SHAINA LYNN SIMMONS is an actress, performance artist, and creative producer, healer, and author. She says, “At the interstice of activism and artistic praxis, my work seeks to heal the past, tend to the present, and reimagine the future of the diaspora […] as an organic archaeology to elevate Black stories.”

TATIANA VAHAN’s art projects, which include the Los Angeles Artist Census and the bar-fund, function as community-based activism through projects “organized on the principles of direct action, cooperation, and self-determined power by artists.”