17th Annual Black New England Conference:
I, Too, Sing: Art, Music, and Writing in Our BIPOC Communities
Biographies of Panelists and Moderators
In order of appearance
GUIDED TOUR
L’Merchie Frazier, visual activist, public historian, educator, commissioned publiic artist, innovator, and poet, is Executive Director of Creative and Strategic Planning for SPOKE Arts and was formerly Director of Education and Interpretation for the Museum of African American History, Boston/Nantucket. Her innovative focus supports social and reparative justice and the quest for civil and human rights through the lens of five hundred years of Black and Indigenous history. She was awarded the Boston Foundation Brother Thomas Fellowship. She is a member of the City of Boston Reparations Task Force.
Frazier has served the artistic community as an award winning national and international visual and performance artist in one life work “Save Me From My Amnesia”, with residencies in Brazil, Taiwan, Costa Rica, Africa, France, and Cuba that feature public community projects. She is a life -time member of Women of Color Network Quilters. Her collected works are in the Smithsonian, the White House, Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the Dallas Museum of Art. Most recently exhibited her one-woman show in England and now has an additional work acquired by the Smithsonian Renwick Gallery. She is a State of Massachusetts Arts Commissioner.
I Remember, Reclaim, Restore, Reimagine
Artist / African American Master Artist in Residence Program
Northeastern University
Laurel Schlegel is a Public History M.A. student at Northeastern University. She graduated from the University of Denver in 2021 with a bachelors in History and minors in Spanish and Critical Race and Ethnic Studies. Her research interests include oral history and community activism. Laurel has been working as a conference coordinator for the Black New England Conference
PANEL #1:
GENERATIONS RISING: RECOVERING LANGUAGE AND CULTURE
Silvermoon Mars LaRose is a member of the Narragansett Tribe and the Assistant Director of the Tomaquag Museum. She has worked in tribal communities for over 20 years, serving in the areas of health and human services, education, and humanities. As a public servant, Silvermoon serves on the Rhode Island State Council for the Arts, and as the secretary for the Charlestown Conservation Commission. Additionally, she is the vice chair for the Avenue Concept supporting local public art ecosystems. As an artist and educator, she hopes to foster Indigenous empowerment through education, community building, and the sharing of cultural knowledge and traditional arts. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology, a minor in Justice Law and Society from the University of Rhode Island, and a partially completed Masters in Rehabilitation Counseling from Western Washington University.
Dr. Dottie Morris (host) is the Associate Vice President for Institutional Equity and Diversity and a member of the College President’s Cabinet at Keene State College. Her main foci are providing support and direction to the Executive, Academic Affairs, Enrollment and Student Engagement, Advancement, and Finance and Administration divisions of the college as the institution works to fulfill its commitment to diversity and multiculturalism.
For years, Dottie has worked with undergraduate and graduate students in the capacity of counselor, teacher, academic advisor, and advisor of student groups. She has demonstrated a consistent and persistent dedication and devotion to diversity, inclusion, multiculturalism and social justice over the past two decades. Prior to her position as Associate Vice President of Institutional Equity and Diversity at KSC, she served as the Associate Dean for Student Learning at World Learning School for International Training Institute (SIT) in Brattleboro, VT, the Director of Student Affairs for the Clinical Mental Health Counseling Program at Antioch University New England in Keene and staff counselor at the Colorado State University Counseling Center and the Coordinator of the Employee Assistance Program.
PANEL #2:
THE PEOPLE COULD FLY: MYTHS, LEGENDS, FOLKTALES, AND SONG
Dr. Akeia de Barros Gomes is currently the Senior Curator of Maritime Social Histories at Mystic Seaport Museum. She is also the Director of the Frank C. Munson Institute of American Justice. Akeia earned her MA and PhD in Anthropology/ Archaeology at the University of Connecticut and her BA at Salve Regina University. Before engaging in museum work, Akeia was a Professor in the Departments of American Studies and Psychology and Human Development at Wheelock College from 2008-2017. She was is a Visiting Scholar at Brown University’s Ruth Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery.
Akeia works on curatorial projects on race, Indigenous histories, ethnicity, and diversity in New England’s Maritime activities. She is currently the lead curator for the 2024 Mystic Seaport exhibition, Entwined: The Sea, Sovereignty and Freedom, a multi-year Mellon Foundation-funded project that reimagines the history of the founding and development of New England through Indigenous, African, and African American maritime narratives. Dr. de Barros Gomes has engaged in archaeological fieldwork on the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Reservation in Mashantucket, CT; in the US Virgin Islands and in Newport, RI.
