280%2C1645%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Emergence of We. Black ash splints, spruce roots, copper, basswood, birch bark, quills, beads, velvet, sinew. Photo by Kelly Church.
“As the sociopolitical climate of the US-Mexico border remains controversial, we continue the conversation of permeability and interrogate how the perception of the actual line of the border can be reimagined as a site of thriving, beauty, abundance, and creativity.”
![Two Latinx women stand with bare shoulders in a desert landscape in front of an ocotillo plant. The two figures are linked by a spiny nopal cactus on their shoulders.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/58d334bf-f98c-4e4e-9feb-b77fef2434b6/fronterizx-collective-headshot-courtesy-of-the-artists.jpg?crop=1920%2C1920%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Fronterizx Collective (Gabriela Muñoz and M. Jenea Sanchez)
Interdisciplinary Social Practice
![An adult laying on sandy ground. The person is unclothed but has their breasts covered with a thin golden circular disc. They lie on the ground passively, eyes closed, and their skin glowing in afternoon sunlight. A cactus is placed in the foreground of the image, framing the figure.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/30cf59e7-5255-4d78-9208-80130a437259/fronterizx-collective-work-sample-1-living-altar-1.jpg?crop=1920%2C2560%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Fronterizx Collective. Living Altar 1.
Photo courtesy of Ammi Robles, Gabriela Muñoz, and M. Jenea Sanchez.
“In my work as an artist, I have witnessed firsthand how a handful of dedicated visionaries are able to band together, source materials, create something new, and then offer it up into the world.”
![A solid, soft pink square that touches all four sides of the image frame.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/7343122d-ccda-4283-ab74-b2b4f475dc94/ej-hill-headshot-courtesy-of-the-artist-and-the-whitney-museum-of-american-art.jpg?crop=1920%2C1920%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
EJ Hill
Artist, Musician, and Educator
![A sculpture resembling the framework of a small, yellow Ferris wheel that has been halved into a semicircle, giving the illusion that half of the ride has been swallowed up by the green lawn below. All of the Ferris wheel’s carriages have been removed except for one at the very top of the ride.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/78a2f2fb-4ba7-4a3c-a18c-8c5432faf1bc/ej-hill-work-sample-1-1.jpg?crop=1920%2C1281%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Rises in the East, 2021. Fiberglass and marine-coated steel, 564 × 1128 × 108 inches. Prospect.5 New Orleans.
Photo by Alex Marks.
“We aim to collectively advance understandings of how identity is conveyed and configured within contemporary art practices in order to create sites of acknowledgment that promote solidarity and shift obstructions to Indigenous growth.”
![Three Indigenous male figures — two with dark hair and one with a baseball cap — stand in front of a brick wall at night. Each figure holds a slab of stone in their right hand, obscuring their faces.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/9fa541c9-afda-426d-ad72-1ca0c570f6d1/new-red-order-headshot-courtesy-of-the-artists.jpg?crop=1920%2C1920%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
New Red Order (Adam Khalil, Jackson Polys, Zack Khalil)
Artists and Filmmakers
![A display booth with a table, monitor, and banners. The red plastic tablecloth has white text that reads, "WHAT ARE SAVAGES FOR?" and "THE URGE TO MERGE." The monitor shows an image of a pale child resting their head on their arms. White letters read, "ALIEN NATION EXISTENTIAL DREAD.” Behind the monitor three banners have a jumble of words and illustrations including a beaver holding a flower and a bald eagle breaking the globe over a frying pan. Behind the display booth are red-tinted windows.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/e187999b-385b-4819-b92b-49579e4034bf/new-red-order-work-sample-3-speculations-on-the-infrared-hr-41-1.jpg?crop=1920%2C1280%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Recruitment Station, 2020–21. By New Red Order, Gaile Pranckunaite, Inpatient Press, and Emmett de Muzio. Nylon banners, polyester tablecloth, foam board, video monitors, cut white vinyl over red translucent window covering, dimensions variable.
Photo by Yann Chashanovski; courtesy of EFA Project Space, NY.
“What others have hidden I seek to reveal. When boxes constrain, when legacies oppress, I seek to liberate.”
