Río Sofia, Co-Director, Programs & Operations

Río Sofia (she/her) is a visual artist, arts administrator, and organizer. Her recent body of artwork explores forced feminization porn, a genre that fantasizes about experiencing gender transformation through coercion and loss of control. This project was spotlighted in Out Magazine's April and August 2019 print issues, and led her to present her work at institutions such as The New Museum, Princeton University, and Rutgers University. With her focus rooted at the intersection of art and trans liberation, Rio began organizing as an undergraduate student at Cooper Union, where she executed several art and academic events, notably working alongside curators Stamatina Gregory and Jeanne Vaccaro on "Bring Your Own Body: Transgender Between Archives and Aesthetics". Additionally, she and a group of student activists organized a multi-year effort to successfully de-gender all bathrooms on campus, transforming Cooper Union into the first university in the country entirely without gendered bathroom signage. In 2018, Rio co-founded Body Hack, a happy hour for trans and nonbinary people in Brooklyn that, since migrating to the web during the COVID-19 pandemic, has served as a virtual party and fundraising platform for trans communities internationally. She has participated in In June 2020, Rio joined a small team of volunteers to organize a viral fundraising campaign with GLITS, an organization founded by trans and sex worker advocate Ceyenne Doroshow, that brought together hundreds of volunteers and over 25,000 donations in under a week—raising a total of over $1M.

L Marmon, Co-Director, Finance & Fundraising

L Marmon (they/them) is a white queer disabled artist and arts administrator based in Philadelphia, PA. They support non-profit operations through fundraising strategy, grants management, and donor/government relations. In addition to working as a consultant, L has worked on staff for the Museum of the City of New York and The Civilians. They are also a former/forever theatermaker with extensive performance and production experience. L received a BA in Theater and Music from GWU and studied arts and culture strategy through executive certificate programs at CUNY and UPenn. L is affiliated with Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, the Association of Fundraising Professionals, and Culture@3, and they are engaged in communities of practice in emergent strategy and community-centric fundraising.

Andrius Alvarez-Backus, Design & Marketing Manager

Andrius Alvarez-Backus (he/him) is an interdisciplinary artist working across sculpture and painting to explore the kinship between subjecthood and objecthood, specifically as it manifests in the queer Filipinx experience. He uses mixed media assemblage to interrogate how the semiotics of materials evoke different poetic associations, personal allegory, and cultural meanings. By expressing a queer sense of embodiment without conventional tactics of representation, Alvarez-Backus challenges the ways in which memory, metaphor, and identity are fetishistically bound up in material culture. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (2023), and is currently pursuing his Master of Fine Arts at Columbia University School for the Arts (expected 2025). His work has been shown internationally in group shows at the Fitchburg Art Museum, Black Brick Project, SK Gallery, the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition, Page-Waterman Gallery, the Parish Center for the Arts, and Post Office Gallery, among others. His first museum solo exhibition, "Desastre!," was on view at the Fitchburg Art Museum from June through August 2023, where his work is also included in the permanent collection. Recent honors include the Richard Lewis Bloch Memorial Prize, the Martin A. Rothenberg Travel Fellowship, the D'Arcy Hayman Scholarship, and the Quinta Carolina Scholarship.

Reya Sehgal, Programs & Operations Manager

Reya Sehgal (they/them) is a multidisciplinarian whose work spans performance, writing, curating, and cultural programming. Reya has contributed to exhibitions at SFMOMA/YBCA, BRIC, Project for Empty Space, Brown University, Humanities Action Lab, and the Queens Museum; they have also led research projects on narrative inclusion in (visual) media at Paramount and Getty Images. They served as the 2017-2019 Visual Culture Fellow at the International Center of Photography, where they developed public programs and hosted the series "Optics: New Ways of Seeing Contemporary Culture." Reya's creative work centers on the performative limits of diversity discourse, and the development of imagination in collective practice. As a member of the DIVERSITY FELLOWS! performance collaborative, Reya was a 2016-2017 Diversity Fellow at RISD, and took part in residencies at the Sedona Summer Colony and Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. They have also performed at SFMOMA, Performa 13, Dumbo Arts Festival, Arab American National Museum, Metro Pictures Gallery, Center for Performance Research, Abrons Art Center, Drama League, Performancy Forum, AS220, UC Davis, and Columbia University. Reya received an MA in Public Humanities from Brown University, and BA in Postcolonial Urbanism and Theater/Performance Studies from UC Berkeley; they are currently training to become an intimacy director for stage and film. Based in Mexico City and sometimes NYC, Reya works in real places, and also on the internet.

