Collaborative Artists

Jose Luis Benavides sees the world primarily through his experience raised by a working-class, queer Latinx single mother in the Chicago community of Logan Square. The convergence of his own queer and intellectual identity mark conflicted point where his artistic practice is defined and undefined.
Amanda Cervantes makes work mainly consisting of archives. She is constantly looking back to the past and thinking about ways that cultural systems and ideas of gender exist and play out within her family and society.
Daniel Haddad creates as an immigrant living in the United States to interact and respond daily with diverse groups of society that make him aware of his identity and integrity.
Nancy Sánchez decided to add the accent mark onto her last name. the accent mark was taken by the us government during the 80’s when her father began legal documentation. sánchez threads together micro moments with her art.

Karina Aguilera Skvirsky is a multi-disciplinary artist who works in photography, video and performance. Karina’s half-hour, performance-based film, The Perilous Journey of María Rosa Palacios, documents her travel from Ecuador’s Chota highlands to the coastal town of Guayaquil. The expedition serves as a re-creation of her great grandmother’s 1906 journey and an exploration of identity, representation, and ever-shifting boundaries of place and nationhood.

I am a multidisciplinary Griot and Director. I think of my work as trying to find that which is holy, whole, holistic and/ or holds within Black performance functionality. I do this aesthetically through spiritual surrealism and traditional folkloric techniques and have created/ fostered techniques based on mythological archetypes, African American Southern Rituals, Underground Queer performance culture and Visual Conjurin.

LauraNicoleHaldane, antiracist community organizer, studio artist and art historian, who also holds an MFA in studio practice from SAIC, creates from the foundation that everything is interconnected beyond subatomic levels. Their practice merges conceptual ideas around personal and community healing, proposing moments of rest/reflection within liminal PastPresent&Future spaces.

Image description: L is seated, laughing, wearing a white dress, red scarf, striped socks and glasses. They are inside of a space with wood floors, a yellow wall and white french doors with ambient light.

Chicago native, Makeba Kedem-DuBose, has been a Multidisciplinary Career Artist for over 25 years, practicing throughout the greater Chicago land area, as well as regionally (New York, Atlanta, Maryland, Philadelphia, California, Michigan, Florida), and internationally (France, Germany, Ghana, England, and Cuba.) Her work is published, namely in Professor Daniel Parker’s African Art: The Diaspora and Beyond; Tara Bett’s book of poems, Arc and Hue, Drum Magazine (London), Janelle Dowell’s A Time: A Season in honor of Oprah Winfrey, and Woman’s Day Magazine. She studied Interior Design at Chicago’s esteemed Harrington College of Design.
Makeba is presently Creative Director and Curator at Chicago Global Health Alliance, a position she has held since 2014. She recently completed the Visual Arts Certification Program in Curatorial Practices at the Hyde Park Art Center through the University of Chicago Graham School. Her work is included in both private and public collections worldwide.

Maya Mackrandilal is a transdisciplinary artist, writer, and arts administrator based in Los Angeles. Her artwork, shown recently in Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York, imagines radical futures for women of color solidarity and liberation. Her writing, which has appeared in a variety of publications including The New Inquiry, contemptoary, and Sixty Inches from Center, focuses on issues of race, gender, and labor within the art world. She holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she was a recipient of a Jacob K. Javits Fellowship. She received her BA in Studio Art with a minor in English from the University of Virginia, where she was awarded an Auspaugh post-baccalaurate fellowship.
Enid Muñoz is a Chicago based performer and writer. As a founding member of FEMelanin Collective she has the privilege of working with other women of color on a mission to share their own stories on their terms. Her work focuses on the Mexican American experience and immigration.

Udita Upadhyaya is an interdisciplinary artist who uses her body and the details of her medical, cultural, and social biography as her primary art material. Her work spans live art, devised theatre, performative photographs, sculpture, installation, video, writing, text, and fiber arts. Upadhyaya’s interdisciplinary education and subsequent professional practice across filmmaking, international relations, and market research informs her research and community based approach to creative practice. Most recently, Upadhyaya has performed and exhibited work at the, Villa Teresa Decorative Arts Museum, Links Hall, Weinberg/Newton Gallery, and she a solo show, nevernotmusic, at Roman Susan Gallery, Chicago. Upadhyaya lives and works between Chicago and Mumbai. http://www.uditaupadhyaya.com/

Bhanu Kapil is a British-Indian poet who lives and works in Colorado. She has published five books of poetry [not exactly poetry], most recently Ban en Banlieue (Nightboat Books, 2016).