Mintzi Martínez-Rivera is an Anthropologist and Folklorist whose research and teaching focuses on Latin American indigenous youth culture, indigenous popular culture, expressive cultural practices, and Critical Indigenous and Anti-Oppressive research methodologies. Mintzi received her Ph.D. at Indiana University-Bloomington in 2014. In June 2021, her co-edited volume with Dr. Solimar Otero, Theorizing Folklore from the Margins: Critical and Ethical Approaches was published by Indiana University Press. She spent time as an Assistant Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Providence College and as a member of the Executive Board of the American Folklore Society. Recently, she was awarded a 6-month Career Enhancement Fellowship for Junior Faculty from the Institute for Scholars and Citizens that will allow her to conduct a year-long research project in Mexico. She is currently an Assistant Professor of English (Folklore) and Latinx Studies at The Ohio State University.
Cliff Notez is a multi–digital media artist, musician, entrepreneur, and filmmaker from Boston, Massachusetts. Notez graduated from Wheaton College with a dual degree in music (voice concentration) and psychology in 2013. He then graduated from Northeastern University in 2016 with a master's degree in digital media. While attending graduate school in 2015, he simultaneously took a position at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston as the teen new media programs associate.
As an educator and administrator for digital media programs and events, Notez began his own digital media company, HipStory. Rooted in hip-hop, his art tackles the political and the personal, exploring the intimate consequences of a society where black bodies are easily ignored, forgotten, or disregarded. Notez’s art is also a continuous exploration of the black mind.
He is known for albums such as “Why the Wild Things Are,” produced in 2019. His films have been official selections for 20+ film festivals.
Dr. Pierre Morton (moderator) serves as Chief Diversity Officer and Adjunct Professor at Franklin Pierce University.
The son of a small business owner and political activist, Pierre witnessed the struggles his parents and grandparents overcome while growing up in Arizona, Illinois and Washington states. As the grandson of a Southern Baptist Minister, Pierre’s purpose sprung from his spiritual foundation – to serve God, clean house and help others! This purpose has been evident in his commitment to personal development and to the development of those around him.
Most recently, Pierre served as the Executive Director of Career Services at Franklin Pierce University. He was the Assistant Director of Human Resources and Administration for the Yale Young Global Scholars Program and the Yale Young African Scholars Program administering the budgeting, HR, and compensation services. Prior to joining the Yale University Global Scholars team, Pierre worked in various positions of increasing responsibility at the Yale University Health Center as an Ambassador Coordinator, Sr. Administrative Assistant, to Call Center Manager and finally as the Chief of Staff to the President of Yale Health. Pierre graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Human Resource Management from Albertus Magnus College, a Master of Business Administration from the University of New Haven, and holds a Doctorate in Higher Education Leadership & Policy from Wilmington University.
Pierre is currently Chair of the Monadnock Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Coalition, a board member of the Manchester NAACP Education Committee, a board member of the National Association of Colleges and Employers; a board member on the Keene Family YMCA; a committee member on the City of Keene Racial Justice & Safety Committee and serves on the Keene YMCA Social Justice Committee. Pierre also serves on the Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation Steering Committee. Past board memberships include the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce Human Resource Steering Committee and a voting board member of SistaHood Support Services Inc. in New Haven, Connecticut. His work has been featured in the New England Journal of Higher Education, USA Today and the Keene Sentinel.
Happily residing in Keene, New Hampshire with his husband, Michael Giuliano and son, Christopher Garcia since July of 2019.
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McKinley Wallace III, a mixed-media painter and art educator, received his Master of Arts in Teaching and Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees from Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). His studio work has been shown in solo exhibitions at 3S Artspace, MICA, York College, Waller Gallery, and Creative Alliance, as well as group shows at Goucher College, African American Museum of Dallas, Band of Vices, Carroll Mansion, Washington Project for the Arts, Arlington Art Center, Main Line Art Center, Towson University, and Terrault Gallery. In recognition of his craft, he has received many awards, including the Maryland State Arts Council’s Individual Artist Award, the Bethesda Painting Award, and the Baker Artist Award.