![A man with close-cropped hair and clear-rimmed glasses sits in a wooden chair by a window, gazing out at the viewer. He is wearing a turquoise necklace and all-black clothing.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/0749cafe-8435-4cfb-ae68-3cb07ce826d0/jeffery-darensbourg-headshot-by-rush-jagoe.jpg?crop=1920%2C1920%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Jeffery U. Darensbourg
Writer and Performer
If someone were to ask me what Indigenous Peoples ate in Southwest Louisiana, I would mention things that people eat now, such as crawfish or turkeys. I would also name things people forage now, from the popular pecan to the less popular bull thistle. I would describe standing on a midden of rangia clam shells at Four Mile Cutoff, a ship channel in Vermilion Parish. After tasting a rangia clam, a mollusk smaller than an oyster with a somewhat spoiled flavor even when fresh, I find past attempts to commercialize this item laughable in the highest degree. I would also point out that Indigenous People ate bison in Louisiana. To some, this is surprising.
I live in Bulbancha, “the place of other languages,” which colonizers renamed as New Orleans. But some of us still refer to it by its older name, a bit of single-word decolonization. The earliest French colonial visitors to Bulbancha, Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville and crew, recorded seeing three bison napping on the banks of the river. There are Louisiana places named after bison. One such place, Bayou Terre aux Boeufs, in St. Bernard Parish near Bulbancha, still has a significant population of Indigenous People…
The bison available from Costco was a typical capitalist product — ground with machinery, properly labeled, ready for consumption — but the ribs were different. They had been exported from Texas to Bulbancha, from Old Mexico to New France. They still looked like ribs, even after processing. The pastrami ribs at Costco were much closer to the bison products of the Ishak of old than the actual ground bison of the meat section. Smoked bison ribs were exported by the French from the port across town during the eighteenth century. A box of plat côté, as these ribs were called, appears in French polymath Alexandre de Batz’s 1735 painting Desseins de Sauvages de Plusieurs Nations, which also features an Ishak man and even has a version of the word “Bulbancha” in it.
Excerpt of “Hunting Memories of the Grass Things: An Indigenous Reflection on Bison in Louisiana”
“By integrating design thinking to the production of visual poetry, I’m able to question the conventions of reading, model new publishing futures, and reimagine what poetry readings can be.”
![An Asian woman with shoulder-length brown hair poses against a natural backdrop. She is wearing multi-colored earrings and a teal-blue cowl neck.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/db599c10-94cf-45e0-b0ff-93546037f7d7/monica-ong-headshot-by-maler-photography.jpg?crop=1920%2C1920%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Monica Ong
Visual Poet
![A blue paper disc illustrated with a golden map of the stars and constellations. The golden stars are accompanied by golden text that is illegible from our vantage point. The disc has a central axis so that it may rotate to indicate what constellations can be seen in which direction and at which corresponding time of year. A title on the tool reads, "Star Gazer, Planisphere Poetry."](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/80ce6449-daab-41ba-afdc-da3f91682783/monica-ong-work-sample-1-planisphere-1.jpg?crop=1920%2C1280%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Monica Ong.“The Star Gazer." Planisphere based on the Soochow Astronomical Chart. Reflects a unique poem depending on the alignment of the day and hour. Custom die cutting, letterpress gold foil stamping on 1-ply flurry white and navy cover stock, 7.5 × 7.5 inches.
Photo courtesy of the artist.
“I work beyond borders and linguistic boundaries, emphasizing the importance of considering historical contexts through a multitude of artistic languages, resulting in an approach that allows for a more holistic understanding of these complex narratives.”
![A woman poses on a stool in a studio space wearing a long white dress. Works in progress are laid out on a table behind her. A large work depicting rain droplets in black and blue hangs on the back wall.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/1e6fe3d4-3aaa-4e0f-a139-1f476781f908/maria-magdalena-campos-pons.jpg?crop=1080%2C1080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
María Magdalena Campos-Pons
Multidisciplinary Artist
![A three-paneled mixed media painting of a dark-skinned, elderly woman. Large green leaves and white flowers make up the background behind her.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/9d2cb48d-61f9-41f1-b374-d73238679164/maria-magdalena-campos-pons-work-sample-1-secrets-of-the-magnolia-tree-1.png?crop=1920%2C2447%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
María Magdalena Campos-Pons. Secrets of the Magnolia Tree, 2021. Mixed media: archival digital inkjet prints, watercolor, ink, gouache, gum arabic, Magnolia pollen, BFK archival paper, 132.75 × 90 inches.
Photo courtesy of Gallery Wendi Norris.
“Each of my jewelry pieces marks a time, a place, or a memory. They are linked together with a similar visual language where I utilize black and white enamel marks on the surface of copper to indicate my hand and tick marks to represent time passing.”
