MAIA CHAO
FELLOW | VISUAL ART

Maia Chao is an interdisciplinary artist from Providence, RI. Co-creator of Look at Art. Get Paid. (LAAGP), Chao is committed to socially engaged art that models counter-institutions, alternative spaces, and redistribution. LAAGP is set to launch across a cohort of art museums in Massachusetts in 2019-2021, funded by the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Chao has shown at the Hudson Walker Gallery, Provincetown Art Museum, Brown University, RISD Museum, School of the MFA, and RI’s Center for Reconciliation. Residencies include the Fine Arts Work Center, Haverford College, and Pioneer Works. Commission include the Museum of Capitalism and The Shed. She is a Van Lier Fellow of the Asian American Arts Alliance and National Art Strategies Fellow. A Fulbright grantee, Chao holds a BA from Brown University and an MFA from RISD.

YVE LARIS COHEN
MENTOR | VISUAL ART

Yve Laris Cohen’s work has been presented and commissioned by The Kitchen, SculptureCenter, Dance Theater Workshop, Company Gallery, Murray Guy, Abrons Arts Center, Recess, Movement Research at the Judson Church, Danspace Project, Thomas Erben Gallery, Performance Space New York, and the 2014 Whitney Biennial, in New York; Hessel Museum of Art, CCS Bard; the Institute for Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; and the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. Laris Cohen has received a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grant to Artists (2016), a Franklin Furnace Fund Grant (2015), and the Rema Hort Mann Foundation’s Emerging Artist Award (2011). He has held teaching appointments at The Cooper Union, New York University, and The New School, and co-facilitates Dance and Process at The Kitchen. Laris Cohen graduated with a BA from the University of California, Berkeley and an MFA in Visual Arts from Columbia University.

BRIAN GONZALEZ
FELLOW | FILM

Brian Gonzalez is a filmmaker, interdisciplinary artist, and educator working in a variety of mediums including video art, immersive installation, virtual reality, and performance, all under the artistic pseudonym Taxiplasm. Gonzalez graduated from the School of Visual Arts as the winner of Outstanding Cinematography of his class and shown video work at Times Square, Art Basel Miami Beach, NADA Art Fair, Lincoln Center’s Dance On Camera, and more, along with residencies at The Robert Wilson Watermill Center, The Standard, and the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. Gonzalez has also created content with Untitled Magazine, Atlantic Records, Chimera Music and recently shot and directed a feature documentary produced by Sean Ono Lennon, while working to develop multi-sensory interactive experiences that bring us closer to personal catharsis.

RODRIGO BELLOTT
MENTOR | FILM

Rodrigo Bellott is a Bolivian filmmaker, playwright, and producer—and a 2015-2016 Queer|Art|Mentorship alum. His breakout hit Sexual Dependency marked the rebirth of Bolivian cinema as the country’s first official submission for “Best Foreign Language Film” at the 2004 Academy Awards. Bellott’s Who Killed the White Llama? was the most successful box-office hit in Bolivia’s history, leading to Variety magazine naming him one of the Top Ten Latin American talents to watch in 2007. After receiving two masters degrees in screenwriting and directing at Binger Film Lab in Amsterdam in 2011, Bellott founded Bolivian BOLD Inc., a production company in New York City. At Queer|Art|Mentorship, Bellott worked with Mentor, filmmaker Silas Howard on the film adaptation of his play Tu Me Manques, which is now in post-production and stars Oscar Martinez and Rossy De Palma. Bellott is currently adapting Tu Me Manques for Broadway and is developing a new project at the New Museum.

RAJA FEATHER KELLY
FELLOW | LITERATURE

Raja Feather Kelly is a choreographer, director, and the artistic director of the feath3r theory and New Brooklyn Theatre. A two-time winner of the Princess Grace Award and awardee of a Creative Capital award (2019), Raja is the 2019-2020 Randjelovic/Stryker Resident Commissioned Artist at New York Live Arts and an inaugural Jerome Hill Artist Fellow. Over the past decade, Kelly has created thirteen evening-length premieres and six short-format works as well as choreographing extensively for Off-Broadway theatre in New York City, garnering a Breakout Award from SDCF (2018).

