• Read more about Diana Baird N'Diaye

Dr. Diana Baird N’Diaye is a multidisciplinary artist, folklife researcher, curator and transcontinental arts advocate who combines decades of experience both as a researcher and curator of African and African diaspora expressive culture. She considers her teaching as a vital aspect of her participatory art practice. N’Diaye’s art training began with sewing and needlework instruction from her Caribbean great aunts; In high school she became a student of African American couturiere Zelda Wynn Valdes, and worked as a mender in her mother’s dry cleaning store.

• Read more about Claudia McDonough

Born in Athens, Greece, Claudia McDonough is the daughter of a diplomat. She received her BA from Hampshire College in Massachusetts, and her MFA from Southern Methodist University in Texas in 1988. Claudia moved to Baltimore in 1991. Formally trained as an abstract painter, the canvas gave way to the textures of memory and experience expressed by multi-media sculpture and textiles.

• Read more about Bilal Ahmad Farid