Dani Brito, BlaQ Program Manager

Dani Brito (they/them) is a nonbinary Dominican interdisciplinary artist and writer based in New York City. They earned a BA in Art History from Oberlin College, where their research interests spanned across visual culture, critical race theory, and post colonial studies in regards to queer organizing and archival practices in New York City. They have held programming and administrative support roles at The Knockdown Center, El Museo del Barrio, The CUE Art Foundation, Decad (Berlin), and Art Labour Archives (Berlin). As a practicing artist working across painting, video, and digital drawing, Brito calls attention to the spectrum of affects experienced by the Black queer body. 

Adam Baran, Queer|Art|Film Resident Curator

Adam Baran (he/him) is a Brooklyn-based filmmaker, writer, curator and event promoter. He is the producer of the upcoming documentary "Circus of Books" and his 2013 short film "Jackpot" won Best Short at the Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. He is the co-chair of the campaigns committee at The Creative Resistance, an activist group of filmmakers committed to taking back our democracy. He has been the co-curator of Queer|Art|Film since its inception.

Evan Scott, Newsletter Editor

Evan Aptaker Scott (he/him) has worked in New York City at the intersection of non-profits, communications, art, and design for 7 years. He's edited the monthly newsletter for Queer | Art since 2016, and previously served as Program Coordinator for Cinema Conservancy. Since 2017, he's worked at The Noguchi Museum, currently as the Manager of Retail and Merchandising.

Mike Teele, Bookkeeper

Mike Teele (he/him) began his career many, many moons ago as Development Director at Ford’s Theatre after graduating from American University in Washington DC. Upon moving to NYC, he was first Managing Director at Musical Theater Works, then at Ensemble Studio Theater, and then, Founder and Managing Director of CAP21. Changing course, he spent a couple of decades in advertising, 15 years as Business Operations Director for Big Arrow Group, a boutique agency specializing in communications for patients and caregivers battling rare diseases. Prior to joining The Drama League in 2021, Mike was a business management and operations consultant for Pilobolus, Queer Art Inc, Little Orchestra Society, Charlie Guidance Productions, and others.

Lisa Marie Alatorre, Organizational Development Consultant
via Community Jewelbox

Lisa Marie is a community organizer, educator, and writer with over 20 years experience fighting for the abolition of imprisonment, policing, and oppression as a response to social problems and instead shifting towards care, healing, and transformation. She has formerly worked with movement organizations such as the San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness and Critical Resistance and is currently a part-time lecturer in the Crime and Justice Studies Department at UMass Dartmouth. She is a Queer Femme of Indigenous, Mexican, and Jewish descent. Born, raised, and a descendant of Tohono O’odham and Hohokam people and land known as Maricopa County, Az., she is currently settled on Coastal Salish land known as the Key Peninsula, WA.

Lola Flash
President

Lola Flash (she/her) is a Visual Art Mentor with Queer|Art. Her early involvement in AIDS activism resulted in the iconic 1989 political art advertising campaign by Gran Fury: “Kissing Doesn’t Kill, Greed and Indifference Do.” Simultaneously with her activism, she began using photography to challenge stereotypes and offer new ways of seeing that transcend and interrogate gender, sexual, and racial norms. Flash now works primarily in portraiture with a 4’x5’ film camera, engaging those who are often deemed invisible. Flash has work included in important public collections such as the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Brooklyn Museum. Pen + Brush Gallery’s inaugural exhibition in 2018 featured a 30-year retrospective of her significant photographs. Learn more about her work here.

Kei Williams
Secretary

Kei Williams (they/them) is a BLACK queer transmasculine visual artist and community organizer. Born and raised in Upstate New York and a founding member of the Black Lives Matter Global Network, they have helped build some of the most powerful movements of our time. As a part of Movement Netlab, a practice-centered ‘think-make-and-do tank’, they worked to develop conceptual and practical tools based on decentralization as a framework for organizers, activists, and researchers in order to bring us closer to a society of beloved community. A lifelong responder to injustice (the grandchild of labor activists), Kei is an abolitionist organizer whose work has spanned across issues such as racial and gender violence to mass incarceration and jail building to climate jobs and justice with their aim being to transform culture from the individual into a global systemic analysis of structural oppression through the lens of intersectionality. They serve as a curator, designer, and walking tour guide with Black Gotham Experience, a storytelling project documenting the impact of the African Diaspora on New York City. Kei currently lives in Queens, NY with his dog Spartacus and 12 inherited plants.

