short (~ 40 words)
Rashaad Newsome is a multidisciplinary artist whose work blends several practices together including collage, sculpture, film, music, computer programming and performance, to form an altogether new field. Newsome’s work is deeply invested in how images used in media and popular culture communicate distorted notions of power.
Meeta Mastani is an internationally known print/dye artist, design specialist and community development advocate. For the last 25 years, Meeta has worked at the intersection of sustainable development, culture, craft, design, arts and retail, helping to generate livelihoods for marginalized individuals and communities.
long (~150 words)
“In 2006, while working on a Ph.D. in Biophysics and Materials Science, Peter Krsko discovered a way to use a traditional scanning electron microscope as a focused electron beam lithography instrument, enabling him to create artwork viewable only with a microscope
After receiving his degree, Krsko was awarded a fellowship at the National Institutes of Health, where his interests expanded into medically-relevant biological communities, bacterial biofilms, bioinspired materials, colors and vision and the combination of science and art in order to develop unique lesson plans for young students. He continues providing educational services to schools, summer camps, after-school programs and correctional facilities today.
Krsko also creates collaborative and community public art, such as sculptures and murals, inspired by biological concepts of diversity, differentiation, participation and co-ownership. He develops STEAM-based lesson plans for schools, summer camps, after-school programs and correctional facilities. His sculptural installations mimic the structure and form of natural entities as well as the dynamics and laws of interactions among members of the ecosystems. Krsko’s work has been presented in Honfleur Gallery, The Fridge DC Gallery, Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Fermentation Festival, Sculptural Visions, Lollapalooza, Austin City Limits and other festivals and venues nationwide. His work has also been featured in BBC World News, The Washington Post and National Public Radio.”
“Stuart Flack is playwright, producer, social entrepreneur, and policy researcher based in Chicago. His award-winning work includes productions at many of the leading theaters in the United States. He has worked with The Seldoms, a Chicago-based dance/theatre company, on two full-length works, currently touring, which examine power, politics, and social action. In 2015, Stuart Flack was commissioned by Steppenwolf Theatre Company to adapt John Howard Griffin’s Black Like Me.
Flack is currently a Senior Fellow at the Environmental Law & Policy Center where he is leading The Community-Based Environmental Monitoring and Public Health Advocacy Project. He is also developing a performance piece with the Invisible Institute, a Chicago-based community action group which monitors and disseminates data on police misconduct.
As a producer, he ran the Chicago Humanities Festival, the largest festival of arts and ideas in the United States from 2007 through 2012. From 1990–2007, he was a partner at the global consulting firm of McKinsey & Company.”