KATE BORNSTEIN
MENTOR | LITERATURE

Kate Bornstein is an author, actor, performance artist, and playwright who has for over thirty years written award-winning books on the subject of nonbinary gender. Both Gender Outlaw and My Gender Workbook are out in new editions that incorporate 30 years of advances in gender theory and activism since they were first written. Additionally, Kate maintains a career in theater, making her Broadway debut in the summer of 2018, co-starring in the Second Stage Theater’s production of Young Jean Lee’s Straight White Men. Kate’s 2006 book, Hello, Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks, and Other Outlaws propelled Kate into an international position of advocacy for marginalized youth. She has earned two citations of honor from the New York City Council. Kate has donated her collected papers to Brown University, where they will be archived and available for research at both the John Hay Library and The Pembroke Center.

PATRICK G. LEE
FELLOW | FILM

Patrick is a queer Korean American documentary filmmaker, writer, and community organizer. He’s interested in building collaborative, community-based models of filmmaking that reject traditional hierarchies of authority and that equip queer and trans people of color with media-making skills. Patrick has made films about Asian American coming out stories, LGBTQ self-representation, and queer Asian history. His reporting has appeared in Mother Jones, ProPublica, The Atlantic, CNN.com, and more. In 2018, Patrick helped organize KQTcon, the first national Korean queer and trans conference in the US. His favorite snack is kongjang (soy-braised black beans).

HAO WU
MENTOR | FILM

Hao Wu is a technology executive-turned-filmmaker who recently directed the documentary feature film People's Republic of Desire. His work takes a raw and human approach to storytelling within an era of evolving online culture and transnationalism. His documentary films have received support from Ford Foundation JustFilms, ITS, Sundance, Tribeca, and international broadcasters. People's Republic of Desire contemplates internet fame and social isolation through a look into China’s culture of competitive live-streaming. The film has gone on to win numerous awards including the Grand Jury Award for documentary film at the 2018 SXSW festival. Wu’s documentary short about his personal journey to build a “modern” family via surrogacy, titled All in My Family, is launching globally on Netflix in May 2019.

MARIA JOSE MALDONADO
FELLOW | LITERATURE

María José Maldonado is a Salvadoran-Ecuadorian queer writer, creator, performer, and comedian from Queens, NY. Her work explores queerness, resistance, and anger through speculative fiction, poetry, and comedic performance. Her writing has been featured on Autostraddle and she has performed at Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, Center for Book Arts, Settlement University, and Dixon Place. Currently, she’s working on her novel set in New York City about a queer Latinx woman who becomes a lovable serial killer of cisgender men. She’s a graduate of the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art’s “Creative Writing from Queer Resistance” workshop, is a co-founder of “Streaks of Lavender” zine, and is launching a podcast focusing on women, trans and nonbinary folx’s rage called “I Killed A Man” in Fall 2019.

CHARLES RICE-GONZALEZ
MENTOR | LITERATURE

Charles Rice-González, born in Puerto Rico and reared in the Bronx, is a writer, long-time community and LGBT activist, co-founder of BAAD! The Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance and a Distinguished Lecturer at Hostos Community College - CUNY. He received an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Goddard College. His debut novel Chulito (Magnus Books 2011) has received nearly a dozen awards including a 2013 Stonewall Book Awards - Barbara Gittings Literature Award Honor from the American Library Association and a "Small Press Highlights" mention from the National Book Critics Circle. He co-edited with Charlie Vazquez, From Macho To Mariposa: New Gay Latino Fiction (Tincture/Lethe Press 2011). He is also the chair of the board for The Bronx Council on the Arts and The National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures.

