With over 20 years as a producer and DJ on the Atlanta music scene, Salah Ananse’s talent as a DJ has put him on bills with notable DJ’s such as Vikter Duplaix, DJ Kemit (Kemeticjust), Rich Medina, DJ Spinna, ?uestlove and Kai Alce.
Not only does Ananse rock crowds for some of the Southeast’s most popular party series such as One Music Fest, House In The Park and his own Afrique Electrique & Sunday School, he travels the world bringing his unique mix of soul, house & hip hop.
Storhm Artiste is a comedian, writer, actress, singer, host, etc. She writes and creates scripts, as well as ghostwrites material for other comedians and has performed stand-up comedy for over 7 years. Storhm has performed with many celebrity comedians; Marlan Wayans, Chris Tucker, Viva A. Fox, etc. She has performed on legendary stages all over the country; Improv, Stardome, Uptown Comedy Corner, The Laugh Factory, etc. She is a resident comedian, host and headliner at many comedy clubs across the country and has been seen on Roku TV headlining for the Late Night Comedy Show.
Adán Bean is an accomplished spoken word poet, emcee, storyteller, and creative director. Bean has performed as one-half of the retro-progressive hip-hop group The Remnant and served as editor-in-chief for Janelle Monae’s Wondaland.com. In 2021, he debuted an original stage show alongside comedian-collaborator David Perdue called Double Consciousness. In 2019, he released his first in a series of EPs exploring the idea of home entitled QUIET. He has won awards, including Emory’s 2023 Arts & Social Justice Fellowship, performed at the Kennedy Center in 2020, filmed a Tiny Desk concert, and was a 2017 National Poetry Slam song winner, among other accomplishments.
Pauline Boulay is Deputy Attaché for the Office of Science and Technology of the French Embassy in the United States and contributes to the mission of France Science. With a dual degree from SciencesPo Lille and Centrale Lille, she specializes in the social, economic, and cultural impacts of scientific and technological advancements on modern society. She works on developing scientific collaborations between France and the United States and is committed to promoting the work of French researchers internationally.
Sheila Pree Bright is a renowned international photographic artist and the mind behind the celebrated book #1960Now: Photographs of Civil Rights Activists and Black Lives Matter Protests. Bright’s expansive artworks weave deep insights into contemporary culture. Her iconic series include Plastic Bodies, Suburbia, #1960Now, Invisible Empire, Young Americans, and an evocative portrayal of the 90s Hip Hop scene. Among the prestigious spaces that have exhibited her works are the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the Saatchi Gallery in London, Harvard Art Museums, and the International Center of Photography in New York, to mention a few.
Christopher Brinson Jr., better known by his stage name, Uncle CJ, is an American drummer, music producer, artist, and the founder of S.M.I.L.E. Clothing. Born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, he has deep roots in music ranging from gospel to couture sounds. Uncle CJ is now a member of the Atlanta based improv group, Reverence, and the leader of CJ Brinson & Family collective. The journey is just beginning. Keep up with it @smileceej on Instagram.
Amena Brown is a spoken word poet, author, and performing artist whose work interweaves keep-it-real storytelling, rhyme and humor. In 2021, Amena was featured in Olay’s Face Anything campaign alongside Jennifer Hudson and Busy Phillips. The author of five spoken word albums and two non-fiction books, Amena was a 2022 The Watering Hole Poetry Fellow. She is also the poetic partner for PATTERN Beauty, Tracee Ellis Ross’ natural hair care brand. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her husband DJ Opdiggy and their dog Kane, where she is also the Chapter Host of CreativeMornings Atlanta.
Sarah Carter provides the vision for Goizueta Gardens at the Atlanta History Center, serves as curator and garden designer, and leads the horticulture and agriculture staff. Together, this team creates immersive, meaningful, and ecologically beneficial gardens that represent Atlanta’s unique landscape history. Sarah Carter’s 20+ year career in public gardens began with an internship in curation at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, where the importance of rich botanical diversity shared publicly in a beautiful way took root. She went on to become Curator of Herbaceous Plants and Outdoor Gardens at the New York Botanical Garden. Sarah Carter has written for numerous publications, been featured on Martha Stewart Radio, the Canadian Broadcast Corporation, GardenSmart TV series, and the podcast Stuff You Missed in History Class.
