Sebastien Abonnel, is a French entrepreneur, former soccer player, and founder and CEO of LAB FIVE. Sebastien is an entrepreneur with a solid background in management with more than 13 years of experience in the five – a -side soccer industry and facility management. Holding a Master’s degree in Sports Management from Aix-Marseille Université, he is the Founder and CEO of Lab Five.
“LAB FIVE’s mission is to help expand the number of five-a-side players globally, within diverse cultures and communities. With an inclusive mindset, we gather on the same square field amateurs, enthusiasts, and professionals, who share common values of equality, fairness, and humanity. Combining new technologies with the love of the sport, we want to support the hidden talent in everyone. We want to give the most motivated and gifted their best chance. ”
Yacnoy Abreu Dutour is a visual artist, dancer, choreographer, and performer with Afro-Cuban roots. Passionate about dance, he discovered in painting a powerful language, commensurate with his bodily commitment. A state graduate in contemporary and modern dance, Yacnoy Abreu Dutour finds in visual art a logical development of his career. The line is an extension of the gesture, the drawing becomes the trace of the dance.
by Marie Darrieussecq, writer
Julien Antelin serves in the City of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass’s Office of Budget, Operations, and Innovation. His prior roles include significant contributions to the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment and the Personnel Department in Los Angeles. Previously, he served as Chief of Staff for Deputy Mayors in Paris, France, during the administrations of Mayor Bertrand Delanoe and Mayor Anne Hidalgo. He is also a Climate Fresk facilitator, leading interactive and educational workshops aimed at raising public awareness about climate change through a serious game that summarizes the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He holds a diploma from a French engineering school in Mathematics and Numerical Modelling.
Birdy Bouchard is fueled by a passion for movement and eclectic expressions. I thrive and find home on the water, where sailing and living in community bring a constant sense of learning and self-discovery. Member of the group Roosters on the roof.
A Los Angeles-based French-American impact producer and marketer with over 20 years of international experience producing major multimedia and multicultural content, Juliette Bouquerel is the founder of Be Your Change and the producer of Nature Is Teacher, a multimedia documentary on the life and impact of Valer Clark. Learn more here.
Alain Bourdin is a sociologist and urban planner. As a sociologist he was particularly interested in heritage through safeguarding policies, their implementation, the actors and devices that participate in them, and the movement of inhabitants . He continued to work on various topics concerning old housing always through the prism of the organization of the action. He then studied the social effects of large projects in rural areas. He became a professor of urban planning and worked on issues concerning urban expertise and spatial planning before devoting several works to the relationship between urban planning and lifestyles. In recent years, this has led him to develop a series of surveys that focuses on the processes of territorialization of lifestyles. He is now the scientific director of the Coubertin program, which studies the production of Olympic facilities. Its orientations concern the consequences of the city, with its devices and its actors, the epistemology of research in urbanism, and the conditions of construction of a thought of the future city and the relationship between cities and lifestyles. He is director of the Revue Internationale d’Urbanisme.
Latest books published:
Créer la place du village en ville, 2023 Editions Archibooks
With Hélène Dang Vu and Joël Idt Grand Paris Olympique: premiers tours de pistes , 2023 Editions Archibooks.
Gabriela Burdsall is a dancer, choreographer and teacher based in Los Angeles. Originally from Havana, she holds a BA in Contemporary dance from the University of Arts of Cuba. Her work takes the form of a narrative journey through archives and the connection to body memory. Burdsall’s performances intertwine genres of dance, theater, and visual arts, serving as a bridge to explore movement and heritage and foster a deeper understanding of the complexities that shape our identities and collective consciousness.
Valer has been restoring watersheds for almost 40 years. Starting from small rock dams known as trincheras, she has pushed the limit of what can be done in large watersheds. She has been instrumental in forming a network of organizations to focus on a wildlife corridor between the United States and Mexico. She founded and funded Cuenca de los Ojos. Valer’s outstanding conservation efforts have been recognized by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the US Geological Survey, and The Nature Conservancy. Her work has been recognized with numerous awards, including the Arizona Game and Fish Commission Award of Excellence (twice), the 2008 National Wetlands Award, the Secretaria de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales y de la Comision Nacional de Areas Naturales Protegidas, and the Tucson’s Museum of Contemporary Art’s Local Genius Award in 2020. Learn more .
Tori Danner is an LA based Actor, Voice Artist, Writer and Producer. She’s also a graduate of the MFA Acting program at CalArts.
She’s currently known for her ongoing role as Morenike in CBS’s hit sitcom, Bob Hearts Abishola.
