Kat Agudo (she/they) is a Filipinx playwright, screenwriter, poet, graphic artist, and wedding singer from Austin, TX. Four of their productions all been produced by The University of Texas at Austin during the pursuit of her undergraduate degree. They graduated from The Actors Studio Drama School MFA Program in NYC this past Spring. Her awards include Semi-Finalist status for Theatre Mu Tang Clan, The Women’s Playwright Center at Speranza, and Emerson Stage NewFest. They also received a full scholarship for a Centrum Artist Residency in Washington. Recent publications include Pile Press, Lucky Jefferson, and Poet’s Choice. They seek to translate poetic narratives about mental health, Asian-American experiences, LGBTQ representation, and social media culture to the stage by confronting trauma with comedy. They thank their family and friends for their support. Website: http://www.katagudo.com. Instagram: @katagudo
Tanika I. Williams (b. 1981, St. Andrew, Jamaica; lives and works in Brooklyn, NY) is an award-winning filmmaker and performance artist. She investigates women’s use of movement, mothering and medicine to produce and pass on ancestral wisdoms of ecology, spirituality and liberation. Williams holds a BA from Eugene Lang College, New School and MDiv from Union Theological Seminary. Her films have been screened at festivals and broadcast on American television. Williams has been awarded residencies at New York Foundation for the Arts, Hi-ARTS, Cow House Studios, MORE Arts, and BRIC. Additionally, she has been featured on 99.5 WBAI; and in Art in Odd Places; Creative Time; Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, Civic Art Lab, GreenspaceNYC; Let Us Eat Local, Just Food; and Performa.
After receiving his MFA from Carnegie Mellon in 2011, James Robert Southard has worked in the art world through invitations to international exhibitions such as the Moscow Biennale for Young Art, Hel’Pitts’Sinki’Burgh in Finland, Supermarket in Stockholm, Camaguey Cuba’s 5th International Video Art Fest and participation in the Internet Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale in Venice Italy. In 2012, James started a collaborative photography and video series with the collaboration of the city of Seoul, Korea at Seoul Art Space Geumcheon. Soon after he took his project to Maine where he was a participant at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, then later to MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire, Yaddo Retreat in New York, Jentel in Wyoming, Vermont Studio Center and to the MASS MoCA residency in North Adams, MA. His digital construction process allows for public interactions and collaborations to bleed from the conception stage of a project into the aesthetics and compositions of each frame. While continuing this process in new communities, He has also returned to academia by teaching photography at the University of Kentucky.
The West Harlem Art Fund and its Visual Muze Storytelling Residency & Retreat are registered members of the Artist Communities Alliance.
