Zohreh Shayesteh was born and raised In Iran. She left Iran before the 1978 revolution and has been a permanent New York City resident since 1981.

She studied film production at New York University, and has worked as a T.V producer and director for various Local T.V stations in New York City. Prior to her latest film “Picking apples, drinking tea” She has written, directed and produced two short films “Requiem” and “ Agha Joon . Her documentary Film “Inside out “ was the official selection of 2006 Tribeca International Film Festival.



Kara Mayberry is a Brooklyn graphic designer who captures the simplicity of urban grit in her photography. She finds the raw canvas in our mundane encounters and prompts the viewer to re-examine the space of our everyday. Her minimalist style celebrates the details of our natural terrain and advances our appreciation of the industrial landscape. In this exhibited work, she examines the graphic beauty of deterioration.

Lisa Leighton’s work in video, photography, installation, and drawing reflects her interest in re-contextualizing spaces to capture fleeting moments of personality, memory and other psychological qualities of a scene. Her work has been widely exhibited in the United States and is held in public and private collections in the U.S., and the Netherlands.  She received her M.F.A. from Massachusetts College of Art in 2003. Currently she is Visiting Assistant Professor in the School of Art + Design at Pratt Institute.
Leighton has worked as a Teaching Artist and developed art curricula for various organizations including Manhattan New Music Project, The Jewish Museum, 92nd Street Y, and in Chicago at the Museum of Contemporary Art, The Museum of Contemporary Photography, The Chicago Cultural Center, and The Old Town School of Folk Music.


Jill Woodward is an editor-for-hire, co-founder of the production partnership Generator Pictures, and part-time journalist. She also collaborates with the dance collective mdas.

Jill works on a variety of creative, primarily non-fiction projects. She's edited and/or developed videos for Fed Ex, TIME.com, Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, NYC Coalition Against Hunger, sculptor Ursula von Rydingsvard, and musician Francis Mbappe. Jill also volunteers at the 4th Street Food Co-op in the Communications & Graphics group.

Jill began her broadcasting career at CNN in Atlanta in 1990, and transferred to CNN-New York in 1999. There she covered Hurricane Katrina, the September 11th attacks, both Gulf Wars, major US elections, the entertainment industry, and financial news. She edited award-winning coverage which garnered Emmy, Dupont, and Loeb Awards.

In 2006 she moved to Amsterdam and wore two hats: radio news producer and documentary film editor. She worked part-time for the English language newsroom at Radio Netherlands Worldwide, sharpening her writing and interviewing skills. Collaborating remotely with NYC filmmaker Randi Cecchine, she edited the independent documentary feature Trail of Feathers: The Missile Dick Chicks Take on America, helping create story structure from 300+ hours of observational and interview footage.  

In 2009, following her return to New York City, Jill directed and edited the thirty minute dance documentary, passTRESpass, a collaboration with choreographer Despina Stamos. Her East Village edit suite includes Final Cut Pro, Avid Media Composer, and After Effects. She is also available to work on site. Her LinkedIn profile has recommendations.

Prolific. Prodigal. Profound. That is Jay Rodriguez. Sometimes the sound is explosive, wild and full of fury, other times his music aches with a passion that's painful and bare. Always modest and reverent, Rodriguez harnesses the unbridled audacity of youth and melds it with the uncanny discipline of a hardened New York jazz veteran. Married to the song while sleeping with the groove, his sound sings of commitment to an ideal-it is spontaneity, culturally untethered and unpretentious, the excitement of far flung love at all costs. It is perfectionism kissed by chaos. 

Jay Rodriguez page on Myspace.com
http://www.jayrodriguez.com/

Zohra Saed received her MFA at Brooklyn College. Her poetry and essays have been published in numerous anthologies and journals.  Most recently in  Gallerie International Journal: Afghanistan Ed. Bina Sarkar (India: 2009); The Crab Orchard Review (Summer/Fall 2009); and in Speaking for Herself: Asian Women’s Writings (Penguin India Books: 2009). She has performed as part of the cast of the legendary theater director Ping Chong’s Undesirable Elements in 2000 and in 2007, where the ensemble caste performed at the first National Asian American Theater Festival. She is co-editor of the first Anthology of Contemporary Afghan American Literature (University of Arkansas Press, forthcoming).

Samantha Chanse is a writer & performer, teacher, and arts organizer who's been based in San Francisco since 2001. Her work has been presented with the NY International Fringe Festival, Kearny Street Workshop, The Marsh, Asian American Theater Company, Footloose/Shotwell Studios, Bindlestiff, and others. She is the recipient of an Individual Artist Commission from the San Francisco Arts Commission, resulting in the 2008 SF/NY productions of her first solo play, Lydia’s Funeral Video. In 2009, she started performing a new solo show, Back to the Graveyard, for which she received an Artist In Motion residency from Footloose/Shotwell Studios. She co-founded multidisciplinary artist salon series Laundry Party, served as KSW’s artistic director, and recently embarked on a bicoastal lifestyle to pursue a MFA in playwriting at her native NYC's Columbia University. www.samanthachanse.com.