Jenna Didier is an artist whose site-driven practice promotes stewardship of ecologies within cities and on public lands. Via community collaborations, she promotes inclusivity, foregrounding intersectional voices and visions in public space. Her regenerative large-scale permanent public art works inhabit various sites around California, and her home state of Minnesota. Her work has been supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation, The Durfee Foundation, The Getty Museum, The Graham Foundation, LA County Museum of Art, the LA County Department of Arts and Culture, the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, The San Francisco Arts Commission, the EPA and the NEA. As an extension of her social practice and ongoing experimentation with materials, she founded the nonprofit organization Materials & Applications (M&A). She currently serves as the Executive Director of LA River Arts.
Will Evans is a publisher, translator, and entrepreneur with a knack for finding undertold, outstanding stories and connecting them to audiences. In 2013, Evans founded Deep Vellum Publishing, a nonprofit indie book publisher dedicated to translating the world’s best novels into English for American audiences. Deep Vellum Books followed in early 2016 to serve as a cultural community center with literature at the heart of its programming.
In 2013, after a career in government and business, Clayton Frech founded Angel City Sports, which is now one of the leading adaptive and Paralympic sports providers in the US. Angel City Sports uses sports to transform the lives of children, adults, and veterans with physical disabilities and visual impairments, providing year-round programming, coaching, equipment, and a slate of competitive events, including the Angel City Games. Mr. Frech also manages Paralympic athletes, consults companies interested in disability and adaptive sports, and is a documentary producer.
An accomplished athlete, sought-after motivational speaker, and budding fashion model, Ezra Frech, 18 years old, was born with congenital limb differences, missing four fingers on his left hand, his left knee, and left shin bone at birth. Ezra has been using a prosthetic leg since the age of 11 months, and a running blade since the age of four. An accomplished junior athlete, Ezra made Team USA at the age of 14 and was the youngest athlete in the world attending the 2019 World Para Athletics Championships. At 16, Ezra competed in the long jump (seventh place) and high jump (fifth place) at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games. He won his first world championship (and broke the world record) at the 2023 World Para Athletics Championships and is currently training to compete in high jump, long jump, and the 100M at the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games.
Scot Hendricks plays an important role in the Santa Monica Contact Dance Community with over 30 years of experience. He lives in Los Angeles, has been practicing and teaching contact improvisation and a variety of movement practices with the dedication and professionalism that this practice deserves.
Tilly Hinton, Ph.D. is a cultural producer, public historian, nonprofit strategist, communicator, and facilitator, whose work in Australia and the United States is recognized for its strategic rigor, practicality, and kindness. Her humanities research focus and extensive experience in high-pressure cultural production give Tilly a powerful toolkit of practical and conceptual insights for communicating, organizing, reflecting, and improving communications, programs, events, exhibitions, activations, and educational opportunities. She is the founder and curator of LA River X – a community project that collects, amplifies and preserves contemporary river stories, she created and hosted Storytime for the Apocalypse throughout the first few years of the pandemic and is an alumni ambassador for the University of Technology, Sydney. With Tilly’s leadership, LA River X has created exhibitions and programming at the Los Angeles Public Library, the Autry, RiverFest, The Claremont Colleges, USC, and Frogtown Artwalk, and has achieved the permanent archiving of the now-bilingual LA River X collection into the Western Water Archives, thanks to partnerships with Pomona College and The Claremont Colleges Library. Tilly has a Masters and a PhD about the Los Angeles River’s recent social history, and she took Lewis MacAdams seriously when he told her that her job was articulating and protecting the river’s future mythology.
Jenna Hornstock joined the Office of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass as the Deputy Mayor for Housing. She brings over 20 years of experience leading local government teams in creative redevelopment strategies, with a focus on affordable housing, transit oriented development, and land use and policy. Prior to joining Mayor Bass’ team, Jenna was the Deputy Director of Planning for Land Use at the Southern California Association of Governments where she led the development of $150M in grant programs that incentivized housing production. Jenna spent eight years at LA Metro as Executive Officer for Transit Oriented Communities where she oversaw the Joint Development program, station area urban design, and first/last mile planning. She spent seven years at the Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles (CRA/LA), most recently as Chief of Strategic Planning and Economic Development. She was a Planning Commissioner for the City of Los Angeles from 2021 – 2023, and serves as a Board member for the non-profit Community Health Councils and on the ULI/LA Advisory Board. She was prior Vice Chair of the ULI Public Private Partnership Product Council. Her work has been recognized with awards from the AIA/LA (Honorary AIA), APA/LA (John Chase Visionary Planner Award), and the non-profit Inclusive Action for the City (Unsung Heroes of Los Angeles). Jenna holds a Masters in Public Policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a BA in Rhetoric from UC Berkeley.
