Discipline: Visual Arts

Cate Knothe is a filmmaker born and raised in Boise, Idaho. Influenced by the rugged landscape and unique character of their home state, Knothe’s work spans narrative, documentary, and experimental forms to uncover stories hidden within everyday realities. Drawing inspiration from place and setting, their films explore how collective memory and storytelling shape the ways people experience the world.

Knothe’s creative practice centers on themes of social justice and environmentalism, focusing on art that delves into micro-histories and community storytelling with broader political significance. In 2022, they began directing their first documentary, Stibnite, an ongoing investigation into modern mining practices in the American West. Currently, they are in post-production for Now It’s a Strange House, a documentary examining the historical and contemporary rise of fascism in Germany and the United States. Knothe is also completing Steward, a 16mm narrative film that explores the conflict between traditionalist and queer identities in rural America.

Knothe’s previous work has been screened at the National Film Festival for Talented Youth, the Duke Independent Film Festival, and MOPOP’s Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Film Festival.

Center Pole, Inc.

Chandra Williams is an artist, educator and community healer dedicated to fostering social and cultural change. Her work highlights the power of the arts to reshape society, empowering communities to create change directly.

As executive director of the Crossroads Cultural Arts Center in Clarksdale, Mississippi—known as the Home of the Blues—Williams leads efforts to celebrate African cultural practices and restore their role in community healing. The center provides space to reclaim Black cultural identity and narrative on local and global levels.

 

Williams earned a bachelor’s in fine arts from Washington University in St. Louis, with concentrations in critical theory and community education. Her experience includes serving as a museum educator, leading a private art school and two decades as a community educator and organizer.

Discipline: Opera/Musical Theatre

I’m truly honored and grateful for this opportunity. My hope with this to build a better foundation for my own longevity and build connections within the artist community. It’s truly amazing how one can take a picture in a way that’s completely different than anyone else looking at the same thing. I describe my photography as sincere, intimate and artful and to be able to do what I truly enjoy just makes my heart full of gratitude.

Name: Chastity Williams. Title: Founder of Spotlight Our Youth, Drama Director at Franklin Middle School.
Chastity Williams was born and raised in Illinois. She moved to Iowa, where she studied Theatre Arts at the University of Iowa and currently attends the University of Dubuque for Elementary Education, to integrate her arts experience in an educational setting. Chastity served as Miss Northeast Iowa 2023 where she continued to amplify the value of the arts. She is an advocate for arts education through her initiative “Spotlight Our Youth – Educate, Engage, and Emerge in Arts Education”. The arts help children find their voice and develop skills that help them become leaders. Her initiative is about sustaining artistic opportunities for kids so they can create their own stories. She has done work with Englert Theater in Iowa City and Chicago Shakespeare Theater in Illinois. She has also been on stage in productions across Iowa, some for other states. Chastity serves as a teaching associate and drama director in the Cedar Rapids School District and is a fan of anime. She’s excited to be a part of this fellowship and learn how to bring inclusivity into the arts!

Public Programs and Outreach Coordinator, Plains Art Museum

My name is Chelsea Steffes and I work at the Plains Art Museum as the Public Programs and Outreach Coordinator, a Teaching Artist, and a Senior Visitor Services Associate. I am a mixed race Filipino American who dedicates her time primarily towards the community that myself and my institution can serve. I got my Bachelor’s degree in Heritage and Museum Studies & Pre-professional Studio Art from Concordia College, Moorhead in 2019. Rather than specialize in a particular artistic medium, I focused on learning multiple artistic skills/practices and becoming an accessible and engaging informal arts educator. I have worked at my current institution since 2018 and have jumped at every opportunity that I can to improve myself and in turn, how I can serve my community. My goal is to make all arts community spaces an accessible and inclusive experience for anyone who visits. I make efforts to engage with our visitors and the local Fargo/Moorhead community through visitor experience, teaching classes, giving gallery tours, and participating in local community events by providing free art activities.

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Cheryl Derricotte is a visual artist whose favorite medium is glass. She also creates work on paper and textiles. Her art has been featured in publications including The New York Times, The Guardian, and The San Francisco Chronicle.

Derricotte is currently working on public art projects in the Midwest and the West. She was recently named a 2024 Emerging Public Artist at the international CODAworx Summit. In 2021, she was awarded a commission to develop a monument to Harriet Tubman at the transit-oriented Gateway at Millbrae Station. The piece is the first sculptural tribute to the abolitionist made in glass.

In 2024 and 2025, she served as a visiting artist at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Washington, alongside her participation in the groundbreaking exhibition “A Two Way Mirror: Double Consciousness in Contemporary Glass by Black Artists.” Prior to her work at the Museum of Glass, Cheryl was the Spring 2024 Marva and John Warnock Artist-in-Residence at the University of Utah’s Department of Art and Art History.

Event Coordinator, Arts Council of Big Sky

Discipline: Multidisciplinary

hú-tu (Laura 嘟嘟 and huiyin zhou) is an artist duo with backgrounds in social practice and anthropology, working across moving image, photography, performance, publishing, and collaborative writing. They have been awarded residencies and fellowships at The Luminary, Culture Push, Pedantic Arts, BRIClab, The Seventh Wave, and more. Follow their work at @huiyin.zhou and @lauradudupersonal.

Dedicated to multidisciplinary art and transnational organizing, Laura and huiyin co-founded and co-direct the Chinese Artists and Organizers (CAO) Collective 离离草. The Chinese Artists and Organizers (CAO) Collective creates art to empower relational community healing. Their work investigates systems of discipline, control, censorship, and capitalist extraction while reimagining memory, memorials, rituals, intimacy, and queer/feminist kinship to (re)build sustainable community infrastructures. From punching sticky rice to channel queer feminist rage to collectively writing poems about grief and care, CAO’s work is deeply collaborative and continues to evolve within community. Their projects have been supported by the Snapdragon Fund, SEEK Raleigh, Asian American Arts Alliance, The New Breath Foundation, ChineseFeminism, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and many community members. Learn more at www.caocollective.com or follow @caocollective.