Rosario Cruz is a Zapotec artisan native to San Marcos Tlapazola in Oaxaca, Mexico. She has been working with barro rojo for over 30 years. Her artisanal tradition was passed down to her by her mother and continues to be a female tradition in her family lineage. She has had the opportunity to travel to the states to share her artisanal craft in Washington, Illinois and New York. She continues her artisanal practice in her home welcoming people from all over who are interested in being a student of barro rojo.

Follow her on Instagram @roja_cuv

Karen Miranda Rivadeneira (Koyo) is an interdisciplinary artist, a visionaire, and walks the path of curandera. She was raised in the Pacific tropical south and the Ecuadorian Andes. Through her artistic and spiritual pursuits she has weaved a unique journey. Her medicine path is indebted to her mother, grandmothers, elders, ancestral spirits and the land that raised her. Her home has always welcomed the syncretic union of afro-indigi-latinx spiritual traditions. She has lived on and off with a medicine woman in the Ecuadorian Amazon for over a decade. She had her first initiation to shamanism there, where she learned about plant medicine, drum ceremony, tobacco readings, oracle reading, limpias, and vapores. Concurrently, she apprenticed in the Andes with a medicine woman who adopted her, teaching her the Andean way to awakened the original knowledge; from listening with your inner ear, reading the candle, cleansing the body/soul with smoke, fire dancing, fire cleansing, energy healing, to walking between light and night with joy and reverence. Koyo also apprenticed with an Aymara priest who introduced her to the Andean energetic movements and sun gazing. Ultimately, her goal is to share how to journey within and awaken the curanderx that lives in us, through humility, integrity, wisdom and creativity.

Follow her on Instagram @koyoltzintli

Marlene Huissoud is an experimental designer that works as a freelance designer for different companies alongside the art & design areas. Marlene’s work questions our way of making by creating purposeful pieces that ethically challenge the properties of natural resources and that defy the role of Design in society and its use nowadays. Self aware and progressive, Marlene’s work balances Nature’s natural disorder with Man’s disordered need to find meaning in everything . Her work process is an invitation to take consciousness of our impact on Earth and act upon it.This juxtaposition allows the observer to take a look and wonder whether or not if things would be better if we just let the world be. She believes in the value of a concept and the importance of the creative process.

Follow her on Instagram @marlenehuissoud

Miguel Ramirez (he/him), a Dominican student Born and raised in The Bronx. Is currently a senior in highschool, a passionate writer, public speaker and activist for equal rights. He uses his poetry and writing to speak on trauma, oppression, sexism and as an overall carrier of change for the unheard. He is a serious believer in peace for all, no matter the nationality, race, gender sexuality, skin color, etc; and peace can only come in changing taught and passed on in hatred and misinformation. He believes that abolishment can ultimately come from spreading awareness and teaching people the wrongs and rights of opinions passed generationally. To elaborate, he believes that if everyone is taught newly, and given the time to heal and the platform to speak, that will breach a foundation of growth and change. If oppressive behavior proceeds to be passed on, there will never be a time for healing and a time of peace.

Tattfoo Tan is an artist who collaborates with the public on issues relating to ecology, sustainability and healthy living. His work is project-based, ephemeral and educational in nature.

Follow him on Instagram @tattfoo

The Tsoontajal Collective was founded by the Lopez family. They consist of Maestra Carmen (abuelita), Maestra Agustina, Maestro Bonifacio and their children, Maestro Juan, Maestro Roberto, Veronica and Reinaldo. They are an indigenous family from Chiapas who are committed to practicing their ancestral artisanal craft of working with barro negro, black clay.

Raelyn Williams (she/her) currently works as a preventionist at the Virginia Sexual and Domestic Violence Action Alliance in Richmond, VA. Her work and passion is around youth justice and empowerment. She fights for liberation and abolition and believes in the power of art as a tool for social change. She believes that one of the steps toward abolition is recognizing and undoing the ways that we police others, most often the most marginalized members of our communities.