Lonnie Holley was born on February 10, 1950 in Birmingham, Alabama. From the age of five, Holley worked various jobs: picking up trash at a drive-in movie theatre, washing dishes, and cooking. He lived in a whiskey house, on the state fairgrounds, and in several foster homes. His early life was chaotic and Holley was never afforded the pleasure of a real childhood.

Since 1979, Holley has devoted his life to the practice of improvisational creativity. His art and music, born out of struggle, hardship, but perhaps more importantly, out of furious curiosity and biological necessity, has manifested itself in drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, performance, and sound. Holley’s sculptures are constructed from found materials in the oldest tradition of African American sculpture. Objects, already imbued with cultural and artistic metaphor, are combined into narrative sculptures that commemorate places, people, and events. His work is now in collections of major museums throughout the country, on permanent display in the United Nations, and been displayed in the White House Rose Garden. In January of 2014, Holley completed a one-month artist-in-residence with the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation in Captiva Island, Florida, site of the acclaimed artist’s studio...Read More.

During Holley’s residency, he created Mixed.

Daniel B. Coleman (he/they) lives a life-project centered life that de-compartmentalizes his work as an artist, scholar, and organizer between the U.S. South (NC) and the Mexican South (Chiapas). Each of these elements are an integral part of who he is in the world. Daniel is an Assistant Professor in Women's and Gender Studies at UNC Greensboro, a performance artist and choreographer and a transfeminist and abolitionist organizer. As an artist, Daniel has taught and performed throughout México, the U.S. and Canada, as well as in Costa Rica, Brazil, Colombia, Spain, France, Portugal, Germany, Greece, The Netherlands, Poland, and Estonia.

During Coleman’s residency, they created Warriors: Beyond Unicorns and Erasures.

Jessica Gaynelle Moss is an artist, writer and entrepreneur.As an ardent advocate for artists, arts education and communities of color, in 2016 she founded The Roll Up, a national network of art incubators embedded in neighborhoods across the United States. Prior, she served as the Creative Director of the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African American Arts + Culture in Charlotte, NC and earlier, on the senior management team of Rebuild Foundation in Chicago, IL.In addition to her numerous management and leadership roles, Jessica continues to practice as an artist. Her work--often focused on race, class and accessibility--is in private and public collections across the United States including the Institute for Contemporary Art (ICA) Baltimore, the University of North Carolina Charlotte (UNCC), and the Joan Flasch Artists' Book Collection (JFABC) at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Her curatorial projects include 2018’s ‘Black Blooded’ at the New Gallery of Modern Art in Charlotte, NC, which presented the work of 50 interdisciplinary artists from Kerry James Marshall to Sherrill Roland-- and the 2016 exhibition ‘1975 Paintings: Noah Davis’ at the Stony Island Arts Bank in Chicago, IL.

Jessica received a bachelors in Painting, Drawing and Printmaking from Carnegie Mellon University; a masters in Arts Administration, Policy and Management from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; and a masters in Studies of the Law from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.

Her interests in innovation, activism and collaboration continue to influence her projects today.

During Moss' residency, she created The ABOVEGROUND RAILROAD Scholarship.

Shan Wallace is an award-winning photographer, artist, and freedom fighter from East Baltimore. Inspired by the service of social change and the social power of art, and harsh realities rooted in racial and economic divides during her upbringing in poverty, SHAN uses the lens to document communities of the African diaspora. Her work conveys and reveals the social, cultural, and political narratives of black life serving as photographic documentation and archive of Blackness. Dedicated to demonstrating and promoting the value of archiving and photography, and increasing Black visibility, SHAN distributes her photographs internationally. Inspired by the legacy of photo albums, this ongoing project is a grassroots and accessible method of storytelling and archiving, articulating and legitimizing Black people’s experience. The goal is to provide subjects with physical copies of images of themselves to build or contribute to their own archive and challenging us to consciously or unconsciously enforce new ways of seeing, thinking, and being a part of the African Diaspora. SHAN has received recognition from the Baltimore Beat for Best Solo Show, Best Photographer from the City Paper, and awarded 2nd Place for Small Outlet Feature of “Losing Conner’s Mind” by Association of Health Care Journalists'. Her work has received widespread support from publications like the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, Essence, and the now-defunct Baltimore City Paper. SHAN has also exhibited work in museums internationally from the Reginald F. Lewis Museum to Mariano Arts Center, in Havana Cuba. More recently, she's working on confronting oppressive politics and histories of Black Americans through collages and installations.

During Wallace’s residency, she created THE BANSHEE UNDE[RAGE].

Poncili Creación (Pablo and Efrain Del Hierro) is a Puerto Rican group that generates performance and audio-visual experiences that sprout from their interactive sculptures they call objects. They have focused their body of work in the relationship between objects and reality. Since 2012, they have worked with large-scale objects, installations, and video. Although they are most known for their performances that involve live music, dance and experimental storytelling. Their performance tours have taken them around the United States, Canada, Europe, and The Dominican Republic. Their objects have been exhibited in museums such as the MAPR and the MoCa as well as in independent galleries 787 studios, Art lab, Gr_und, Edge zones, Meta-gallery, Poor Farm Experiment among others.

During Poncili Creación’s 2018 residency, they created Multi-Parade.