Uta G. Poiger (host), in her role as Special Advisor to the Provost on Humanics, works with colleagues, students, and partners across Northeastern’s global campus system to foster signature educational initiatives in the context of Northeastern’s experiential learning model and the university’s New Academic Plan.
Poiger previously served as Dean of the College of Social Science and Humanities at Northeastern University. She worked with the college’s faculty, staff, and students to enhance leadership in the Experiential Liberal Arts. Under her guidance, the college developed three areas of strategic focus: the intersections of resilience and sustainability; cultural transformations, governance, and globalization; and network science, digital humanities, and information ethics. Together with Richard Daynard, she led the committee that formulated Northeastern’s new general education curriculum NUpath, implemented in 2016.
Together with Angel Nieves, Kabria Baumgartner and Dan Cohen, Poiger leads the Mellon-funded initiative Reckonings: A Local History Platform for the Community Archivist.
PANEL #3: IN LIVING COLOR: RECONSTRUCTING THE CANON
Melina Hill Walker, as a program director at the Endowment for Health, focuses on projects to advance health equity in New Hampshire. She has worked for Dartmouth’s Aging Resource Center, as a grants coordinator for Visiting Nurse and Hospice for Vermont and New Hampshire, as a senior community health planner in New York City and as a public health volunteer in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Walker holds a master’s in Health Policy and Management from Harvard and a bachelor’s from Brown University. She has also served in volunteer and board roles for several academic and nonprofit organizations, including Dartmouth Hitchcock and the Upper Valley Hostel.
Walker’s father, Errol Gaston Hill was an expert on Caribbean and African American theater. A proud son of Trinidad & Tobago, Hill was the first tenured Black Professor at Dartmouth College. He taught at Dartmouth College from 1968 until his retirement in 1989. Hill studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London before attending Yale University, where he graduated in 1962. He subsequently earned both a master’s degree and a doctorate in Theater History at Yale’s School of Drama. Hill directed more than 120 plays and pageants and was the author of several award-winning books, including Shakespeare in Sable: a History of Black Shakespearean Actors.
Dr. Denise Khor is a media historian working on early cinema history, film preservation, and Asian American film and media culture. Denise received her Ph.D. at the University of California. In 2019-2020, she was a faculty fellow at Harvard University’s Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History. Denise is currently a professor at Northeastern University, where she is jointly appointed in the Department of Cultures, Societies, and Global Studies (CSSH) and the Department of Art + Design (CAMD), with a courtesy appointment in History. Her areas of research specialization include film and media history, early cinema, nontheatrical film, critical ethnic studies, and Asian American Studies.
She is the author of Transpacific Convergences: Race, Migration and Japanese American Film Culture before World War II, which explores the historical experiences of Japanese Americans at the cinema and traces an alternative network of film production, circulation, and exhibition. She has published work in Film Quarterly, Pacific Historical Review, Southern California Quarterly, and The Rising Tide of Color: Race, State Violence, and Radical Movements Across the Pacific (edited by Moon Ho-Jung, 2014), among other publications. She is working on her next book project "The Invisible Hand: A History of Asian Americans in the Animation Industry."
Alison C. Rollins is a 2023-2024 Harvard Radcliffe Institute Fellow and was named a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow in 2019. In 2021, her essay "Dispatch from the Racial Mountain" was selected by contest judge Kiese Laymon as the winner of the Gulf Coast prize in nonfiction. Her work, across genres, has appeared or is forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Black Warrior Review, Iowa Review, The New York Times Magazine, and elsewhere. A Cave Canem and Callaloo fellow, she was a 2016 recipient of the Poetry Foundation’s Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship. In 2018, she was a recipient of the Rona Jaffe Writers' Award and in 2020, the winner of a Pushcart Prize. Her debut poetry collection, Library of Small Catastrophes (Copper Canyon Press, 2019) was a 2020 Hurston/Wright Foundation Legacy Award nominee. Rollins holds an MFA from Brown University and is an assistant professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Omarthan Clarke is the Assistant Director for Diversity, Inclusion, and Equal Opportunity at Worcester State University and an Instructor of Art Education at Ohio State University. Passionate about uplift and social justice, he continually works to effect change in higher education spaces. He holds a Master's Degree in Arts Policy and Administration from Ohio State University where he completed a hybrid program that focuses on critical discussions of Aesthetic Theory, Pedagogical Theory, and Public Policy. Raised in America as a Jamaican, Omarthan embodies the cultural traits (and celebrates the combined history) of these great nations in referring to himself as “Jamerican”. He produces artwork and creative experiences that foster discourse through an emphasis on social justice and culture. His artistic inspiration comes from the experiences he had growing up - complex cultural and spiritual dynamics, inefficiencies, obstacles in colonized educational spaces, and unexpected counter-narratives amidst it all. He has exhibited in several galleries in California, Ohio, and Massachusetts. His portfolio may be viewed at www.omarthan.com.
