Austin Robey, Ampled Co-op, New York, NY

Austin is a co-founder of Ampled, a cooperatively owned web platform that allows musicians to be directly supported by their community. He is interested in the development of alternative economies and building a more democratic, equitable, and inclusive online economy. Austin is a member of NEW INC, the cultural incubator program at New Museum in NYC, and a recent graduate of the start.coop accelerator program. Austin has a Bachelor of Architecture from Pratt Institute and is based in Brooklyn, NY.

www.ampled.com

Taelor Barton, Kirsten Kirby-Shoote, I-Collective

Taelor Barton (Cherokee Nation) is from Tulsa, Oklahoma and has studied Culinary Arts at OSU-IT and Tulsa Tech. She has worked in kitchens and private caterings for over a decade, serving up Tulsa local and fresh cuisine, with a background in indigenous cultural foods. Her passion is furthering Indigenous Food Sovereignty movement and bringing awareness and preservation of Cherokee and native cultures.

@madskillsbarton

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Kirsten Kirby-Shoote is a Tlingit food activist, urban farmer and pop-up chef originally from Portland, Ore. In 2015, she moved to Detroit in order to explore Indigenous food sovereignty and it's integration into urban landscapes. Kirsten is dedicated to providing the community with access to traditional foods/medicines, her agriculture project (Leilú Gardens) has the mission to cultivate relationships with our plant relatives and help heal the wounds of ancestral trauma. She also hosts pop-up dinners in Detroit to raise awareness of the local Indigenous food-movement and creating a more equitable food system.

@leilugardens @_challahgram

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The I-Collective strives to open a dialogue and create a new narrative that highlights not only historical Indigenous contributions, but also promotes their community's resilience and innovations in gastronomy, agriculture, the arts, and society at large.

Sacramento Knoxx, Detroit, MI

Sacramento Knoxx is a hardworking interdisciplinary artist with strong roots in Detroit from the southwest side. He produces a sound of electronic, indigenous, ghettotech, afro-latino, hip hop, soul, and rhythm & blues. Knoxx versatile background with different forms of music, allows him to blend traditional and contemporary styles creating dynamic storytelling experiences with live music performances, dancing, & video projections that take audiences on a participatory journey and a creative experience. Currently he shares interactive music performances, blending captured moments in life & creative imagery through large projection motion graphics. Building from raw experience and grit his works send vibrations to help assemble the worlds we want to live in.

https://ampl.ink/gG5le

Mondo Bizarro and The Land Memory Bank, Invisible Rivers, New Orleans, LA

Invisible Rivers is a project that employs the artistic practices of music, theater and boat-building to respond to our region’s interconnected struggles against coastal land loss, environmental racism and displacement. We are building boats in rapidly disappearing areas of our coast and hosting dialogues and performances on them. We want to make clear the invisible crop of memories and adaptations that permeate the ancestral paths of rivers and the people who once lived along their banks. We are physically modeling ideas about how we can learn to live with fluctuation, to live with uncertainty, to live in symbiosis with our increasingly watery world.

http://www.mondobizarro.org/

http://landmemorybank.org/

https://anothergulf.com/

Miracle Jones, Pittsburgh, PA

Miracle Jones is a community organizer and queer activist who works in the Pittsburgh area to advocate for equity along the intersections of gender, race, and class.Her work focuses on implementing abolition based principles and transformative justice through writing, policy, and advocacy.

@MiujizaMilagro

@1HOOD

@1hoodpower

Shani Peters, Joseph Cuillier, The Black School, New York, NY

The Black School (TBS) is an experimental art school teaching Black/PoC students and allies to become agents of change through art workshops on radical Black politics and public interventions that address local community needs. TBS was founded by Joseph Cuillier III and Shani Peters in 2016. We are socially engaged artists, designers, and educators working at the intersections of K-12/university teaching, art, design, and activism. In four years we have served 400+ students, facilitated 100+ workshops and classes, produced three Black Love Fests, collaborated with more than 40 professional artists, trained and employed 16 design apprentices, and partnered with 50+ organizations.

theblack.school

Instagram: @theblackschool

jackie sumell, Solitary Gardens and the Prisoner's Apothecary, New Orleans, LA

jackie sumell’s work is at the intersection of abolition, social practice, contemplative studies, and kindness. She has spent the last 2-decades working directly with incarcerated folx, notably, her elders Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox. Her work has been exhibited extensively throughout the U.S. and Europe. She has been the recipient of multiple residencies and fellowships including, but not limited to, an A Blade of Grass Fellowship, Creative Capital, Art for Justice, Robert Rauschenberg Artist-as-Activist Fellowship, Soros Justice Fellowship, Eyebeam Project Fellowship and a Schloss Solitude Residency Fellowship. For almost 20-years, jackie sumell’s work has invited us to imagine a landscape without prisons. She is based in New Orleans, Louisiana where she continues to work on Herman's House, Solitary Gardens, The Prisoner’s Apothecary and several other community generated, monumental love projects.

solitarygardens.org

@solitarygardens

Ana Rodney, MOMCares, Baltimore, MD

Ana Rodney is a Doula who has been practicing for 13 years. Ana Rodney is a yoga instructor, energy healer, and wellness practitioner based in Baltimore City. Ana Rodney runs MOMCares as the Executive Director and founder. MOMCares is a doula program that supports black women navigating high risk pregnancies and/or NICU involvement after birth. MOMCares seeks to bring awareness to the Black Maternal Health Crisis and advocate for equitably compassionate care across care systems interacting with black mothers in Baltimore City. Ana has spoken and led workshops throughout the DMV, addressing audiences at Johns Hopkins Hospital, University of Maryland Medical System, Greater Baltimore Medical Center, and George Washington University. Ana Rodney is a graduate of Morgan State University. MOMCares is represented on the Baltimore City Mayor's Women's Commission, Maryland Breastfeeding Coalition, Reproductive Health Equity Alliance of Maryland and BCIITY Coalition. Ana Rodney serves as a perinatal mental Health consultant for the Baltimore City Health Department . Ana is a current OSI Community Fellow. Finally, Ana is most importantly mother to Aiden Rodney, age 5.

www.therisingmomcares.com