FELICITA “FELLI” MAYNARD
FELLOW | VISUAL ART

Felicita “Felli” Maynard is a first generation Afrolatinx genderqueer interdisciplinary artist, storyteller and educator. They use analog and wet plate photography to explore their identity as a descendant of the African diaspora. They received their BFA from Brooklyn College, with a concentration in photography. Maynard has exhibited at Bushwick Open Studios in NYC, Brooklyn College, Westchester Community College and Pen + Brush Gallery in NYC. They are a New York Community Trust Van Lier Fellow (2018-19) and a BRIC Media Fellow (2018-19). They have participated in residencies at Smack Mellon and Nurture Arts. They are currently interning in the Digital Collections & Services department at Brooklyn Museum.

LOLA FLASH
MENTOR | VISUAL ART

Lola Flash uses photography to challenge stereotypes and offer new ways of seeing that transcend and interrogate gender, sexual, and racial norms. Flash works primarily in portraiture with a 4x5 film camera, engaging those who are often deemed invisible. She earned a BA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and a MA from the London College of Printing. Flash has received residencies from Light Work, the Art Matters Foundation, and Alice Yard. Flash has work included in important public collections such as the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Brooklyn Museum. Her work is also featured in the publication Posing Beauty, edited by Deb Willis, currently on exhibit across the US. In 2016, she co-led a talk at the Bronx Museum with Sur Rodney Sur. They spoke to the glaring lack of women artists and artists of color, with respect to the Art AIDS America exhibition. Pen + Brush Gallery’s inaugural exhibition in 2018 featured a 30 year retrospective of her significant photographs.

OLAIYA OLAYEMI
FELLOW | PERFORMANCE

olaiya olayemi is a blk/trans/femme/womxn/artist/educator/and activist who centers womxn of the african diaspora in her performative/literary/cinematic/and sonic works of art. she has performed at Brooklyn Arts Exchange, JACK, AAA3A, metaDEN, The Wild Project, The Langston Hughes House, Starr Bar, Mayday Space, and Dixon Place. she holds a bachelor of arts in english/creative writing (with a minor in african/black diaspora studies) from depaul university and a master of fine arts in creative writing from emerson college where she was a recipient of the Dean’s Fellowship. she is a 2019-2020 Performance Fellow in Queer Art’s mentorship program. she is also a Fall 2020 Brooklyn Arts Exchange Space Grantee. her experimental screenplay was recently advanced to second round consideration for the Sundance Screenwriter’s Lab. she currently lives in queens.

MARIA BAUMAN-MORALES
MENTOR | PERFORMANCE

Maria Bauman-Morales is a NY-based “Bessie” award winning (Outstanding Performance, skeleton architecture) multi-disciplinary artist and community organizer. She creates bold and intimate artworks for her company, MBDance, via dream-mapping and nuanced, powerful physicality. Centering non-linear stories, bodies and musings of queer people of color, she draws on her studies of English literature, capoeira, improvisation, dancing in living rooms and nightclubs and concert dance classes to emphasize ancestors, imagination, and Spirit while embodying inter-dependence. Maria is a 2018-19 UBW Choreographic Center Fellowship Candidate, 2017-19 Artist in Residence at Brooklyn Arts Exchange and was the 2017 Community Action Artist in Residence at Gibney Dance. She is also a co-founder of ACRE (Artists Co-creating Real Equity), undoing racism in arts fields, and was recently honored with a 2019 BAX Arts in Progress award for that work.

ANTHONY ROSADO
FELLOW | CURATORIAL PRACTICE

Anthony Rosado is an Afro-Boricua Queer Nuyorican storyteller merging anthropological literature, visual art, interactive installation, and immersive performance. His curatorial practice is grounded in influencing people to collect, preserve, and glorify stories of community-driven cultural conservation. Rosado produces art series and exhibitions to provide platforms for marginalized artists, artisans, and organizers to cross-pollinate resources. His works address identity, ancestral legacy, giving/receiving love, and knowing true stories. Rosado administrates event development with grassroots groups, galleries, collectives, and nonprofits from gentrified neighborhoods to bridge residents in pursuit of progressive community-inclusive city planning; housing justice; story-telling and -archiving.