Bee Davis
Treasurer

From a young age, Bee Davis (she/her) was destined for extraordinary achievements. Tested for a staggering IQ of 191 as a child, she skipped two grades and self-taught herself programming languages like BASIC and PASCAL. By deconstructing an Apple IIc and a Commodore 64, 12-year-old Bee ignited a lifelong passion for technology. Concurrently, her artistic talents blossomed as she learned to sew and oil paint, even launching her own clothing brand by the age of 14. This dual love for technology and art set the stage for Bee's groundbreaking career. Starting at E*TRADE in Menlo Park, she swiftly rose through the ranks of the tech industry, leading the teams that built the HBO and MBUSA websites before moving on to become one of the pioneering engineers at Pandora Music. There, she used machine learning to create Pandora's first profitable ad platform. Her career trajectory then skyrocketed into intelligence work, developing crucial applications for Naval Intelligence, Army Intelligence, DISA, and the NSA's Archangel Project. Following that, Bee took on the monumental task of architecting NASA's cloud infrastructure across its campuses, including Kennedy, Johnson, and Ames Research Centers. After earning a Master's degree in Cybersecurity from Brown University, Bee held pivotal roles at emerging cybersecurity startups like LiftEd, Eaze, Aetion, and Spruce. However, her life took a turn when she transitioned. As a black trans woman, she found herself pushed out of her cybersecurity roles. Undeterred, Bee refocused her unparalleled skillset on healthcare and data equity for trans and marginalized communities. At Humana, she authored a landmark 30-page document setting the standards for the ethical treatment and analysis of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) and race/ethnicity data. Her work garnered her the Apex Award and the Center of Excellence Award from Humana. In the art world, Bee is just as transformative. She pioneered "The Acrylic Underground," a live painting practice featuring collaborations with musicians and storytellers. She also founded the Lux Quaubas Modern Art Gallery and owns Beeline Studio in Sacramento, a haven focused on the BIPOC queer community's physical and mental well-being. With a life story as unique and impactful as hers, Bee Davis is not just a trailblazer but a beacon of inspiration. Her journey serves as an indelible example of how talent, resilience, and a commitment to social justice can pave the way for meaningful change.

Ira Sachs
Founding Director

Ira Sachs (he/him) is a filmmaker whose work includes the features Passages, Love is Strange, Little Men (Grand Prize, Deauville Film Festival, 2016), Keep the Lights On (Teddy Award, Berlinale, 2012), and Forty Shades of Blue (Dramatic Grand Jury Prize, Sundance, 2005). Recipient of a 2013 Guggenheim Fellowship, as well as residency fellowships from Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony, Sachs’s work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum. In 2009, in recognition of the impact of the AIDS epidemic on generational mentorship for queer artists, and compelled by an urgent need to address the lack of institutional and economic support for queer creative work in all disciplines, Sachs began to imagine and strategize for the initial programs that would become Queer|Art. In 2009, with filmmaker and co-curator Adam Baran, he inaugurated the now long-running monthly screening series Queer|Art|Film, and in 2011, he and arts organizer Lily Bins launched the first year of Queer|Art|Mentorship. As Executive Director of Queer|Art from its inception until 2019, Sachs worked closely with then Programs Coordinator Vanessa Haroutunian to secure non-profit status for the organization, to spearhead partnerships with the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, Visual AIDS, the IFC Center, and HBO, and to organize and develop the donor support necessary for Queer|Art’s long-term growth and sustainability.

Nelson Santos

Nelson Santos (he/him) has over 20 years of experience in the arts, advocacy, and non-profit sector —leading the vision of non-profit art organizations with an LGBTQ+ and social justice mission. He has worked with artists, activists, curators, and community partners to produce and present exhibitions, public programs, visual art projects, and publications that embrace the rich and diverse cultural histories that are often under-recognized and underrepresented. Santos is a faculty member and Academic Advisor of the MFA Fine Art department at the School of Visual Arts. He previously served as the Interim Director of Curatorial Programs at the Leslie-Lohman Museum (2019-2020), responsible for the successful execution of the organization’s exhibitions and collection management; and Director Emeriti of Visual AIDS (2000-2017); a QAM Mentor in Curatorial Practice (2018-2019); Fire Island Artist Residency (FIAR) Board Member (2018-2020) and current Queer|Art Board President. Santos is also an artist who lives and works in Brooklyn. Learn more at www.nelsonsantosart.com.

Ellen Marks

Ellen Marks (she/her) is a retired managing director from Accenture, a leading global professional services company, providing a broad range of services and solutions in strategy, consulting, digital, technology and operations.  Her 24 year career with the company focused on marketing and communications where she worked globally across several industries and business lines. Her skills and experience include developing marketing and communications strategies for acquisitions; brand positioning; events; internal communications; corporate messaging; recruitment; sales campaigns; senior stakeholder management and thought leadership.  During her early career, Ellen was the Director of Marketing and Communications at the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University; she also spent four years at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. in various marketing and curatorial roles. Ellen has a Master’s degree in Integrated Marketing Communications from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and a Bachelor’s degree in Art History from Smith College.