![An African American woman smiles at the camera. Her hair is curly and dark in a natural afro style with a colorful scarf tying it back. She is wearing overalls, black-and-white enameled earrings, and sparkly green glasses.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/ef761c59-15f7-474f-b3d9-5b1dbbdd3573/tanya-crane-headshot-by-jesse-beecher.jpg?crop=1920%2C1920%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Tanya Crane
Jewelry Artist and Object Maker
![A cropped photograph of a person’s chest and arm wearing a black T-shirt with a gold-plated brass, copper, and enamel necklace. The necklace boasts five intricately detailed medallions. On the forearm a black rectangular tattoo can be seen with details of multiple eyes.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/9039e91c-57a2-451f-a7cd-10dfbe0c721b/tanya-crane-work-sample-1-big-pimpin-1.jpg?crop=1920%2C988%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Big Pimpin', 2014. Copper, enamel, gold-plated brass, 18-karat gold.
Photo by Jim Escalante.
“My focus centers around dissecting notions of femininity in myth, metaphor, and the performance of Bharatanatyam — all of which reflects the aesthetics of both the culture in which it is rooted as well as the broader tapestry of global cultures.”
![A woman with long brown hair smiles against a leafy green backdrop. She wears an orange dress, a delicate necklace, and a small diamond-stud nose piercing.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/789614ea-2b80-4664-b0ce-b40429e3ef8e/mythili-prakash-headshot-by-kamala-venkatesh.jpg?crop=1920%2C1920%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Mythili Prakash
Choreographer and Dancer
“Inside the Pillow Lab: Mythili Prakash,” 2022. Residency at Pillow Lab, Jacob’s Pillow, Beckett, MA.
“In many works, the repetition of seemingly banal material reveals unusual depth and variety within sounds and the spaces in which they are heard, provoking the audience to notice and ask questions about the peculiar world we inhabit.”
![A woman photographed from the shoulders up wearing a blue collared shirt and red lipstick with long hair combed over the left shoulder. She is positioned in front of mostly beige floral wallpaper drawing by visual artist Mara Baldwin.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/e007c962-70e3-44b1-9b60-02fb06553f1f/sarah-hennies-headshot-by-mara-baldwin.jpg?crop=1920%2C1920%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Sarah Hennies
Composer and Percussionist
"Come 'Round Right," 2020. Collaborative work. Sculptures by Mara Baldwin. Performed by Stephanie Coleman, Anna Roberts-Gevalt, Maeve Schallert, and Libby Weitnauer at the 2020 FERUS Festival, National Sawdust, Brooklyn.
“I am on a constant quest to learn all that I can about my culture and the Haida art form.”
![TJ Young, a person with braided hair looks into the camera. Young is posed in front of a body of water and a small boathouse just out of focus in the background.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/1621811b-b3bc-45f2-9806-2bc6fbcf3aeb/sgwaayaans-tj-young-headshot-by-molly-sharp.jpg?crop=1920%2C1920%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Sgwaayaans TJ Young
Haida Artist
![Sketch for <em>360 Cultural Values Totem Pole</em>. Photo by Ryan Cortes.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/392bec8b-d386-4688-835c-a1ab22e36faf/sgwaayaans-tj-young-work-sample-1-1-scaled.jpg?crop=1707%2C2560%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Sgwaayaans TJ Young. Sketch for 360 Cultural Values Totem Pole.
Photo by Ryan Cortes.
“I aim to trouble the assumptions baked into the beliefs and technologies that mediate our existences. I aim to make sense of the world, so that we can remake it differently.”
![A woman dressed in a white button-down collared shirt poses. Streaks of platinum blonde braids frame her face.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/e5d40fa3-3670-46fb-8656-f97e1a76a7d9/mimi-onuoha-headshot-by-casey-horsfield.jpg?crop=1920%2C1920%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Mimi Ọnụọha
Artist
![A well-manicured hand with brown skin rifles through folders in a filing cabinet. Their fingers linger on a file labeled, "Proportion of traded wildlife illegally poached."](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/be334adc-bcc5-4973-8730-44c6710040de/mimi-onuoha-work-sample-1-1.jpg?crop=1920%2C1280%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
The Library of Missing Datasets.
Photo by Brandon Schulman.
“The entanglement that drives my work is political because it orients us away from ideas of an integrated, singular subjecthood and toward a sense of being that is mutually created and cared for.”