Staci L. Catron is a library director, historic preservationist, author, archivist, and community collaborator who is currently the Cherokee Garden Library Director for the Atlanta History Center. In this role, Catron manages the development, care, and interpretation of a 35,000-item collection, including rare and contemporary books, periodicals, manuscript collections, and visual arts collections. Catron is past president and honorary director of the Southern Garden History Society, past chair of the Georgia National Register of Historic Places Review Board, and treasurer of Easements Atlanta Board of Directors, among other roles. In 2023, she was awarded The Garden Club of America’s Historic Preservation Medal.
Mark Chambers is an environmental policy leader, advocate for social justice, and licensed architect, inspired by public service and lessons of collective action. He is Vice President of Partnerships at Elemental Excelerator, a nonprofit investor focused on scaling climate technologies with deep community impact. He recently served the Biden White House as Senior Director for Building Emissions and Community Resilience and was previously the Director of Sustainability for both New York City and the District of Columbia, where he led efforts to accelerate climate policy implementation in America’s largest city and the nation’s capital. Mark lives in Harlem with his wife and two children.
Marina de Chatillon, Senior Engineer Project Manager, has experience in leading complex projects across various industries. She is proficient in collaborating with cross-functional teams and developing project goals. Marina de Chatillon is also a volunteer at Zero waste Home. She moved from Paris to Atlanta, and she is passionate about sustainability, and facilitates workshops for Climate Fresk.
With Anna Zelcer, she will be in charge of the Climate Fresk workshop during Night of Ideas.
Chandra Farley serves as chief sustainability officer for The City of Atlanta. Chandra’s current charge is the development of a comprehensive climate resilience strategy that will address energy insecurity, healthy housing, local food systems, waste diversion, building decarbonization, workforce training, and fleet electrification while advancing the City’s goal to achieve 100% clean energy for 100% of Atlantans by 2035. Prior to joining the City, Chandra Farley founded ReSolve Consulting, an energy justice consulting firm and the “Good Energy Project,” a social space connecting the transformational power of Black Women and their community leadership to the movement for an equitable clean energy economy.
Travis Fisher is a Senior Horticulturist, Plant Records Manager, and Arborist for the Goizueta Gardens at the Atlanta History Center. He has a background in history, horticulture, archaeology, and Southeastern ecology, creating a confusing but institutionally appropriate milieu from which he draws to inform his work at the Atlanta History Center.
Clint Fluker serves as the Senior Director of Culture, Community, and Partner Engagement for Emory University Libraries and the Michael C. Carlos Museum. Clint is the co-editor of The Black Speculative Arts Movement: Black Futurity, Art + Design (2019), a collection that enters the global scholarly debate on the emerging field of Afrofuturism studies.
He is also the co-founder of ThrdSpace, a community engagement organization that creatively activates historic venues by collaborating with emerging artists, professionals, and social activists. Clint Flunker received his Ph.D. in American Studies at Emory University’s Institute for Liberal Arts, with a research focus on contemporary movements in black speculative fiction.
He is the associate curator of Night of Ideas Atlanta – Behold the Land 2024 with Nasim Fluker.
Nasim Fluker is the co-founder of Thrdspace, a company that teaches individuals and organizations how to leverage the power of community to attract the people and resources to reach their goals. She has a background in community development, strategic planning, and program design. She is interested in third spaces – physical and social – as sites of resistance, power-building, and decolonial practice, and believes they are crucial for fostering belonging.
Nasim holds an MA in sociology from Georgia State University and a BA in international studies from American University. She is the associate curator of Night of Ideas Atlanta – Behold the Land 2024.
Darin Givens, a metro Atlanta native, is the co-founder of a nonprofit organization for pedestrian advocacy in Atlanta called ThreadATL. He is a former journalist/freelance writer. Darin Givens was named Best Blogger in Atlanta by Creative Loafing in 2015. PEDS, the non-profit for pedestrian advocacy in the Atlanta region, gave him a Golden Shoe Award in 2018 for “walk-friendly journalism.”
Ryan Gravel is an urban designer, author, and civic entrepreneur working on ideas about the future of cities. Best known for his Master’s thesis and early work that launched the Atlanta Beltline, Ryan was also the lead creator of the Atlanta City Design, which designs the city’s inevitable change so that it grows into a better version of itself. Along with other projects and his book, Where We Want to Live, Ryan investigates the cultural side of infrastructure, describing how its intimate relationship with our way of life can illuminate a brighter path forward for cities.