Lucila Moctezuma

Lucila Moctezuma (she/her) is a consultant to documentary filmmakers and media organizations in the US and internationally, and programmer with international festivals. Her work with filmmakers focuses on story and creative authorship, and consults with media organizations in program design, program implementation, and as facilitator of story workshops. Currently she is Senior Consultant of Artist Programs at Points North Institute where she co-leads the Diane Weyermann Fellowship, International Programmer for Hot Docs in Canada, and a member of the documentary programming committee at the Morelia International Film Festival in Mexico. Other consulting organizations have included the Sundance Documentary Film Program, Brown Girls Doc Mafia, Multitude Films, and story workshops with the Bronx Documentary Center and BAVC. Previously, she held senior positions at high-profile organizations such as Chicken & Egg Pictures, UnionDocs, Women Make Movies, the Media Arts Fellowships for The Rockefeller Foundation, and founded the TFI Latin America Fund for Tribeca Film Institute. She is member of the Board for Artshack, a non-profit ceramics studio in Brooklyn; member of the Executive Board of Cine Qua Non Lab, a residency for international fiction filmmakers in Michoacán, Mexico; member of the Industry Advisory Council for UFO (Untitled Filmmaker Organization); and was Vice-President of the Board of Trustees of The Flaherty. She is Producer of the feature-length documentary, She Wrestles (in development, by award-winning director and wrestling state champion, Charles Fairbanks). Her work as Associate Producer has included the documentary series The New Americans for Kartemquin Films, and Shocking and Awful for Deep Dish TV, which was part of the 2006 Whitney Biennial. Lucila is based in Brooklyn, NY, and is originally from Mexico City. She holds a degree in Philosophy at Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico and is a frequent guest participant at film forums, panels and juries in the US and internationally. Lucila is a 2019 JustFilms Ford Foundation / Rockwood Leadership Institute Fellow and a member of the Documentary Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences since 2021.

Max Rifkind-Barron

Max (he/him) is a queer, Jewish filmmaker from Los Angeles. He wrote and produced the short film "Pipe Dream,” an unconventional coming-of-age story, which was acquired by Warner Brothers Television and is in development as a digital series. He produced Madeleine Olnek’s "Wild Nights with Emily," a feature-length comedy about Emily Dickinson, starring SNL veteran Molly Shannon. It premiered at SXSW and was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award. He has worked at Bazelevs Company, producers of “Unfriended” and “Searching” and at the Sundance Institute as a film screener. He holds an MFA and BA in Film from Columbia University.

Fran Tirado

Fran Tirado (she/her) is a writer, podcaster, and filmmaker in Brooklyn. After leading editorial strategy for magazines like Out and Hello Mr., and ad agencies like Chandelier Creative, most recently Fran was at Netflix managing LGBTQ+ audience engagement strategy and creating shows like “I Like to Watch.” She’s also created and hosted four queer podcasts, currently Like a Virgin with Rose Dommu. Fran has been working in queer media for almost thirteen years. As an organizer, Fran’s work has won her the Stonewall Vision Award, Brooklyn’s 30 Under 30, and MTV’s inaugural Logo Legends honor. She’s spoken at institutions like Yale, Juilliard, Harvard, Northwestern, and NYU and worked with brands like Google, HBO, Instagram, and Nike. Fran’s work has been featured on Vogue, The Washington Post, USA Today, People, TIME, NBC, BBC, PBS, NPR, Newsweek, New York Magazine, Buzzfeed, W, Interview, Elle, The Cut, Glamour, InStyle, Refinery29, GQ, Vox, Vulture, VICE, AV Club, The Rachel Maddow Show, Adweek, Good Morning America, and New York Magazine’s Encyclopedia of New York. The New York Times called Fran a "Queer Champion."

Cecilia Gentili

Cecilia Gentili is an advocate, organizer, and storyteller working at the intersections of sex work, immigrant rights, incarceration issues, and trans liberation. Originally from Argentina, Cecilia came to the United States and survived for 10 years as an undocumented immigrant, gaining a living through sex work. She has years of experience working in direct services with organizations like The LGBT Center and Apicha Community Health Center, which led to her moving into policy work, becoming the Director of Policy at GMHC before creating Trans Equity Consulting to advocate directly for better policy for trans people at the local, state, and federal level. Cecilia is a founding member of Decrim NY, a coalition working towards the decriminalization, decarceration, and destigmatization of people in the sex trade. Cecilia has also performed in the hit FX Show Pose, in her one-woman show The Knife Cuts Both Ways, and in countless storytelling events across the country.

Read more about Cecilia’s legacy here.