Asya P. Webster is one of two of the Program Officer for Grants and Public Programs for the Arkansas Humanities Council. Webster is an Arkansan who was raised in rural Wrightsville but considers it close enough to call herself a Little Rock city native. She has always been involved in humanities even from a young age, performing in dance at the Tidwell Centre for the Dancarts for 7 years and student theater for 4 years. Webster completed her undergraduate experience with a B.A. in English Literature at Philander Smith College. She also served as the President of the Creatives, an organization for students interested in the visual and performing arts. Webster’s play, Waiting on Sunrise, is a three-act play consisting of seven individual 10-minute plays. The last segment of Waiting on Sunrise was selected to be a part of ACANSA’s Third Annual 10-Minute Play Showcase. She also taught high school English at a rural underserved school. Webster’s passion is making more space for and having the arts be more accessible for disadvantaged/overlooked populations in Arkansas. She is currently co-founding the Next Gen(eration) Humanities Conference through the Arkansas Humanities Council.

Atabey Sánchez-Haiman is a Puerto Rican artist, biologist, trainee mindfulness teacher and small business owner. Atabey owns Giraffes and Robots Pop Art Studio, which is located in artsy, quirky, small but mighty Rhode Island. Atabey loves to explore different ways of making art, she combines different mediums and techniques (drawing on paper, painting on canvas, collage, photo illustrations) to create her pop art. Atabey intentionally uses a palette of red, yellow and orange because these colors make you smile and cultivate joy. Atabey is currently training at Brown University and at the Oxford Mindfulness Foundation to teach Mindfulness with a view of combining art and mindfulness to create safe spaces for marginalized communities to come together to create, heal, recharge, cultivate joy and effect change. Atabey believes that by becoming aware of social constructs and the hurdles that they unfairly impose on marginalized communities, possibilities and opportunities can arise and these obstacles can then be challenged creatively and peacefully from a place of centered, rooted awareness. The fact that communities of color value collectivity is an asset and Atabey wants to harness this skill that people of color share through their upbringing and experiences and start moving society away from its current individualistic, self centered focus towards a more compassionate, humane, community oriented direction. Art and mindfulness as activism and vehicles for personal and societal change.

Aubrey Edwards is a multidisciplinary artist, cultural anthropologist, archaeologist, educator, storyteller and memory worker based in Laramie, Wyoming. Her collaborative practice spans academic, creative and applied spaces, exploring how art and research combine as knowledge-making systems.

She is the founder and executive director of Alces Community Works, a nonprofit design studio that uplifts artists and storytellers through humanities- and arts-based projects, reflecting Wyomingites’ lived experiences and contributing to the creative economy.

Edwards is a doctoral student in public humanities at the University of Wyoming and supports the Mellon-funded Re-Storying the West initiative to celebrate everyday experiences and promote representation across the state.

As a member of Monument Lab’s Re:Generation 2024 cohort, she helps steward High Iron, Wyoming’s only monument to the immigrant laborers who built the Transcontinental Railroad. Housed in a former train car, High Iron honors those who helped build the state’s communities and infrastructure.

Avokado Artists

AZ Board of Regents on behalf of Arizona State University - CA Campus

AZ Board of Regents on behalf of Arizona State University - Tempe Campus

Bare Bait Dance

Bayview Opera House Inc.

Beaverton Arts Foundation dba Patricia Reser Center for the Arts

Program Director, Dreams of Hope

Bekezela Mguni is a queer Trinidadian artist, radical librarian, community organizer, and educator. She holds an MLIS from the University of Pittsburgh and participated in the first Librarians and Archivists with Palestine delegation in June of 2013. She completed her first micro-residency at the Pittsburgh creative hub Boom Concepts and was featured in the 2015 Open Engagement Conference. She was a 2015-2016 member of the Penn Ave Creative Accelerator Program with the Kelly-Strayhorn Theater and launched the Black Unicorn Library and Archive Project. The Black Unicorn Library Project is a Black feminist independent community library and archive. She also served as the 2016 Sophia Smith Archive Activist-in-Residence at Smith College. Bekezela was selected as an Emerging Artist in the 2016 Three Rivers Arts Festival and won the Juror’s Choice award for her visual artwork. She was a featured artist of the 2017 Activist Print Project, a partnership between, Artist Image Resource, BOOM concepts, and the Andy Warhol Museum. Bekezela is a Boom Concepts studio member, a community space and gallery dedicated to the development of artists and creative entrepreneurs. She was most recently artist in residence at Artist Image Resource, focusing on screenprinting, collage, experimental design, and building her creative portfolio. Bekezela also serves as the Education Program Director at Dreams of Hope which affirms the voices and leadership of LGBTQ youth through the arts.