Peter “Pete” Jacobson is an American cellist, producer, songwriter-singer, chamber musician, teacher, and father. In 2013 he won a Grammy for Best Latin Rock Alternative or Urban Album as a member of the group Quetzal. After more than a decade performing as the cellist for Pasadena’s Southwest Chamber Music, he began to focus on original music.
Gustavo Leclerc is an architect and an artist with a Ph.D. in Architecture from UCLA. Mr. Leclerc was a founding member of the multidisciplinary collective ADOBE LA (Artists, Architects, and Designers Opening the Border Edge of Los Angeles). He was a fellow at Harvard University in the prestigious Loeb Fellowship program during the 1999-2000 academic year. In 2000, he co-chaired the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture National Conference in Los Angeles, titled Heteropolis: Immigration, Ethnicity and the American City. He has participated in several art exhibitions as a curator, artist, and exhibition designer. The nature of his work is cross-disciplinary. He has collaborated with visual artists, geographers, literary theorists, anthropologists, historians, filmmakers, poets, writers, public artists, activists, and musicians. He lectures throughout the United States and Mexico on art, architecture, Urbanism, Latinx spaces/places, border and immigrant cultures, cultural hybridity, and cultural criticism.
Alvin has been a part of the adaptive sports community for years, participating, mentoring, and advocating for all athletes! He is a key member of our Los Angeles Rams wheelchair football team (2022 USAWFL Champions!) and serves as the head coach of our wheelchair basketball program.
Evan Meyer is the Executive Director of Theodore Payne Foundation (TPF), an education center and nonprofit nursery that focuses on bringing biodiversity and natural systems into the urban core of Southern California through native plants. Evan’s professional background is in horticulture, botany and plant conservation. Prior to working at TPF, he held positions at UCLA Botanical Garden, California Botanic Garden, Harvard University Herbaria, the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, and the Native Plant Trust. He has broad interests at the intersection of plants, the environment and culture.
After a Master’s in philosophy and seven years working at a bookstore, Céline Minard decided to go into writing at the age of thirty-three. She has published twelve books over two decades, all of them varying in tone and form. She completed residencies at Villa Médicis (in 2007–08) and Villa Kujoyama (in 2011), and was awarded the Franz-Hessel Prize for So Long, Luise, the Prix du Livre Inter for Faillir être flingué, the Special Mention of the Wepler Prize for Bastard Battle, the Zadig and Voltaire Prize for Bacchantes, and the Grand Prix de l’imaginaire for Plasmas (currently in translation for US publisher Deep Vellum). She is currently a Villa Albertine resident in Los Angeles where she works on the LA River.
Patt Morrison is a journalist, author, and radio-television personality. Her work has spanned national politics and stories from the Los Angeles riots, earthquakes, and the Space Shuttle to the Super Bowl and the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.
Morrison has a share of two Pulitzer Prizes, as a longtime Los Angeles Times writer and columnist. As a public television and radio broadcaster, she has won six Emmys and a dozen Golden Mike awards.
Her nonfiction books, Rio L.A., Tales from the Los Angeles River and Don’t Stop the Presses! Truth, Justice, and the American Newspaper, were both bestsellers. And Pink’s, the legendary Hollywood hot dog stand, named its vegetarian hotdog after Morrison.
Laureanne is passionate about science and environmental protection with extensive experience in wastewater treatment. She earned her M.S in Mechanical Engineering for Renewable Energy from Sorbonne University in Paris, France. In the meantime, she worked as Business Engineer for a gates and screening supplier, discovering a new interest for water treatment. Laureanne pursued her career with a Ph.D. in the same University on cavitation bubbles and catalysts-based technologies to degrade organic molecules. She then moved to the U.S. and worked as Project Engineer in a wastewater treatment plant in Long Island, New York. Afterwards, she joined Caltech as Postdoctoral Research Associate to characterize ozone bubbles in a packed column for toilet water treatment. As an R&D Scientist at Moleaer, Laureanne studies nanobubbles properties to develop new applications in water and wastewater treatment.
Timothée Parrique is an economist, originally from Versailles, France. He is currently a researcher at the School of Economics and Management of Lund University (Sweden). He holds a PhD in economics from the Centre d’Études et de Recherches sur le Développement (University of Clermont Auvergne, France) and the Stockholm Resilience Centre (Stockholm University, Sweden). His dissertation, “The political economy of degrowth” (2019), explores the economic implications of degrowth. Timothée is the author of Ralentir ou périr. L’économie de la décroissance (September 2022, Seuil), a wide-audience book adaptation of his PhD dissertation. He frequently writes about green growth and decoupling; he is the lead author of “Decoupling debunked – Evidence and arguments against green growth” (2019), a report published by the European Environmental Bureau (EEB).