![A black-and-white portrait of a middle-aged Syrian-Peruvian man with buzzed salt-and-pepper hair and mustache. He is wearing an Oxford button-down shirt and gazes out beyond the frame.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/64052c79-d4f1-4cd5-9dad-78549ebcef28/matuk-author-photo-by-robert-bear-guerra-2019-take-2.jpg?crop=1000%2C1000%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Farid Matuk
Poet and Writer
Thinnest sliver
New moon light
At the horn tips of mule deer
Turned toward us
Their dark eyes don't know
Our dry heels imitate the mountains
"Women imitate the earth"
House finches, quaking,
Imitate chambers
Like Daniel's prints saying, freedom
without love posted at the outskirts
Men wield mirrors at men
Making of each other's baby
Spun 'round
While the rest of us stay in bed
And in our closed eyes sense the touch
Of light is a given to use
If we feel like it
We will get up
In a movie about us
We'll go to a lower desert
Only the thinnest air in our way
Released, certain moods will flare
Our mouths saying,
"Suppose one is bred an immigrant"
Citrus groves having been husbanded
Somewhere behind you
And you don't get too precious
Like things are very small, really
They just turn over
And get lost
Across several versions of the portrait
Ragged edged, the mirror
Its useful mercury
Sonorous behind the glass, almost a return
Before first light assembles the blue
Then what can we tell?
That we took an accent
From a dialect that never made it
Down the mountains
That we know how to get thin
And turn, saying, "I'm not
really interested in my affect"
However mannered,
"Uh-huh,"
The poem says back
MIMESIS.
“[Sweetgrass Basket Weaving] is one of the rare arts of our country that is found nowhere else in America. Gullah Sweetgrass Baskets are a national treasure.”
![](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/09d323b1-56c7-4c0c-83d9-bd4a957a0e51/corey-alston-headshot-courtesy-of-the-artist.jpg?crop=1920%2C1920%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Corey Alston
Sweetgrass Basket Weaver
![The artist Corey Alston, a man with brown skin, a bald head, and a full beard smiles at us. He has small dimples on both cheeks. He is seen from the waist up holding an unfinished woven basket in his left hand and a bundle of sweetgrass in his right. He wears a robin's-egg-blue collared shirt with an electric-blue undershirt.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/7aa06ca9-ba2f-4660-b608-20a1024df917/corey-alston-work-sample-1-1.jpg?crop=1920%2C2004%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Corey Alston. Sweetgrass basket.
Photo courtesy of the artist.
“Our work is committed to unlearning the conventions of architecture with hopes of developing a spatial practice that is open and generous.”
![Two people stand side by side, facing us directly. Emanuel is a Black man with a shaved head and a neatly-trimmed beard wearing a navy corduroy shirt with black jeans. Jen is a white woman with light-brown hair wearing a long-sleeved black dress with a large white circle on the front.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/a7d6fd78-a854-4425-84be-fe33d005f734/ad-wo-headshot-by-rachel-hulin.jpg?crop=1920%2C1920%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
AD–WO (Emanuel Admassu and Jen Wood)
Architects and Artists
![A large installation shot of a long, narrow hallway in an industrial interior. On the left hangs a textile composed of abstract shapes and patterns of black, green, red, and gray. The wall on the right is covered with a blue tarp and protruding bamboo sticks. On this wall an arched entryway leads into a dim gallery space where a large tapestry hangs, depicting a dark-blue pyramid and floating black orb on a background of blues and grays.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/3f374f19-9077-4c59-88d1-990f9ce999e3/ad-wo-work-sample-1-ghebbi-1.jpg?crop=1920%2C1280%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Installation view of Ghebbi, 2023. La Biennale di Venezia.
Photo by Claudia Rossini.
“Through portraiture and historical reimagination, I have experimented with both old and contemporary archives as a means for better understanding my own country, its history, and the possibilities that might exist for all tenses of time.”
![A woman with freckles and braids, looking at the camera with her head cocked to the right of the frame.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/ca50dad8-1a4c-4083-9ea1-b48ce5774754/garrett-bradley-headshot-by-blvxmth.jpg?crop=1920%2C1920%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Garrett Bradley
Artist and Filmmaker
![A small dark theater with rows of empty chairs oriented towards an image projected on a back wall. The image is of a Black woman talking on a cell phone in the driver's seat of her car. The image is seen from outside of the vehicle. The lighting is dreamy and soft.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/cfee4a21-4e80-4d91-99cb-83a06ece0d28/garrett-bradley-work-sample-1-aka.jpg?crop=1500%2C1125%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Garrett Bradley. Installation view of AKA, 2019. Whitney Biennial 2019. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
Photo by Ron Amstutz.
