Kelli Williams is an animator, visual artist, and community artist based in Philadelphia, where she is an assistant professor at Moore College of Art & Design. In her personal work, she uses stop-motion animation, photography, installation, and humor to create work that comments on society through the lens of social media and technology. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally and has been featured in the Huffington Post, Columbus Live, Hyperallergic, Artnet, and Baltimore Magazine.

Andrea Walls is a multidisciplinary artist, informed and inspired by the writers and visual artists of the Harlem Renaissance and Black Arts Movement. She is pleased that her writing, scholarship, and visual art have been supported by organizations she admires, including the Leeway Foundation, VONA/Voices Workshops for Writers of Color; Hedgebrook Residencies for Women Authoring Change; The Colored Girls Museum; Writers Room at Drexel University; Studio Museum of Harlem; The Women’s Mobile Museum, and FabYouth Philly. She is the creator and curator of the interactive web experiences, The Museum of Black Joy, The D’Archive, and The Black Body Curve.

Philadelphia native Khalif Rivers is a self-taught photographer and writer interested in capturing the remnants of “Old Philadelphia” and uncovering its rich past. Driven by his love of the city’s unique industrial and residential architecture, he possesses an uncanny ability to evoke emotion from its landscapes that he amplifies through storytelling. His work resonates with both former and current residents alike.

Rachael Moton is a writer, director, and failed internet comedian. Her obsession with weird indie films and reality television led her to attend Temple University, where she graduated with a BFA degree in Film with a concentration in Directing. Her work has been supported by various organizations, including Sundance Institute, SFFILM, The Westridge Foundation, and The Gotham. As a storyteller, Rachael is passionate about sharing stories of marginalized people with the goal of promoting empathy, usually by utilizing comedy. If she wasn’t a filmmaker, Rachael believes she would’ve been a great reality tv star.

Emilio Maldonado is an Afro-Caribbean artist living in Philadelphia. He graduated from Savannah College of Art and Design with an MFA in Painting (2013), from Escuela de Artes Plasticas de Puerto Rico with a BFA in Painting (2011), and from Altos de Chavon in the Dominican Republic with an AAS in Fine Arts and Illustration. He has been part of group and solo shows both locally and abroad, such as Vox Populi Make/shift (Philadelphia, PA, 2021), Breaking Arrow (Saint Louis, MO), Santo Domingo Museum of Modern Art Biennial, (Santo Domingo, DR, 2013), The New Kinds on the Block (San Juan, PR, 2011), and has attended Elsewhere Residency (Greensboro, NC) and Tiger Strikes Asteroid 2020.

Wit López is an internationally acclaimed, award-winning multidisciplinary maker, performance artist, writer, and cultural advocate based in Philadelphia. They are the Founder and Artistic Director of Till Arts Project, a grassroots arts services organization serving LGBTQ+ artists in the Greater Philadelphia Area.

Ken Johnston is a Philadelphia-based walking artist who responds to the call of social change and history by walking to put “movement” back in the civil rights movement. During the past year, Ken has retraced the footsteps of Harriet Tubman’s movements between known Underground Railroad communities from Maryland to New York. While raising awareness on the importance of protecting and preserving hard-earned civil rights, Ken works on building community through lantern-making engagement activities. He uses lanterns for shining light on issues to bring communities closer together. In 2018, he successfully completed a 400-mile solo walking journey across the Deep South for MLK50 from Selma, Alabama to Memphis, Tennessee visiting the many places Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. either worked, pastored, or led peaceful protests. Internationally, he has walked across Ireland symbolically linking its short-lived civil rights movement with the U.S. and across Puerto Rico on the second anniversary of Hurricane Maria following the trajectory of the devastating storm’s path. When Ken is not walking, he enjoys planning and creating public lantern events while researching his next adventure. His professional background is in career development and human services.

Mz. Icar is an anonymous interdisciplinary artist. Her name is a semordnilap and is a reversal of racism. Her colorful visual narratives celebrate Women, Global Blackness, and Play. She creates art in the form of murals, mixed-media, textile, and photography, often combining the mediums. Her work explores histories and imagines the best case scenario future from the perspective of women and people of color.

Acori Honzo is a self-taught sculptor and painter. His influences range from Norman Rockwell to comic book artists like Alex Ross. His sculptures often refer to pop and mass culture. He sees this as a way to connect with anyone of any age using different mediums. He approaches a wide scale of subjects in a multi-layered way, likes to involve the viewer in a way that is sometimes physical, allowing them to add their perspective. His works directly respond to the surrounding environment and use everyday experiences, nostalgia, and moments in history from the artist as a starting point.

Creating paintings to engage youth in reading is Arthur Haywood’s passion. His paintings are published in his book The Great Library and Space and Time Magazine. He has completed murals for Mural Arts and Elkins Park School. He received a Harriet Hale Woolley Scholarship at Fondation Des États-Unis in Paris, where he is currently working on murals for Lycée Paul Lapie, from October 2020 until June 2021. The murals depict diverse students looking into scenes from fantasy books to inspire them to read. The paintings will be displayed at the school in May and at Fondation Des États-Unis in June.