Michal Alpern
Michal Alpern is a New York based artist with an MFA from Columbia University and a BFA from Bezalel Academy, Jerusalem. Alpern’s practice shifts between making serieses of objects to room sized sculptures, reconciling spatial thoughts like gesture and materiality with abstractions like gender and domesticity. Her works were featured in museums and institutions in NY and Israel, including solo shows at M23 Gallery, NY, The Museum of Israeli Art, Israel and group shows at False Flag, NY and the LeRoy Neiman Center, NY.
Marcelo Arroyave
Marcelo Arroyave is a sociologist and urban anthropologist who has conducted quantitative and qualitative research in Colombia and the US. Since moving to NYC in 2014, he has worked in various urban settings as an after-school teacher, consecutive translator, marketing researcher, and community outreach specialist. Marcelo is also a creator, editor, and producer of fanzines and magazines. He was the founder and publisher of the MusaEnferma fanzine in Cali, Colombia (five editions). He also created Sursystem Magazine, which has eight editions so far. He published the magazine in Cali (3 editions), Bogotá (2 editions), Barcelona (2 editions in Catalan and Spanish), and NYC (1 edition in English and Spanish). The latest edition is The Sound Map of Salsa Music in NYC. Marcelo enjoys dancing to Salsa music and giving lectures whenever possible.
Nadia Bongo
Nadia Bongo is a teaching artist and translator with a PhD in French Language and Literature. She has earned a Brooklyn Poets Fellowship. Her writing or photographs have appeared in Solstice, Litro online, Taos journal of Poetry, African Voices, The Citron Review, Blue Mesa Review, and elsewhere. In 2023, Nadia co-directed an experimental short film, Wandering In Beauty, supported by the University Open Air program presented by BPL. Find her at https://www.nadiabongo.com/
Enrique Enriquez
For twenty years, Enrique Enriquez has sat in the same café, sending a steady signal into the world until one day, the world began to answer back. Not through prophecy or revelation, but through the voice of a sparrow.
What started as an intuitive leap became a profound discovery: the birds responded not necessarily to specific sounds, but to rhythm, to presence itself. In this dialogue with otherness, Enrique found not answers, but a way to live. The birds taught him that meaning isn't found in interpretation, but in the moment when we forget ourselves enough to let the world speak through us.
Roberto Granados
Roberto Granados is a guitarist and composer originally from Hayward, California. He holds a Bachelor of the Arts degree in Music from California State University East Bay, where he studied with Marc Teicholz, and the degrees Master of Music, Master of Musical Arts, and Artist Diploma from the Yale School of Music, where he studied with Benjamin Verdery. Roberto has performed widely in numerous venues in collaboration with various ensembles and artists, including the San Francisco Guitar Quartet, the California Symphony, the Santa Cruz Symphony, Jon Anderson of British progressive rock band Yes, and ukulele soloist Jake Shimabukuro.
Roberto composes music varying from solo and ensemble instrumental works to electronic and electroacoustic pieces, and often experimenting with elements of noise, improvisation, indeterminacy and altered tuning systems. He has premiered and composed new works for guitar and other instruments in collaboration with the Bay Area Composers Group collective, including several concerts at the Center for New Music in San Francisco and an online livestream premiere series.
Roberto has also performed extensively as a flamenco guitarist, and has released an album of flamenco music, Soñador (2018). He writes music for an internet-based solo multi-instrumental progressive metal project under the alias of The Halcyon Effect, and does work in audio production, performance art and visual art in his free time.
Naama Levit
Naama Levit is a chef and artist based in Brooklyn, NY. Her work explores food as a medium for cultural inquiry, critical thinking, and performance. With a background in both fine art and culinary practice, she has worked in restaurants, test kitchens, and food startups, blending research, experimentation, and storytelling. She collaborates with cultural institutions and teaches, developing projects that examine the intersections of food, materiality, and social dynamics.
Alisa Minyukova
Alisa Minyukova is a Russian born artist, researcher and educator based in Brooklyn, New York. She is co-creator of the Dream Mapping Project which works to bridge dream science with the creative process resulting in an ongoing series of collaborative art, film and performance works. Her drawings, film and mixed media installations explore world mythology and symbols of the collective unconscious.
Her research covers the topics of dreams, memories, liminality, emigration, heritage and the loss thereof and the exploration of the human condition by way of ancestral memory. Her current creative focus is on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine - a collective memory of war, and faith healing in South African cultures.