“I want to express the Filipino condition of adapting to a changing and overwhelming environment, increasingly overpopulated with colonizers, technology, waste products, and climate change.”
![A tan-skinned person is pictured wearing gradient acrylic eyeglasses with clear lenses. Their shoulder-length black hair frames their face against a mostly white background.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/5b6c2199-f29d-4e9b-8849-edc6f8e1f156/trisha-baga-headshot-by-molly-dektar.jpg?crop=1920%2C1920%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Trisha Baga
Interdisciplinary Artist
Mollusca and the Pelvic Floor, 2018. 3D and 2D video projection, Amazon Alexa, objects. Video 37:18 minutes, dimensions variable. Video courtesy of the artist.
“My work is the lens through which I try to understand humanity as a whole and my place within it. Art cannot be substituted for direct action, but I do think it can lead a person there.”
![A Black woman with long locs pulled back from her face and a light-brown complexion sits at a desk in front of a bookshelf backdrop. She wears a pair of gold mesh-work earrings and green overalls with a black crop top underneath, baring her sleeve of colorful tattoos.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/6f9df762-b57f-4f37-955b-a61e40759952/dantiel-w-moniz-headshot-by-elizabeth-pedinotti-haynes.jpg?crop=1920%2C1920%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Dantiel W. Moniz
Writer
“Pink is the color for girls,” Kiera says, so she and Ava cut their palms and let their blood drip into a shallow bowl filled with milk, watching the color spread slowly on the surface, small red flowers blooming. Ava studies Kiera. How she holds her hand steady — as if used to slicing herself open — while sunlight falls into the kitchen window and fills her curls with glow. Her mouth is a slim, straight line, but her eyes are wide, green-yellow, unblinking. Strange eyes, Ava’s mother always says with the same pinched grimace usually reserved for pulling plugs of their hair from the bathtub drain.
The girls are at Kiera’s because her parents believe in “freedom of expression,” and they can climb trees and catch frogs and lie on the living room floor with the cushions pulled off the couch, watching cartoons and eating sugary cereal from metal mixing bowls for hours. At Ava’s house they are tomboys, they are lazy, they are getting on her mother’s last nerve. Her mother doesn’t approve of Kiera, but they’ve been friends for two months — late August, when the eighth grade started — ever since Kiera came up to her during gym and told her: I feel like I’m drowning, and though there was no water in sight, Ava knew what she meant. It was the type of feeling she herself sometimes got, a heaviness, an airlessness, that was hard to talk about, especially with her mother. Trying to name it was like pulling up words from her belly, bucketful after bucketful, all that effort but they never quite meant what she wanted them to.
Excerpt of "Milk Blood Heat," 2021. From the story collection Milk Blood Heat, published by Grove Atlantic.
“My intention is to make poetic an idea-driven, propositional, and self-implicating art situated within social anxieties by reimagining sites of contest, controversy, and consequence into those of generative public pedagogy, curiosity, and discourse.”
![A grayscale photograph of a man with long dark hair wearing glasses. The photograph has little light, which causes his dark hair and black shirt to fade into the background.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/c799a5b9-f1bf-4d6e-b4fc-1edb99afa41b/cristobal-martinez-headshot-courtesy-of-the-artist.jpg?crop=1080%2C1080%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Cristóbal Martinez
Installation Artist
![Nine images of landscapes, all featuring bodies of water, displayed on a surround-style projector. Two low-top rectangular benches are dimly lit in the center of what appears to be an exhibition-style projector room.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/d2e70bee-27bd-41e3-a061-bd7e97425a90/cristobal-martinez-work-sample-1-going-to-water.jpeg?crop=9504%2C6163%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Going to Water, 2021. By Postcommodity. Multi-channel video and sound. Installation view of Postcommodity: Time Holds All The Answers. Remai Modern Museum, Saskatoon, SK.
Photo by Blaine Campbell, courtesy of Remai Modern Museum.
“My work encourages everyday people to dream about liberatory futures in their built environments.”
![A dark-skinned woman wearing a red sleeveless top and black-rimmed glasses looks out to her left.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/fa66ac2a-7e62-4044-a35f-d2bca70b486f/maya-bird-murphy-headshot-by-nolis-anderson.jpg?crop=1920%2C1920%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Maya Bird-Murphy
Architectural Designer
![A group of high school students leaning over on a wooden table working collaboratively on a conceptual design. Papers detailing the floorplan are scattered across the table.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/52060cdb-9a01-4b6a-ac82-d59ed9a6ddbb/maya-bird-murphy-work-sample-1-1.jpg?crop=1920%2C1440%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Students collaborate on a conceptual design for a new community hub.
