Kenzi Crash was born and raised on the East coast, specifically residing in Philadelphia for the last two decades, but has traveled extensively nationwide and has spent a lot of time in the south. As a queer non-binary artist they attempt to reflect back their community in their work, in all of its shapes, sizes and forms. Most of their work tends toward the erotic and it is intended for the queer gaze, which is subversive in the male dominated society we live in. They hope that their work leaves the viewer inspired for our collective queer futures, curious of what it is they are looking at, and also a little bit turned on.

Doriana Diaz is a multidimensional artist, archivist, and memory worker rooted in Philadelphia's soulful rhythms. She has hosted a wide array of collage and bookmaking workshops around the city in spaces like The Sable Collective, Harriett's Bookshop, Franny Lou's Porch, The African American Museum, and Bok Bar. Her archival collage work entitled A Declaration of Joy in Motion; Friday Night Voodoo was chosen as the 1-year anniversary poster for Rachel Cargel's Loveland Foundation in 2021. This honor was in partnership with The Loveland Foundation and The Akron Museum of Art. She is also one of the 2023 recipients of the Black Music City grant where her collage work will be funded by REC Philly, WXPN, and WRTI to explore her project entitled Sisters in Rhythm, A House of Our Own cataloging and memorializing the work of Sister Sledge and The Supremes through visual storytelling. She believes art has DNA, Her work is an exploration of cultural agency, archival documentation, and rhythms of resistance and expansion.

De’von Downes is a contemporary artist working mainly in portraiture to tell the stories of the Black and/ or queer experience. A queer artist based out of Philadelphia/ South Jersey who creates art both visual and wearable art around wellness.

My art is a will to live, a will to look through the lenses of suffering and find something beautiful. To fight against anybody who has told me or anyone else for that matter that they weren’t enough.

For me it’s not about creating something beautiful but finding it and complimenting it just enough that the essence shines through.

angel shanel edwards is a blackqueerandtrans first-generation Jamaican and Philly-rooted artist. They explore the creative modalities of movement, photography, poetics, and filmmaking. angel is committed to healing their wounds by listening to the earth, their ancestors, themselves, and their community. They have acquired and crafted their artistic gifts through non-institutional spaces because they don’t believe institutions validate our brilliance; relationships do, we do. angel cultivates black queer and trans magic and community every day. They hold this quote by genius Gwendolyn Brooks: “We are each other’s harvest, we are each other’s business, we are each other’s magnitude and bond.”

angel has been an Artist in Residence at Urban Movement Arts, And is currently a Black Spatial Relics Artist in Residence, and their film THIS IS FOR US has been featured in film festivals globally. They are Alumni of the Headlong Performance Institute. Vox Populi, the Center for Performance Research, The William Way Center, and many other spaces have featured their choreographic and/or visual works. Their photographic work appears in mural and wheat pasting projects across the city of Philadelphia. The Leeway Foundation, Small But Mighty Arts, Mural Arts Philly, and Queer Art’s Eva Yaa Asantewaa Grant have supported angel’s creative work. angel is also a 2021 Pew Fellow with the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage.

Working predominantly in oil paint, Jah is a visual artist based out of South Philly. Through his on-going practice Jah has been able to contribute his take on the intersectional experience of being black and queer. Using art to explore the construct of race and the ways we choose to express ourselves is an important starting point to us to understand the ways privilege and oppression touch us; it also gives us the tools to examine, question, and criticize the relationships between race, gender, and society.

Malachi Lily is a they/them. A collective entity. A black, shapeshifting storyteller who plays in the decaying underbelly, the technicolor disco, and the mossy altar as an author, illustrator, and director; born and based in Philadelphia. As a writer and energy worker, they practice spiritual channeling to summon stories/wisdoms of queer love and cosmic horror to embrace the monstrosities, slime, and festering bloom as a pathway to reclaiming/remembering the mycelial networks of the spiritual body. This depolarization of nature/human/spirit is essential for liberation and collective evolution.