Karen Dade (moderator) received her doctorate in education from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1994 with a specialization in cultural diversity and curriculum reform. She is currently a professor emerita at Western Washington University. She is also the CEO and founder of the Multicultural International Development Company, LLC., a cross-cultural education network and consulting agency. Dr. Dade is a visual and performing artist and educator. Her area of research for more than 30 years has been social justice arts education and combating racism in schools. She has authored such books as, Through Students' Eyes: Combating Racism in United States Schools, Shattering the Denial: Protocols for the Classroom and Beyond, and Divine N Promise: A Difficult Journey, and throughout her career has contributed numerous chapters to books and articles to refereed journal publications. Her recent research, as principal investigator, focused on anti-Blackness and wellbeing in predominantly White spaces. Out of this work, she continues to produce publications, give scholarly presentations, and mentor up-and-coming scholars in this field. Dr. Dade has been the recipient of many recognition awards during her career, including, the Humanitarian Award, Women of Color Award, Equity and Justice Award, International Scholar Award, as well as numerous teaching excellence awards.
Dr. Dade is also an internationally recognized scholar, having traveled to approximately 40 countries as a research scholar-in-residence and/or presenter in areas of social justice and anti-discrimination education reform. Some of her noted international work includes comparative antiracist education studies and the development of education abroad programs in South Africa, non-discriminatory education transformation in India, and cultural sustainability education abroad programs in the Cabo Verde Islands.
KEYNOTE CONVERSATION
Robin Stone released the original version of the single “Show Me Love” in 1990. The track was produced by Fred McFarlane and went on to become a moderate success. In 1993, the track was remixed by the Swedish DJ and producer Stonebridge and re-released under the artist’s name “Robin S.” With big beat records in 1993. This release climbed the charts the same year, as did her first album, also titled Show Me Love. The remixed version of “Show Me Love” peaked at #1 on the hot dance music/club play, #1 on the hot dance singles sales, #7 on the hot r&b/hip-hop singles and tracks, and #5 on the Billboard Hot 100. It also peaked at #4 on the Rhythmic Top 40 chart. The success earned her a spot on the 1994 “American Music Awards” as a performer. The follow-up singles, “Luv 4 Luv” and “What I do Best”, saw similar success.
A house diva whose productions use live instrumentation just as much as electronics, Robin S. debuted on the scene with the top ten hit “Show Me Love.” The Queens, New York native was signed by Big Beat Records in 1993 and debuted with the hot single, which climbed the charts during 1994 and spurred her first album, also titled Show Me Love. After working on her songwriting for several years, she began recruiting producers such as Eric “E-Smoove” Miller and Todd Terry to work on her second album. Released in 1997 on Atlantic, “From Now On” reflected broader interests for Robin S., encompassing gospel and ballads in addition to HI-NRG dance floor material.
PANEL #4: A CONVERSATION WITH PLAYWRIGHT KIRSTEN GREENIDGE
Kirsten Greenidge is a playwright from Boston, Massachusetts. She attended Wesleyan University where she studied playwriting and won her first playwriting award. Kirsten then received her MFA from the University of Iowa. Kirsten’s work explores the intersections of race, class, and gender as she seeks to create more multidimensional roles for underrepresented actors of color, more roles for women, and plays that challenge mainstream audiences and provoke change. She is known for such works as The Luck of the Irish, Baltimore, and Milk Like Sugar. For her play Milk Like Sugar, Kirsten received the Village Voice Obie Award, a Lucille Lortel nomination, an AUDELCO nomination, and an Independent Reviewers of New England (IRNE) Award. Kirsten is currently a playwright in residence at Company One Theatre in Boston, Massachusetts, as part of the Mellon Foundation's National Playwright Residency Program. She is also an Assistant Professor of Theatre at the School of Theatre at Boston University.