Photo courtesy of Mobile Makers.
“I write the stories I wanted to read as a young Black girl in white spaces that offered me very little reflection of my own image — stories of outsiders who eschew easy categorization, stories of the absurdities of everyday life and the absurdities of Blackness in everyday life.”
![A Black woman in a blue-checked dress stands in front of a dark background.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/68871028-75b0-4c60-a7cd-a9f6a6ff7c34/nafissa-thompson-spires-headshot-by-adrianne-mathiowetz.jpg?crop=1920%2C1920%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Nafissa Thompson-Spires
Writer
Dr. Burton was having a no-good, very bad day, and I was more than a little proud of my role in it. I watched from the eaves of her beamed kitchen as she burned her coffee and then her tongue, cussing a little, and then as her boys — all five of them — fought her requests, demands, and eventual threats that they had better eat their cereal breakfasts or else no tv that evening and no video games. Te baby gummed a frozen teething ring without comfort and wailed even as she lifted him from his highchair and bounced him between her shoulder and hip around the exquisite space — white glass-paned cabinets and a matching walk-in pantry, turquoise and royal blue hand-cut tilework on the backsplash, stainless steel appliances, and a separate maid’s kitchen, in addition to the bar and island. Not my taste, mind you, but representative of a certain level of comfort she could only afford at the expense of people like me and her husband’s job as a professor of mechanical engineering at the selfsame university where I used to teach.
Outside, the devil beat his wife all morning, the sun glistening through lush raindrops that ran down the street and threatened flash foods on local radio, and while I don’t perform the devil’s bidding, only my own, I delighted in his contribution of additional stressors as Dr. Burton made her way to her car, parked in the driveway despite her three-car garage. I turned her umbrella inside out just as she managed to spill her travel mug onto and partly into her Wellington boots. Her limp brown hair hung about her neck in soaked clumps and dripped onto her collar. She pinched the bridge of her nose before backing out and into her commute to the hospital, stalled four times by detours where workers had placed sandbags and hazard signs. It would be a glorious day for me, to be sure, though I hadn’t outlined my course of actions yet. Rather than a set plan — though there are consistencies — I like to respond to her as the day proceeds. This method seems to cause the most damage.
Excerpt of “The Old Doctor's Story, Or The Haunting of Mill Creek Medical Facility,” 2021. Ploughshares.
“I aim to create inclusive, joyous, and inspiring collaborations where the art we create is a reflection of the society we live in and building toward a future society we want to inhabit.”
![A woman wearing a navy-blue top with dark-gray hijab crosses her arms and looks into the horizon with a slight smile. Behind her are railings and an out-of-focus background.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/496785f0-d9b5-4dff-b7e4-87a0c4687cd7/kholoud-sawaf-headshot-by-sarah-bentham-for-npr.jpg?crop=1920%2C1920%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Kholoud Sawaf
Theater Director
We Are Here. Video courtesy of Kholoud Sawaf.
“My art poses and processes my questions, such as: What might freedom — a reality that elevates culture, life, wisdom, the intangible and mysterious — look like? Can we achieve it?”
![A woman peers over her left shoulder with a black mesh hat and denim vest. She is wearing gold half moon–shaped earrings, and half of her face is painted silver.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/6f632cd0-dffe-46c3-bf71-dbadcd8361ae/marjani-forte-saunders-headshot-by-angel-origgi.jpg?crop=1920%2C1920%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Marjani Forté-Saunders
Choreographer, Conjurer, Corporal Spellcaster, and Storyteller
PROPHET trailer. Video courtesy of the artist.
“I’m interested in the gap between what happened and how we talk about it — how that gap operates in the space of an individual life, in the space of a family, and in the space of a country.”
![A Black woman wearing a blue dress and black jacket. She is standing in front of a bookshelf smiling and wearing red lipstick.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/962c224f-e0f5-4b15-98b2-66d61247cf4f/danielle-evans-headshot-by-larry-canner-jhu.jpg?crop=1920%2C1920%2C0%2C0&width=1000)
Danielle Evans
Fiction Writer
Danielle Evans reading an excerpt of the novel Look Back at It at the Hammer Museum. Video by Hammer Museum.