In the last few years she's also written and performed plays & theater pieces, including Lydia's Funeral Video, which was produced in 2008 at the Dark Room in San Francisco, and directed by Wilma Bonet. The play was produced again in August 2008 at the Milagro Theater in New York as part of the 2008 New York International Fringe Festival, and was directed by Thoams Connors. Her first play, "what good intentions," was produced in 1999 at Rites and Reason Theater in Providence, RI; more recently, she developed her newest solo show, Back to the Graveyard, for a September 2008 performance at Intersection for the Arts as Featured Artist for KSW's APAture festival; the show was subsequently produced by Bindlestiff Studio at the Thick House in April 2009, by Footloose/Shotwell in January and May 2009, and by the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center at SomArts in May 2009. Other past work includes a 2005 production of her full-length play Sleeper (a chronicle of the return of the remarkable), with Asian American Theater Company and Bindlestiff Studio; co-writing & co-producing Pipe Dreams and Paper Trails at Bindlestiff; and having a staged reading of one-acts at Calaveras Repertory Theatre and Berkeley Repertory Theatre.

Behzad Yaghmaian is an Iranian-born author living in the United States. Currently, he is a Professor of Political Economy at Ramapo College in New Jersey. He has taught international political economy in the United States, Iran, and Turkey.

Yaghmaian has published a number of articles on globalization and Third World Studies in various academic journals. His book, Social Change in Iran: An Eyewitness Account of Dissent, Defiance, and Movements for Rights, was written after a year-long visit to Iran during the time of the brief political opening in Iran in 1998-99. During that period, Yaghmaian was a columnist for a popular reformist newspaper, Neshat, while also contributing articles to other widely-read dailies and magazines. He was the consultant for a 2003 PBS/Channel 4 (England) documentary about Iran.

In September 2002, Yaghmaian left the United States, traveling for two years in the Middle East and Europe following migrants from Muslim countries on the journey to the West. He lived among them, listened to their hopes, dreams, and fears, weaving together dozens of their stories of yearning, persecution, and unwavering faith in his latest book, Embracing the Infidel: Stories of Muslim Migrants on the Journey West.

Yaghmaian is currently traveling in Asia working on a new book.

http://www.yaghmaian.com

Sinan Gündoğdu is a musician from Turkey based in New York. He plays the Oud, Saz (Baglama) and often performs with various Flamenco musicians and other fusion bands around NY.

Aida Shahghasemi recently moved to New York City. She is a traveler between Iran and the States in order to play with individuals and ensembles in Tehran, Minneapolis (where she resided prior to New York), and most recently, New York. She learned the Daf from Amir Samadi and has worked on the Persian Classical Vocal repertoire under the supervision of Parissa.


Born in the Philippines to Iranian parents and raised on the upper west side of Manhattan, I, like most immigrant children never felt like I fit in.  While I didn't appreciate it at the time I now realize that being 'different ' was a blessing and not a curse, were it not for my beloved 'X-MEN', I would never have put pen to paper and discovered my passion for drawing.   However, I have never liked referring to myself as an artist.  'Gordieh Nasseri – Artist  has never felt organic to me ..I  rather be , Gordieh Nasseri - Self proclaimed graphic novel and animation aficionado who suffers from bouts of intensely focused doodling sessions'. 

Ruben Marroquin is an American born Venezuelan artist. He studied Fine Arts at the I. U. E. S. A. P. Armando Reveron in Caracas, Venezuela, specializing painting. He received a 2year AAS degree on Textile and Surface Design, from the Fashion Institute of Technology and is currently in the BFA program for Textile and Surface Design at F.I.T.

His work has appeared in publications such as the Village Voice, The Icon and the Hue Magazines from F.I.T. And has formed part of group exhibitions at the Sala Mendoza Gallery in Caracas, Venezuela, The Umbrella Gallery in New York City, and The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology

He lives and works in Brooklyn

"I weave found objects and bamboo rods into a sort of skeleton structure. After that I embroider over the structure, the threads raise and sink from the surface unevenly. The body of my work consists of an exploration on how to approach painting using alternative materials, predominantly threads, bamboo and found objects. This work was inspired by three of my favorite American artists: Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg and Willem de Kooning."



Dean has been making miniature sculptures and animal creations called “tin things/foil sculptures” Each sculpture is a unique homage to creatures domesticated and wild. His highly detailed aluminum foil origami are startling example of miniature impressions. He constructs his pieces in a rapid fire series of movements capturing miniature portraits full of personality and innate character. As a child Dean started making aluminum foil and sponge replicas out of necessity in the dark.

Influences range from cartoons, action figures and movies.

His works can also be view at the J Crew flag store in Madison Avenue, Manhattan.



GRANTS/SCHOLARSHIPS/AWARDS

Calrow Memorial Scholarship, Pratt Institute, September 2008-May 2009

Assistantship Award, Pratt Institute, January 2008-May 2009

Catharine Ellis Scholarship Award, Penland School of Crafts, May 25-June 7 2008

Peters Valley Scholarship, Peters Valley Craft Center, August 15-19 2008

Post Baccalaureate Grant, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, August 2006-May 2007           

Drs. Paul and Laura Mesaros III Scholarship, West Virginia University, August-December 2002

Drs. Paul and Laura Mesaros Scholarship, West Virginia University, September