Jovanna Jones (Host) is an Assistant Professor of African American Literature and Culture at Boston College. There, she teaches 20th and 21st-century African-American cultural production. She specializes in visual studies and photography, space and place, and Black feminist criticism. Jovonna holds her Ph.D. and MA from Harvard University and BA from Emory University. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, and the Provost's Fellows Program at Dartmouth College.
Jovanna’s current project, “The Last Thanksgiving at West Rutland Square,” blends family history, spatial study, and visual archives to honor Black life in Boston’s South End in the wake of displacement. She is also at work on “Haven,” a visual and architectural study of Black women’s rooming houses, exploring how these sites emerged as early examples of Black feminist world-building in the twentieth century.
PANEL #5: RE-FRAMING THE MUSIC: HIP HOP AND ITS INFLUENCE ON THE BIPOC COMMUNITY
Representing the Lakota Nation, Frank Waln is a multi-genre music artist, public speaker, and curator from the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota. He received a BA in Audio Arts & Acoustics from Columbia College Chicago where he was given the Mayor’s Award for Civic Engagement at graduation.
Frank Waln uses his platform and works to speak out on injustices in the US and the colonization of Native land and communities. His music is a fusion of multiple genres expressed through Lakota instruments, language, and electronic music production creating a unique sound rooted in a culture that is older than America itself. His performance style is rooted in the Lakota tradition of storytelling which helped him carve out a unique space within Indian Country and the music industry at large.
Frank Waln has received several national awards, artist fellowships, and residencies for his work including three Native American Music Awards, NDN Collective’s Radical Imagination Fellowship, and the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation Artist Fellowship. Frank Waln has performed and presented in museums and art institutions around the world including the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, the Linden Museum in Germany, and the Kennedy Center. He has appeared on radio and television for his work including MTV, ESPN, Al Jazeera, and NPR.
As a curator, Frank Waln designed a music interactive space in the new Native American Exhibition Hall at the Field Museum in Chicago. Frank Waln was recently commissioned by Harvard University's Committee on the Arts to curate a living memorial on campus to honor his great-grandmother who was a survivor of Indian boarding schools. Frank Waln’s music is available on all streaming platforms.
Lai Frances is a multimedia journalist and producer who focuses on music, pop culture, and entertainment. Graduating from Rutgers University-Newark in 2015, Lai carries degrees in Video Production and Journalism with experience in radio, live broadcasting, publishing, and social media.
She is currently a Managing Producer at CNET by day and a Contributing Writer/Host by night focusing on music and K-pop. You can find some of Lai's bylines on UPROXX, Teen Vogue, PopCrush, NME, and MTV News while being a host for KCON and NME's In Conversation. To date, Lai has written special features on K-pop acts such as TWICE, TAEYANG, ITZY, BTS' Jin, Stray Kids, aespa, KAI, and many more. As an Asian-American in the media, Lai strives to use her platform to share the plethora of stories from musical acts to push diversity in Western music and media.
Mr. Goodbarz is a Massachusetts-based hip-hop musician and producer. He is the owner of Toybox Studios, a keyboardist, an audio engineer, and an educator. Mr. Goodbarz is also a battle rapper and juggalo artist. He was the former keyboardist of Sepsiss.
Dart Adams (moderator) is a native Bostonian journalist, historian, lecturer, researcher, and author. His work has appeared in various online and print publications including Complex, NPR, Mass Appeal, Okayplayer, Ebony, LEV
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Theo Wilson began his speaking career in the NAACP at the age of 15 and has always had a passion for social justice. He attended Florida A&M University, where he obtained his B.A. in Theater Performance. Theo returned to Denver and is now the Executive Director of Shop Talk Live, Inc. The organization uses the barbershop as a staging ground for community dialogue and healing. After viral video success beginning in 2015, Theo grew his social media following to well over 70,000 people. Due to audience demand, he published his first book in 2017, The Law of Action. The book addresses some of the misconceptions about the law of attraction, and the role direct action plays in manifestation. It can be found on Amazon.com or on his website, TheoWilson.net. In 2017, his TED Talk entitled, “A Black Man Goes Undercover in the Alt-Right,” was seen worldwide, amassing a total of over 17 million views.