C. FINLEY
MENTOR | CURATORIAL PRACTICE

Founder and Curator of the Every Woman Biennial: C. Finley, based in New York City and Rome, is known for her elaborate paintings and intense use of color, monumental murals, multi-disciplinary collaborations, and her activism through urban art interventions, including her acclaimed Wallpapered Dumpsters. As the co-founder and lead curator of the Every Woman Biennial she has exhibited over 500 female and non-binary artists in New York and Los Angeles.  Finley has shown internationally with exhibitions at Galerie Ernst Hilger Vienna; Superchief Gallery Los Angeles; Bryant Toth Gallery New York; Context/Art Miami; Scope Miami and New York; FDA project in Rome.  Finley received her BFA from the Pratt Institute, New York and her MFA from California State University, Long Beach. Her work has been featured in the The New York Times, La Repubblica, Dazed, Fast Company, Women’s Wear Daily, LALA, and more. 

SARAH SANDERS
FELLOW | PERFORMANCE

Sarah Sanders is a performer, writer, musician, and emergent strategy advocate raised in Montana and based in Brooklyn. She believes in art as a space to hold and dig into multiple truths, and makes work exploring narratives and boundaries of the self, ritual, and lots of kinds of love. She has developed new work with The Bengsons, the Satori Group, Undiscovered Countries, and the Hearth, and playwrights Mallery Avidon, Dipika Guha, Lizzie Stern, and Elinor Cook. As an actor, Sarah has performed at places including Dixon Place and The Tank in New York, On The Boards in Seattle, and The Pleasance Theatre in London. Sarah has a BA from Williams College and an MFA in acting from LAMDA.

MASHUQ MUSHTAQ DEEN
MENTOR | PERFORMANCE

Mashuq Mushtaq Deen is a resident playwright at New Dramatists and a 2019 Lambda Literary Award Finalist. His full-length plays include Flood, The Betterment Society, The Shaking Earth, Draw the Circle (productions: PlayMakers Rep, Mosaic Theatre, Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre; published: Dramatists Play Service), and Tank & Horse (world premiere at the Berkshire Fringe Festival). Deen’s work has been supported by a number of institutions including Sundance Institute/Ucross, Blue Mountain Center, The Public Theater, NYTW, MacDowell Colony, Bogliasco Foundation, Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, Target Margin Theatre, Keen Company, New Harmony Project, Phoenix Theatre, Chesley/Bumbalo Foundation, Arch and Bruce Brown Foundation, New York Foundation for the Arts, InterAct Theatre, Page73, Ma-Yi, and others. He is a member of the NYTW Usual Suspects, Ma-Yi Writers Lab, founding member of the Public Theater Alumni Writers Group, and the Dramatists Guild. He is represented by the Gurman Agency.

SARAH ZAPATA
FELLOW | LITERATURE

Sarah Zapata makes work with labor-intensive processes such as handweaving, rope coiling, latch hooking, and sewing by intersecting theories of gender and ethnicity with pre-colonial histories and techniques. Making work with meditative, mechanical means, her current work deals with the multiple facets of her complex identity: a Texan living in Brooklyn, a lesbian raised as an evangelical Christian, a first generation American of Latin American descent, a contemporary artist inspired by ancient civilizations, an artist challenging the history of craft as “women’s work” within the realm of art. Zapata’s work has been exhibited at the New Museum (NY), El Museo del Barrio (NY), Museum of Art and Design (NY), Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art (NY), Boston University (MA), LAXART (CA), amongst others.

GAYATRI GOPINATH
MENTOR | LITERATURE

Gayatri Gopinath is Associate Professor in the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis, and the Director of the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality at New York University. She works at the intersection of transnational feminist and queer studies, postcolonial studies, and diaspora studies, and is the author of two monographs: Impossible Desires: Queer Diasporas and South Asian Public Cultures (Duke UP, 2005), and Unruly Visions: The Aesthetic Practices of Queer Diaspora (Duke UP, 2018). She has published numerous essays on gender, sexuality, and queer diasporic cultural production in journals such as Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, GLQ, Social Text, and positions.