Discipline: Multidisciplinary

Yumi Janairo Roth’s research-based practice includes projects built around social engagement and site-specific installation. She has produced and exhibited works in the US, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Philippines. She has engaged Manila-based artists, call center agents, jeepney drivers, and artisans in projects that explore labor, creative exchange, and cultural translation. Since 2017, she has worked closely with professional sign spinners in southern California, Las Vegas, and Denver and developed collaborations between sign spinners and professional dancers, conversations between sign spinners and contemporary art curators, engagements with audiences, and participation in professional sign spinning competitions. More recently, she and Emmanuel David have developed, “”We Are Coming,”” which unearths the stories of a group of Filipinos, known as the Filipino Rough Riders, who performed with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show in the 19th century.

Grants and Services Manager

Yurika Isoe is the Grants and Services Manager at the Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona. Yurika partners with executive leadership, including Executive Director Adriana Gallegos to administer transformative grantmaking to excel recovery, innovation, and growth of the artistic sector to the highest potential in Southern Arizona. Yurika has managed the equitable distribution of over $2.3M of Federal CARES funds in the COVID-19 pandemic and advocated for increased direct investments to artists resulting in a 20% increased investments in artist-led community initiatives. By spearheading applicant service initiatives, Arts Foundation’s grantee profile averages 75%, non-white grantees.

Prior to joining Arts Foundation, Yurika served on the Board of Directors of Warehouse Arts Management Organization (WAMO) as Vice President- a creative spacemaking organization overlooking the acquisition and renovation of commercial property into artist studio spaces and galleries. As an artist, she works in sewing/embroidery through a circular economy lens and organized art events by participating as a cooperative member of SUBSPACE Arts Collective. Yurika has a BBA from the University of Arizona- Eller College of Management. Yurika holds space in an intersection of identities as a Japanese-Okinawan Muslim born in the settler-colonial United States.

Discipline: Interdisciplinary

Yvonne Onakeme Etaghene is an Ijaw Urhobo Nigerian dyke poet, performer, author, dancer, playwright, visual artist and fashion designer. Etaghene is the author of For Sizakele, a novel that addresses African lesbian/bisexual identity, love, intimate partner violence, and gender. Yvonne’s writing is published in five poetry chapbooks; and her poems, essays and fiction featured in various journals/anthologies.

Etaghene has shared her visual art in five solo art exhibitions. Etaghene created Ankara Queen by Yv. Etaghene, a fashion line exploring the nexus between Nigerian aesthetics, gender expression and self-acceptance. Yvonne hosts the NIGERIAN DYKE REALNESS Podcast.

Yvonne received a B.A. from Oberlin College, a Master’s degree from New York University and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Antioch University. Etaghene is a Svane Family Foundation Inaugural Artist in Headlands Center for the Arts’ Bay Area Fellowship. www.myloveisaverb.com, www.nigeriandykerealness.com