Floyd Hall is a media strategist, engineer, cultural producer, writer, and documentarian from Atlanta, Georgia. Hall is the executive director of Atlanta Contemporary. Most recently, he was also interim director at Science Gallery Atlanta, where he orchestrated large-scale exhibits that merged art, science, design, and technology with an emphasis on engaging with youth. In 2023, he curated “Justice,” the first exhibit fully produced by Science Gallery Atlanta, and, in 2022, he co-curated “Hooked” for the gallery; it was named Best of Atlanta by Atlanta Magazine. In 2021, he co-curated “The Future Happened” for the Museum of Design Atlanta, produced the regional podcast “Bottom of the Map” with WABE and, in 2020, produced and hosted the podcast “Atlanta Legacy Makers” for the nonprofit Central Atlanta Progress and The City of Atlanta.
Laura Harjo is a Mvskoke scholar and an associate professor teaching Indigenous Planning, Community Development, and Indigenous Feminisms at the University of Oklahoma. She is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow in Native American and Indigenous Studies at Emory University. Harjo’s research and teaching centers on three areas: imbuing complexity to indigenous space and place; missing and murdered indigenous women and relatives and anti-violence; and community-based knowledge production. She is the author of Spiral to the Stars: Mvskoke Tools of Futurity (University of Arizona Press, 2019), which employs Mvskoke epistemologies, and indigenous feminisms to grapple with a community praxis of futurity.
Rachel Hassna graduated with a Masters in Community and Regional Planning from the University of New Mexico in 2017. Her master’s thesis focused on city planning, police violence and reform. Prior to returning to school, Rachel worked as a contract negotiator and union representative for Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers (SEIU-UHW) in northern California. Rachel Hassna is the former research assistant of Laura Harjo, helping her with her research on Atlanta.
Dr. Na’Taki Osborne Jelks is an environmental health scientist and Assistant Professor of Environmental and Health Sciences at Spelman College with expertise in environmental justice, community-engaged research, and urban sustainability. Jelks co-founded the West Atlanta Watershed Alliance (WAWA), a community-based environmental justice organization that works to grow a cleaner, greener, healthier, more sustainable West Atlanta through authentic community engagement, organizing, education, community science, and participatory research. Since 2018, Dr. Jelks has served on the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC), a federal advisory committee that works to integrate environmental justice into the Environmental Protection Agency’s programs, policies, and activities as well as to improve the environment or public health in communities disproportionately burdened by environmental harms and risks.
Ryan Jones is a Mercer University Alumnus who began performing spoken word in 2012 with the B.L.A.C.K Poets in Macon, GA. After winning his first poetry slam that year, Ryan J. led Mercer University’s poetry slam team to the College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational in 2015, ranking 20th nationally. In 2016, he served as assistant coach and poet for Mercer University’s team. Ryan Jones represented the Java Monkey Slam Team at the National Poetry Slam in 2017 and competed in various other events, including winning the TedX Peachtree Poetry Slam. He became a Cave Canem Fellow in 2018 and won the Art Amok Grand Slam Finals, becoming the 2018 Art Amok Slam Champion.
Aku Kadogo came to Spelman as the 2014-2015 Distinguished Visiting Scholar for the Arts. She held the position of the Chair for that department from 2016 until 2022.
She is an international theatre director/choreographer arts educator and cultural preservationist. This multi-faceted artist directs highly energetic, imaginative, original theatre works and has produced several international, collaborative inter-disciplinary projects. Her eclectic career has spanned the United States, Australia, and Asia.
Mark Kendall is an award-winning comedian, filmmaker, and educator. Along with his production partner, Bill Worley, he is the co-founder of CoolCoolCool Productions, where they use comedy to encourage civic engagement. His Mark Kendall Comedy video channels have accumulated millions of views. His films have screened at the American Black Film Festival Comedy Festival. He is the co-host of iHeart Media’s, “Ridiculous News” a news and comedy podcast available wherever you get your podcasts. He has toured nationally with his one person show, “The Magic Negro and Other Blackness” (originally produced at Dad’s Garage Theatre and The Alliance Theatre). Mark was named best Professional Funnyman by Creative Loafing in 2015 and was the Readers Pick for Best Comedian in Creative Loafing Atlanta in 2019.
Debra Lam is the Founding Executive Director for Partnership for Inclusive Innovation. Prior to this, she served as Pittsburgh’s first Chief of Innovation & Performance where she oversaw all technology, sustainability, performance and innovation functions of city government. Prior to that, she was a management consultant at a global engineering and design firm, Arup. She has been the recipient of various awards, including one of the top 100 most influential people in digital government by Apolitcal. She has worked and lived in the UK, China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. She is a graduate of Georgetown University and University of California, Berkeley.