Dr. Chok Tenzin Monlam
Dr. Chok Tenzin Monlam has dedicated his career to the continuance of Tibetan Buddhist culture and language in modern society. Ordained by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, he studied and practiced as a Tibetan monk for ten years. Having advanced his studies through institutions for two decades, Dr. Chok has obtained multiple degrees in Buddhist and Tibetan studies, including his PhD from the University of Delhi. He has studied and trained for decades in Buddhist studies, Tibetan yoga, healing, and meditation under the direction of many renowned Tibetan teachers of the major and minor Tibetan Buddhist traditions. An author, translator, and language instructor, Dr. Chok served as the Head of the Research and Translation Department at the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives in Dharamsala for thirteen years before relocating to the United States in 2019. Dr. Chok has taught prolifically in India, the United States, and over a dozen other countries, offering diverse and inclusive teaching series on meditation, Tibetan yoga, healing, Buddhist philosophy, and Tibetan language.
Achiro Olwoch
Achiro P. Olwoch is an author, playwright and founder of Acirocan Books, a self-publishing brand dedicated to storytelling that sparks essential conversations. Through her work, Achiro delves into the realities of LGBTQ injustices, political oppression and social issues in Uganda, creating narratives that reflect the struggles of marginalized communities. Drawing on real situations while protecting identities, her stories resonate deeply, fostering dialogue and inspiring change. With a clear, courageous voice, Achiro’s mission is to bring untold stories to the forefront, challenging perceptions and advocating for a more inclusive just society.
Sarah Overton
Sarah Overton is a dynamic multi-genre cellist living and working in NYC. Sarah has been featured at venues including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Atlanta Symphony Hall, the Pantages Theater, and international stages in London, Paris, and Cardiff. She most recently performed with the Broadway Sinfonietta at L.A.’s Hollywood Bowl for the world premiere of Mattel’s “Barbie: The Movie in Concert” and completed a national tour as the Principal Cellist for Sony/Marvel’s “Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse Live in Concert '' series.
As an advocate for new music and genre-fusion she recently performed a premiere of Wondersmith Entertainment’s “Passing the Crown”: A celebration of women in hip-hop as a part of Lincoln Center’s Summer for the City, and is a frequent collaborator with Sound Off! Music for Bail, Choral Chameleon, NYU’s New Theater on Broadway, the NYChillharmonic, internationally renowned Cypriot fusion ensemble Sounds of Cyprus and many more. Sarah is also a versatile electric cellist who has performed on stages at Walt Disney World, Universal Studios Orlando, and recently made her compositional debut both at Re:Sound Festival in Cleveland, OH and as an Artist in Residence for The Movement Theatre Company.
Hilla Shapira
Hilla Shapira is a Fiber artist, costume designer and educator. Originally from Tel-Aviv, Israel,
and is currently based in Brooklyn, NY. Her work deals with the relationships between common
design and body regimen. By making functional mundane objects she questions design norms
and the political aspects of things. She has presented her work in Israel, Europe, and the USA
including: Art Basel (Miami, FL), Philadelphia Museum of Jewish Art (Philadelphia, PA), NY
Textile Month (NYC, NY), Jerusalem Design Week (Jerusalem, Israel), NY Jewelry week (NYC,
NY), Little Berlin Gallery, (Philadelphia, PA), Depo2015 (Pilsen, Czech Republic), Neve
Schechter Gallery (Tel-Aviv, Israel), Hansen House (Jerusalem, Israel), Textile Arts Center
(Brooklyn, NY) and Wasserman Projects (Detroit, MI). She was AIR in Carrizozo residency
(Carrizozo, NM), Popps Packing (Hamtramck, MI), Makerspace (Brooklyn, NY) and Neve
Schechter center (Tel-Aviv, Israel). She received her BFA in Fashion from Bezalel Academy,
Jerusalem, Israel and her MFA in Fiber from Cranbrook Academy, Bloomfield-Hills MI, USA.
Shapira's work had been featured in different publications including: Hyperallergic Magazine,
NY Jewish Week, Metalsmith Magazine, Portfolio Magazine, Haaretz, and the Jerusalem Post.
Denise Wiley
Denise Wiley is a journalist, public relations practitioner, and ESL instructor. Prior to moving to the US, Ms. Wiley lived in Japan where she taught business English, business communication and cultural awareness. She holds a BA in Media and Communication and is currently reading for the MA in International Migration Studies at The Graduate Center, CUNY.
Julia Adams
Julia Adams is a certified Life Coach at the NGO, Academy of Public Health and an educator at a private museum. She is also an expert in tea cultures, skilled in the subject of Chinese Tea Ceremony and Traditional Chinese Culture, especially Tang Dynasty's culture etc. Prior to relocating to New York from Shanghai, Julia was a news anchor and hosted citywide events; she then became an HR director and often hosted nationwide conferences on HR-related topics. Julia is also a zither player, certified by Shanghai Conservatory of Music.