enhancing
imagination
2023 fellows
The 2023 Fellows represent communities from California to Washington, DC, working to restore, enhance, or re-imagine the ways we can live together in harmony and liberation.
Adamu
Chan
Chino
Hardin
David
Sampe
Ivy
Valentine
Jøn
Kent
Lydia
Cutrer
Marcus
ṢÀNGÓDOYIN
AKINLANA
Michelle
Mondia
learn more about these bold visionaries.
ADAMU CHAN (HE/HIM)
What These Walls Won't Hold | Ohlone Territory
“Looking for love, in all places.”
Adamu is a filmmaker, writer, and community organizer from the Bay Area who was incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison during one of the largest COVID-19 outbreaks in the country. He produced numerous short films while incarcerated, using his vantage point and experience as an incarcerated person as a lens to focus the viewer’s gaze on issues related to social justice. The What These Walls Won’t Hold film impact campaign is dedicated to transforming the representation of incarcerated people in mainstream media and public consciousness. Adamu draws inspiration and energy from the voices of those directly impacted. He seeks to empower them to reshape the narratives created about them through film.
Chino Hardin (HE/Him)
Forgotten Stewards | Mohican Territory
“The warrior who carries the message.”
Chino not only believes in change but works for it. He leads with love and fights with forgiveness. Forgotten Stewards is an anthology of black, indigenous, and queer folks of color reconnecting with and reclaiming nature/land in this country. He will work with this community to document their journeys and analyze how they reconnect with nature and land, including histories about what happened to break those connections and why. They will also collect and share skill-ups and “nature secrets,” the healthy and healing things people do in nature that they don’t share due to shame, shyness, and other reasons – until now. Chino focuses on black, indigenous, and queer folks to bridge the divide among communities through isms, colonization, and trauma, as these identities have guided his journey and vision.
David Sampe (HE/HIM)
Healing Liberation Music & Breath | Nacotchtank Territory
“What does not evolve will revolve.”
David seeks knowledge and enlightenment, dedicating his life to personal growth and becoming an accomplished teacher, father, and friend. Healing Liberation Music & Breath (HLMB) is a program to transform social, emotional, and civic education to help at-risk DC middle schoolers participate in their own process of healing and liberation. At this critical and transitional moment in kids’ lives when traumas start to compound, and the school-to-prison pipeline pulls them in, HLMB brings participatory music therapy and breathwork to help them do their internal healing work. HLMB then partners with local DC advocacy organizations to help them identify and align on a campaign or community need that they can strategically impact.
Ivy Valentine (sHE/Her)
The Solidarity Society | Munsee Lenape Territory
“Move confidently with verve and passion.”
Ivy is a world-builder, organizer, and movement strategist ready to design our Liberated future’s pillars. A Black feminist anchored in the traditions and insights of the Combahee River Collective, she is inspired by the generations of Black women and queerfolk who dared to live freely. The Solidarity Society is an emerging lifestyle organization that will bring direct giving, political education, and research together to facilitate an equitable world that will soon be here. The Solidarity Society will operate like a think-and-action tank that advances reparations, solidarity economies, and participatory democracy as anchors to a queer-affirming Black Liberation. Black Liberation is central to Society’s world-building and powers Ivy’s curiosities and freedom dreams.
Jøn Kent (HE/HIM)
Cooperative Community Healing & Building | Myaamia Territory
“Love drives my being towards excellence.”
Jøn’s principal aim is to be of help. The theme of his life’s work is being a community service actor through acting, activism, and activating sustainable spaces. He is currently working to develop a community land trust to curb displacement in the Riverbend neighborhood, located on the eastside of Detroit. Through this work, they will engage, educate, and empower residents to reinvest in their communities by purchasing and repurposing land to their vision. This participation fosters bonds of safety, solidarity, and trust. Through an equitable cooperative model, we endeavor to create pathways of resiliency, food sovereignty, and economic empowerment by giving residents the foundational tools to collectivize and co-own their community.
Lydia Cutrer (sHE/Her)
The Village Real Estate Cooperative | Chahta Yakni Territory
“Being gentle, staying hopeful, remaining grateful.”
Lydia is a real estate consultant through her firm, The O.W.N. Her life is dedicated to helping clients Build Wealth through Real Estate. She is a licensed real estate salesperson in Louisiana and Mississippi. She has worked across the real estate and financial services industries focused on business lending; affordable housing development; homeownership for first-time homebuyers; small business and non-profit development; and commercial property investment. The Village is a New Orleans community where we sow our resources to grow our neighborhoods. The Village is a community-based real estate investment cooperative that lowers barriers to building wealth by expanding our knowledge and pooling our funds to prosper collectively.
MARCUS SÀNGÓDOYIN AKINLANA (HE/HIM)
Bulbancha Rise Up | Chart Yakni Territory
“òjò ko rọ̀ àgbàdo ko dàgbà; Rain don't fall, corn won't grown."
Marcus uses art to make your spirit fly free, and your soul sizzle and pop! He is Olòrìṣà ṢÀNGÓ, aka African Traditional Priest, ready to serve ọjọ gbogbo (on any given day). He is a drummer to tap into beats to make your body bounce. Bulbancha Rise Up is a series of art concerts and performances intertwined with Afro-Indigenous sacred and powerful ritual communal workshops to shift the energy in the environment, transform consciousness and self-awareness, and popularize and uplift Afro-Indigenous cultural genius. These sacred rituals and community-wide artistic performances will also highlight the roles our illustrious ancestors, like the Maroons of Bayou Sauvage, played in our survival.
Michelle Mondia (She/Her)
BIPOC Death Doula Collective | Tongva Territory
“I am both nothing and everything.”
Michelle has nearly two decades of experience as a public health consultant. She supports families in reclaiming the end-of-life journey and works to decolonize the death and dying experience of BIPOC and other marginalized communities. The BIPOC Death Doula Collective’s mission is to resist the racist, capitalist, and discriminatory practices that rob us of a dignified and compassionate end-of-life journey while centering the voices and experiences of BIPOC communities. This project aims to address inequity by organizing death doulas, developing a robust toolkit to serve as a resource, and training members of communities as compassionate companions.