Abra Lee is a storyteller and author of the forthcoming book “Conquer The Soil: Black America and the Untold Stories of Our Country’s Gardeners, Farmers, and Growers.” She has spent a lot of time in the dirt as a municipal arborist and airport landscape manager. Her work has been featured in media, including The New York Times, NPR, Fine Gardening, and Veranda Magazine. Lee is a graduate of Auburn University and an alumna of the Longwood Gardens Society of Fellows, a global network of public horticulture professionals. She is Director of Horticulture at Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta.
Chris Marks is an improviser, composer, and producer from Augusta, Georgia. Chris Marks started out playing piano at a young age, moving to guitar some years later, but keeping a pianistic mindset alive within the confines of the guitar. Chris has played improvised music in Atlanta with many of the city’s prominent musicians, including TJ Merritt, Kevin Scott, Dallas Dawson, Brandon Boone, Kebbi Williams, and Evan Sarver. They have also played alongside artists such as Baby Rose, Klark Sound, Mick Mayer, YANG, Lola Cole, and led their own groups at notable Atlanta venues like the Elliott St. Pub, 529, and Gallery 992.
Teacher and historian specializing in architectural theory, Sébastien Marot is one of the leading voices in the conceptualization of landscaping and the design of rural environments. Educated in philosophy, he holds a PhD in History. He is the author of a large number of publications dedicated to critical thinking on urbanism and cities, such as Sub-Urbanism and the Art of Memory (AA Publications 2003) and the reissue of the famous manifesto by Oswald Mathias Ungers and Rem Koolhaas The City in the City: Berlin, A Green Archipelago (Lars Müller 2013). Sébastien Marot is the curator of the exhibition “Architecture and Agriculture: Taking the Country’s Side,” first presented in 2019 at the Lisbon Architecture Triennale.
Marquinn Mason is a multi-instrumentalist from Atlanta, GA, who’s musical career has spanned across many genres over the years. He is the co-founder of Reverence at Gallery 992 in the Historic West End of Atlanta, where they have spearheaded the award winning improvisation session for 8 years. Collaborations include artists such as Russell Gunn, Kebbi Williams, Roy Ayers, Kamaal Williams, Kai Alce, Stefan Ringer, T Lang dance company, GloATL, and Jazzmeia Horn.
Born in San Diego, California, and raised in Baltimore, MD, the musical odyssey of Theron Merritt commenced at 10. With over 24 years of bass mastery, including 13 professional years, his journey spans genres, rooted in gospel. Multifaceted, he has toured 24 countries alongside luminaries like Arrested Development, Kamaal Williams, and Dru Hill. Atlanta is the current base of TJ Merritt, where he flourishes as a teacher, mentor, curator, and seasoned musician, shaping the next generation of talent while honing his craft. From gospel roots to global stages, TJ Merritt’s passion for music fuels his perpetual evolution as an artist and influencer.
Richard Milligan is a nature-society geographer and associate professor at Georgia State University. In collaboration with community organizers, his research focuses on water governance, political ecology, and environmental injustice. His publications have addressed Indigeneity and settler-colonialism in relation to pipeline permitting; coalitional politics for climate justice; connections between racism and water infrastructure; the limits of liberal recognition of environmental injustice; and improvisational strategies to confront environmental racism. His current projects and collaborations draw from political, urban, and critical physical geography to confront environmental racism on Mvskoke and Cherokee lands and racially segregated watersheds of metro Atlanta.
Bolanle Pace is a self- taught Nigerian American paper sculptor from Atlanta, Georgia. Her artwork explores her view of the world through paper manipulation. She uses techniques such as quilling, origami, paper flower artistry, and paper bead making to create her art. She creates large scale 3 dimensional paper flower installations, pendant lamps, 3 dimensional paper animal sculptures, paper bead jewelry, vintage headpieces, and paper flower dress sculptures. In 2021, Bolanle was selected from hundreds of paper artist to compete on the television show “Meet Your Makers Showdown” which is currently streaming on Discovery Plus.
Rachel is an interdisciplinary artist whose visual and performance art has been seen at venues including Tate Britain, de Young Museum, Lyric Hammersmith, Battersea Arts Centre, Woodruff Art Center, and Standpoint Gallery as well as in public spaces.
