Program Associate/ Volunteer Coordinator, Tieton Arts and Humanities

Customer Service Associate, ANIMARTERENO Collective Program Coordinator

Discipline: Photography

Rudy Rivera is a Chamoru cultural practitioner raised in Santa Rita, Guam, who also specializes in graphic design, video, and photography. From his involvement within the different guma, he increased his traditional knowledge which led him to utilize his graphical skills to further promote his indigenous heritage.

His preferred art medium is photography His photos capture stories of the CHamoru people, its cultural practices and traditions, as well as the beautiful scenery and its lanmarks around the Marianas Islands. Through his photos, he aims to encourage and safeguard the CHamoru culture, its image, and traditions practices.

Discipline: Visual Arts

Ruta’ Tauiliili-Mahuka is a painter and crafter from Tafuna, American Samoa. Trained in painting by her grandfather, she focuses on island seascapes as well as close ups of island flora and fauna. She is also a crafter and creates wire jewelry that incorporates coconut, lava and shell beads as well as sea glass harvested from local beaches. Her work aims at raising awareness about environmental issues by using nature as both subject and materials. Her goal is to engage the viewer and to try and strengthen their relationship with island environments from the tropical forests to marine ecosystems.

Discipline: Photography

Samantha Teleso is a wife and a mother who photographs creative portraits in her free time. Raised as a U.S. Army brat, she moved to her ancestral home of American Samoa at 29 and ran a family photography business for several years before pausing to focus on her growing family. Teleso fulfills her passion of directing and photographing creative portraits that highlights American Samoa’s empowering women, breathtaking landscapes, and natural elements. Her goal to host a creative portrait event in American Samoa deems to connect its photography community and local businesses all for the sake of creating art.

A CHamoru born and raised on Guam, Sandra Flores’ work is inspired by the CHamoru cultural resurgence she has witnessed and the resulting explosion of indigenous expression across all art forms. She earned a bachelor’s degree in Anthropology at Northwestern University. She spent many years owning her own businesses in art and in healthcare. When she moved to San Diego, California, in 2011, those business skills were valuable in helping her to establish and support organizations such as the Uno Hit cultural education program and the House of Chamorros from 2012 to 2020. Her reflections on this work were the subject of her weekly column in Guam’s Pacific Daily News from 2012-2016. She earned a master’s in Peace Studies at the University of San Diego in 2021. All of these experiences led her to the position of director of the Guam Arts Agency from 2021 to 2023. She continues her work independently, writing and working with the Guam arts community both on Guam and in the diasporic populations across the continental US. She sees art as a powerful tool for self-expression, outreach, and community building, giving voice and driving change for greater understanding and greater equity.