Theo is the host of The History Channel’s hit series, “I Was There.” He has been featured on Good Morning America, BuzzFeed, CNN, Good Day Canada, and TV One.
Lavette Coney (host) is an African American woman from Roxbury, MA, a predominantly Black and Brown neighborhood of Boston created by redlining, “urban renewal” and economic divesting. As the neighborhood association president, she recognizes how the trauma of Black people continues through living with hazardous contaminants, gentrification after decades of decay, and political disenfranchisement. Lavette has been a co-facilitator since 2016 and is the current leader of White People Challenging Racism (WPCR). After years of anti-racist work, she recognized that racism is a White problem and a burden on our society.
PANEL #6: I AM THE FUTURE: INNOVATION IN THE ARTS AMONG BIPOC GROUPS
C. Rose Smith (she/them) is a Boston-based visual artist. In her work, Smith examines the role of photography in constructing identity and individuality. Using fashion, site-specificity and elements gleaned from studio-portraiture, her photographs distill a subversive performance that gestures a critique of social norms. Observing the present to distill missing historiographies from the Western canon, she engages uncharted narratives in her practice to offer a more complete record of history.
Smith’s recent achievements include the 2023 Prix Picto De La Mode Top 10 Finalists with Picto Foundation Paris, France and 2023 Coup de Coeur Award with Leica Camera Paris, France, 2022 Inaugural Silver List of Emerging Photographers and was a 2021 finalist for the Aperture Magazine Portfolio Review Prize. Smith’s work has been featured in group exhibitions at Hangar Arts Center in Brussels, Belgium; Fotofest Biennial, Houston, TX; Blue Star Contemporary, San Antonio, TX; SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, GA; and Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, Atlanta.
Kimberly Villafuerte Barzola is a first generation Quechua Peruvian artist and aspiring librarian. Her primary mediums include muralism, relief printmaking, and acrylic painting. She is motivated to create and respond to the social movements she participates in, in the US and across Latin America.
Barzola was born and raised in Massachusetts, in the North Shore. She is a long time multilingual organizer in Boston for racial and economic justice. She recently graduated from Simmons University School of Library and Information Science with a concentration in archival management. In Barzola’s work as a librarian, her interests are focused on digital preservation and documentation of non-Western cultural heritage information and expanding public access to it. She has contributed to oral history projects at the Boston Public Library and has worked at the Aga Khan Documentation Center and Harvard Law School Library Digital Lab.
Dzidor (Jee-Jaw) Azaglo is a Boston-based African folklore performing artist, author, entrepreneur and curator. Dzidor is the founder of Black Cotton Club and partners with Grubstreet, ICA Boston, and Boston Public Schools to teach creative empowerment workshops in Boston.
Dzidor was born in Italy to Ghanaian parents and raised in North Carolina. She’s immersed herself in merging cultures from the South to Ghanaian culture. Her debut poetry collection, “For Girls Who Cry in Yellow,” explores the healing process through the perspective of African women. Dzidor uses a style of call and response to combine traditional storytelling in Afro-folklore and POetry Slam through a sonic experience. She has reimagined poetry and storytelling as a way to include the audience and challenge, inspire and encourage self beyond traditional forms. Dzidor has been nominated twice for a Boston Music Award.
Crystal Bi (she/they) is a queer, mixed race, Taiwanese American, multimedia artist working in the public realm. Her participatory art projects explore themes of imagination, creative archiving, and belonging. Her practice includes weaving sculptures with natural materials, collecting voice messages, and creating installations out of plexiglass.
As a public artist, professor at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, and Creative Engagement Consultant with Design Studio for Social Intervention, Crystal works with others to design interventions that imagine possible futures.
She is currently fulfilling a dream to create a Department of Imagination through the Public Art for Spatial Justice cohort. www.crystal-bi.com
Bithiah Carter (moderator) is the President at New England Blacks in Philanthropy, a membership driven organization. She is focusing on informing, reforming and transforming the practice of philanthropic giving. Formerly, she was executive director of Grand Circle Foundation, senior director in the division of Community Impact at United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley, and program director at the Girls’ Coalition of Greater Boston. She has also served as a consultant in the philanthropic sector, focusing on the needs of children and families in the Greater Boston and surrounding areas. Before entering the non-profit sector, she worked for nearly ten years in the financial services industry in New York, NY and Boston, MA. In addition, she serves on the boards of several local and national non-profit organizations.
