Ian Sampson is a writer, though you could be forgiven for confusing him with an artist. He makes comics, prints and drawings driven by narrative. We build stories for ourselves every day, constructing the narratives that shape our worlds. Sampson documents those fictions and imagines himself into other people’s through the malleable but dreamlike medium of comics.

Born and raised in Montreal, I am now based in New York where I work as a cinematographer and film instructor. I am fascinated by the notion of place and how it is defined and circumscribed by cultural standards.

Betty is a fiber mixed media artist, educator, and lecturer residing in West Philadelphia. Her work is informed by artistic and cultural traditions of Africa and the African Diaspora, addressing themes of identity, heritage, nature, symbolism, and ritual.

My art practice focuses on public memory and cultural identity, looking at how these two things overlap and interact. Part of this work looks at how archival collections – official, community-based, oral stories or songs, and family albums – can be used to reconstruct and represent histories that get left out, or pushed aside, in official accounts.

Sasha Phyars-Burgess, a photographer living and working in the Lehigh Valley who describes her practice as inclusive, “I don’t treat the people who I photographs as subject or disassociated objects outside of me. There is always a moment were we must acknowledge each other.

My primary goal as an artist is to make compelling and engaging work that contributes to, challenges, and expands discourses around themes of social justice such as race, gender, class, and privilege. For example, in a piece (see image MattNeff4, Untitled) that I exhibited at my 2014 show, Second Sight, the simple materials of draped tracing paper covered in graphite take on the now unmistakably ominous imagery of a black hoodie, a potent visual commentary on the brutal murder of Trayvon Martin.

Macon Reed is a multi-disciplinary artist who makes sculptures, drawing, video, photographs, and audio documentaries. Her current studio-based work examines the lines between transformation and failure, trauma and healing, playfulness and escapism. She makes sculptures which then act as props in performances that force the sculpture to undergo a form of physical transformation through exposure to fire, fireworks, water, or use by human bodies.

Black Quantum Futurism Collective is an artistic and literary collaboration between Camae Dennis and Rasheedah Phillips which explores the intersections of imagination, futurism, literature, art, DIY-aesthetics, and activism in marginalized communities. Forming in Summer 2014, the collective has created a number of community-based events (including a Zine Brunch benefiting survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault), collaborative musical tracks, and two collaborative zines (Non-Locality metaphysics zine, and Secret Rivers DV awareness zine).

I am a sound and video artist who frequently collaborates on large installations combining sculpture, light and sound to make immersive environments open for all to enjoy. Recently I produced a public art project in the Grays Ferry and Point Breeze neighborhoods.

My practice does not lie within any one discipline but instead embraces a variety of media including video, animation, performance and sculpture in an attempt to be versatile and perceptive.

Lucy Pistilli and Brian Bazemore, both native Philadelphians living in Mantua, work collaboratively on various visual art projects. Together they founded The Pedestrian Project, a collective that encourages artists to engage directly with under-represented communities through collaboration, actualizing philosophy that art should be accessible and not reserved for elitist populations. They are offering their services in filmmaking, gardening, youth programming, and more.

I am an artist and a cultural worker. I collaborate with communities to help make them more vibrant and healthy. I teach art at a university in New York City, and I also work with young people in public schools and neighborhood settings. I do health work that addresses the challenges of HIV among people of color and LGBT communities worldwide.

Her name is Meredith Degyansky but she goes by The Work Intern. Degyansky claims, “I’ve been interning at work for years.” After obtaining two higher education degrees from well-known universities, her life thereafter was comprised of unpaid internship after unpaid internship.