She is currently Lead Artist and Curator for “The City is a Circle,” a series of public events and a book containing essays and instructions for walks and explorations along the BeltLine in Atlanta, in an attempt to question the relationship between wildness and urban development. Rachel is also developing a new project entitled “Atlanta to the Atlantic,” in collaboration with Sarah Cameron Sunde, exploring the South River, one of the nation’s most endangered waterways.
David Perdue is an Atlanta comedian who has appeared on Kevin Hart Presents Hart of the City on Comedy Central, Uproarious on FuseTV, and Unprotected Sets on EPIX. In 2022, David was selected as an Arts & Social Justice Fellow at Emory University, in addition to a 2022 Climate Comedy Cohort created and directed by Generation180 and the Center for Media & Social Impact’s Good Laugh Initiative. David is also the co-producer and co-creator of the powerful stage show “Double Consciousness” with award winning poet Adán Bean. Additionally, David is an actor and co-hosts sports/comedy and political/comedy podcasts.
Guillaume Pitron is an award-winning documentary maker for France’s leading television channels. His work focuses on commodities and on the economic, political, and environmental issues associated with their use. His first book, The Rare Metals War, sold 100,000 copies in France and has been translated into eleven languages. Most recently, he published The Dark Cloud, an exploration of the environmental consequences of the digital world, also translated into several languages. Pitron is regularly invited to speak at international institutions, universities, book festivals, and TEDx talks. To date, he has authored around 100 reports, investigations, and documentaries across more than 40 countries and has been awarded 14 French and international journalism awards.
Ngnima Sarr, known as T.I.E, is a multifaceted Senegalese artist, singer, poetess, songwriter, and music producer, leading projects like T.I.E, The Love Process, and Exillians. She also created the immersive show Lâcher L’homme ! inspired by Frantz Fanon’s essay Black Skin White Masks.
Additionally, she recently participated in the thought-provoking piece Freedom, I’ll have lived your dream until the full last day, curated by Felwine Sarr, showcased in New York and North Carolina with the support of Villa Albertine’s Face Theater and FUSED programs. T.I.E’s work is rooted in an Afro-eco-feminist vision, evident in her installation Mawu’s Daughters, which premiered in Dakar during Partcours 2022.
She is one of the 2024 Villa Albertine residents in Atlanta.
Rose Scott is a Southeast regional Emmy award winning journalist and host of the news program “Closer Look” on Atlanta’s NPR station, WABE. With over two decades of reporting experience in Atlanta, Scott leads her team in subjects centered around the topics of affordable housing, domestic violence, HIV/AIDS, and immigration and criminal justice reform. Scott is the recipient of an Edward R. Murrow Award, Atlanta Association of Black Journalists award, numerous Georgia Association of Broadcaster awards, numerous Georgia Associated Press awards, and a winner of the Girls Inc. Strong, Smart & Bold Award.
Brandon Stephens is a dynamo conquering the realms of fashion, technology, and music. As a fashion designer, he crafts pieces that blend modern tech with fashion. He is the owner of a cutting-edge clothing brand Experimentul. He is also a self-taught software developer, seamlessly merging tech and fashion to elevate his brand’s operations. Beyond the digital realm, his fingers dance not only on keyboards but also on musical instruments. A gifted musician, he weaves melodies that echo his experiences, adding a unique soundtrack to his creative journey.
Ytasha L. Womack, a Chicago-based award-winning author, filmmaker, independent scholar, and dance therapist helped explain and popularize the genre in her widely cited 2013 volume Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci Fi & Fantasy Culture. She explores and expands it in her own fiction, including the Rayla Universe series, about a resistance fighter on a future Earth colony that’s fallen under a dictatorship. Her work also extends to filmmaking, and she is currently developing a new Afrofuturist film. Additionally, Ytasha L. Womack leads youth dance programs and an Afrofuturism dance therapy program for teens and adults. She began her career as a journalist, being a former reporter/columnist for the Chicago Defender, the nation’s oldest Black-owned daily newspaper.
Tiphanie Yanique is a novelist, poet, essayist and short story writer. Her novel Monster in the Middle was on numerous best of the year lists. Yanique is also the author of the poetry collection Wife and the novel Land of Love and Drowning, which are both award-winning writings. Additionally, Tiphanie Yanique is an outspoken activist on behalf of the Caribbean, having appeared on Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman, and published an open edition in The New York Times on the US response to hurricanes in the Caribbean. She is a member of the Virgin Islands Studies Collective, a group of activists, academics, and artists, who do decolonial work in and about archives.
With Marina de Chatillon, she will be in charge of the Climate Fresk workshop during Night of Ideas.