Michelle Pier is a Guam-born artist, creative entrepreneur, and mother of two with over 20 years of experience creating, exhibiting, and selling original paintings locally and internationally. Alongside her studio practice, she is dedicated to fostering creativity in the community through classes, workshops, and events that emphasize the creative arts, personal expression, and entrepreneurship. She is especially passionate about mentoring young artists, equipping them with practical tools and encouragement to pursue art as both a calling and a career. Above all, she shares her journey to inspire others to feel empowered to create and thrive.
Passionate to connect people through Chinese culture and fusion musics; Actively involved in Chinese community’s development; started to bring Asian communities together from 2022 for showcasing Asian creative expression and cultural traditions through the power of arts.
• 2004 – Present, Worked at GE and then Honeywell as a senior professional leader;
• 2020 – Present, Committee member, Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation (3CDC);
• 2018 – Present, Appointed as the Chair of Alliance of Chinese Culture & Arts USA (www.acca-us.org), a 501c3 non-profit organization fully operated by the volunteers. It is composed of the local chapters across regions in the spirit of collaboration;
• 2008 – 2019, Led a volunteer group to partner with Philharmonia Orchestra of CCM ( College Conservatory of Music in UC), defined programs and organized the annual Chinese New Year concert as an executive producer in 12 consecutive years, created fusion music programs, and named by Cincinnati Enquirer as one of the highly received concerts in the year;
• 2012-2019, Partnered with the social studies teacher of 6th grade in a local school to initiate the annual event “Connecting Kids to the World” in 8 consecutive years. The event was to create the dialog opportunities for the 6th grader to talk with the similar age of the kids in India and China face-to-face through video;
• In early 90s, came to the United States from China to pursue higher education and received MBA degree.
Midori Hirose, born in Hood River, Oregon, is a Japanese American interdisciplinary artist based in Portland. Through sculpture, sound, and social ritual, she explores material storytelling as a portal to memory, perception, and transformation.
Her practice bridges care labor and poetic research, turning complex histories and communal connections into dimensional, tactile forms. Hirose co-leads a mutual aid collective supporting protest safety and community resilience, informing her ongoing inquiries into collective care and embodied resistance.
Her work transforms shared spaces into sites of relational alchemy and slow, subversive repair. It has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including “Labor of Love” at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, “Of the Unicorn (and the Sundowner Kids)” with the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara, and East/West Project in Berlin. Her installations invite intimacy, tension, and radical possibility.
Dr. Miriam Padilla, Executive Director of Bomba Marilé, is a proud LGBTQ Puerto Rican woman, a registered Taino tribal member, a doctor, and a community organizer. Dr. Padilla is board certified in Endocrinology, Obesity Medicine, and Lifestyle Medicine. She currently is the Medical Director of the LiveWell Center at Utah Valley Hospital. When Miriam is not seeing patients, she is the Executive Director of Bomba Marilé which is a non profit organization that shares Afro-Puerto Rican bomba music and dance with the community in Utah. Dr. Padilla has received multiple awards for her community involvement including the “30 Women to Watch” award from Utah Business Magazine, the “Mujeres Destacadas” award from La Opinion Newspaper, and the Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition from the United States Congress. Miriam is grateful for the WESTAF support and hopes to continue lifting up brown, black, and indigenous voices through her work as a cultural artist in the state of Utah.
Mitchell Rudolph is a Māori cultural practitioner, haka educator, and first-grade teacher based in Utah. Raised on his marae in Aotearoa, Rudolph learned haka, waiata, karakia, and Māori performing arts through intergenerational teachings rooted in cultural responsibility, ancestral knowledge, and community care. His grandfather, a tribal leader, instilled values that continue to guide his work today.
Rudolph serves as a teacher at Mana Academy Charter School and works as a cultural mentor for Māori, Pacific Islander, and Indigenous youth and families across Utah. His creative practice centers on haka as a tool for healing, identity, belonging, and collective voice. He leads workshops, performances, school programs, and community gatherings that honor tikanga Māori while fostering connections across Indigenous and multicultural communities.
Much of Rudolph’s work focuses on supporting youth in the diaspora, helping them reconnect with their ancestors, build confidence, and see their cultures reflected with pride. Through teaching, curriculum development, and community collaboration, he carries haka forward with integrity, care, and purpose.
MK Chavez (She/They) is an Afro-Latinx writer, cultural worker, coach, consultant, educator, and editor. She/They are committed to advancing equity and inclusion in the arts and beyond. She is the co-director of Berkeley Poetry Festival and the Founder and Director of Ouroboros Coaching & Writing Lab. Her writing has been honored with a Pen Oakland Award, a San Francisco Foundation/Nomadic Press Literary Award, and fellowships at CantoMundo, Caldera, Sitka, Playa, Community of Writers, and Hedgebrook. Her community activism and cultural work have been acknowledged with an Alameda County Leadership Award, and in 2023, she was recognized by the Yerba Buena Center for Arts as a YBCA 100 Fellow.
Moana doesn’t just make art—she architects worlds.
Moana Iose is a multidisciplinary artist and policy mind born in Oceania and raised in the American West. Her work moves through mediums from murals to film and exhibition design to poetry. Iose’s creative practice bridges the sacred and the stylish, turning stories of home and diaspora into visual symphonies.
Her aesthetic is layered, bold, cinematic and grounded in Indigenous futurism with a touch of West Coast ease. Her work moves between boardrooms and block parties, archives and airwaves, always returning to one question: what does freedom look like when it’s ours?
Iose’s vision is for Indigenous Pacific futures that are sovereign, sensual and unapologetically alive.