With more than five years of experience and many professional appearances, Justice Johnson aka Dj Phåro is the new go-to artist for all kind of events, with a unique skill that sets him apart from other Dj in the region.
Dj Phåro creates a unique sound beyond the saturated and repetitive playlists. His musical inspiration are DJ Jazzy Jeff, Bob Sinclair, Daft Punk, J Dilla, Black Coffee, Outkast. Dj Phåro loves learning from new artists, consistenly seeking to mix sounds from all over the world. He loves to share with his audience what he believes is the true meaning of music in its purest form.
Veronica Polanco serves as the Chief Innovation Officer of PlayLA for the Los Angeles City Department of Recreation and Parks. In this role, Veronica is dedicated to mitigating barriers around economic disadvantages, accessibility, and gender disparity to sports for youth in Los Angeles. This focus is not only in preparation for the upcoming Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2028 but also in ensuring a lasting positive legacy that benefits all Angeleno youth, regardless of their background, circumstances, or ability. Veronica previous spent 4 years as senior director for the Executive Office of the Mayor of Los Angeles under the Bass and Garcetti Administration.
Nirina Ralantoaritsimba is a Franco-Malagasy artist and writer with a PhD in travel literature. In literature, painting, and cinema, she creates transdisciplinary works exploring the creative process through dialogue between the arts. In research, she studies interculturality and self-writing. Nirina has lived in France, the United States, and the United Arab Emirates, and continues the journey as an artist-educator, to lead multi-artistic workshops in schools, universities, and cultural centers of different cultures.
Pierre–André Senizergues is a renowned professional skateboarder, entrepreneur, and designer. He has been amongst the most influential figures in the skateboarding industry for over three decades and his company, Sole Technology, has become a global leader in the skate shoe market. Beyond skateboarding and fashion, Senizergues is also a sustainability advocate, using his platform to promote eco-friendly practices in his business and personal life. He is working with Paris 2024 to ensure the success of the Olympic skateboarding event.
Guillaume Serina is a French American journalist and author. Born and raised in Paris, France, he was a young learner of the English language. He’s been living in Los Angeles, California, since 2006. Guillaume Serina attended the Sorbonne University in Paris, where he received his Master’s degree in History of International Relations with a specialization in American History and the US political system.
He has published five non-fiction books in French, including the first French language biography of Barack Obama and Reagan/Gorbatchev. Reykjavik 1986, le sommet de tous les espoirs has now been translated into English and is available under the title An Impossible Dream, and Reagan, Gorbachev and the World Without the Bomb, with an introduction by Mikhail Gorbachev.
Guillaume Serina now teaches history, geography, economics and political science at the International School of Los Angeles, a top-rated bilingual school.
Faez Shahrezaei, has been curious and interested in sound as a form of communication initiative, and has also been discovering himself year after year in textures, wood, harmony and rhythm through multiple instruments. He is a member of the group Roosters on the roof.
Roosters on the Roof, is the story of two souls who come together on a sailing trip, being crew members of a sailboat gave them the opportunity to work on some covered materials and they also found their spirit to unite in the world of music and take them to most original creations.
Dr. Sierra Corona is a conservation scientist with over 20 years of experience researching and implementing conservation and restoration practices on endangered landscapes in Northern Mexico and Western US. Rodrigo has worked on the recovery of black-footed ferrets, American bison, prairie dogs, and jaguars. He is the executive director of Borderlands Restoration Network (BRN), a grassroots local organization based in Patagonia AZ working to protect land, restore ecosystems, and reconnect people and nature through shared learning.
Aaron Thomas is a Certified Arborist of the International Society of Arboriculture. He is the current Director of Urban Forestry at North East Trees where he coordinates tree planting projects in resource challenged communities; develops and implements green job training programs for at-risk youth; and organizes environmental stewardship activities for local community groups. He took part in many reforestation projects in the Los Angeles region. North East Trees is a community-based, non-profit organization that helps heal environmental injustice through urban forestry, nature-based design-build, habitat restoration, and workforce development. Its volunteers work in underinvested communities in Los Angeles County – particularly in Northeast, East, and South Los Angeles – to build climate resiliency through stewardship, planting, design, and community engagement.
Aaron studied at the University of California at Berkeley and at Los Angeles City College. He holds many certificates and recognitions from Agriculture and Arboriculture organizations.