Contributors
Bryson Scott
Bryson Scott is a digital illustrator from Detroit Michigan who has been living in Chicago for the past decade doing vector based design as a freelance artist and also for personal enjoyment. He started his first clothing brand, 'Nomadic Breed', from original design ideas that translated into unique t-shirt art. Bryson’s inspiration has always come from bridging the gap between two opposing ideas. As an avid lover of hip hop culture, due to being surrounded by it as a child, he also found infatuation with the styles and cultures of the Sengoku era of Japan.
Fantasy novels, anime, and old kung fu flicks give him fuel to create different worlds in his art that are enhanced by his knowledge of the graphic design principles. Bryson is self taught, driven by a passion and love for creating new things. He uses his talents in design to cultivate a rebrand of his new clothing company,'Drifta' (driftawolrd.com), which will focus on a mix of black streetwear and Japanese fashion. The prevailing theme of traveling through creative ideas while letting go of mental baggage is constantly at the forefront of his projects. He hopes to inspire others to think boundlessly on their creative journeys.
Miranda Goosby
Miranda Goosby (she/her) is a writer, an educator, and creative. Miranda is from Maryland (DMV) and is rooted in Chicago. She is a Program Manager within Northwestern University’s Global Learning Office and she maneuvers the world through a Black intersectional feminist lens where the complexity of one’s identity is explored. Through visual and written documentation, Miranda centers the voices of People of Color, specifically Black and Brown folks within issues ranging from reproductive justice and children’s rights, education, ethical global engagement, community development, and political reform. Miranda’s most recent travels to Mexico City, Hanoi, Vietnam and New Orleans, LA have inspired her desire to build a transnational network connecting Black folks to Black life, events and spaces abroad.
Dwight White
Chicago based artist Dwight White straddles the line between fine art, sociology and experiential design. Raised in Houston TX and made in Chicago, IL. White discovered the intersection of consumer insights, sport and artistic experiences while attending Northwestern University as a student-athlete. Nuanced Black Human behavior and personal experiences are prevalent subjects throughout his work. White is a multi-disciplinary creative, with ideas and strategy that originate by thoroughly understanding how consumers think and make decisions in regards to brands, products and the arts. He utilizes insights to inspire, innovate and explore relevant material with culture through creativity. He has worked to build strategies for growth with organizations across industries by understanding complex societal structures and current behaviors of consumers.
Dr. Eve L. Ewing
Dr. Eve L. Ewing is a writer, scholar, and cultural organizer from Chicago. She is the award-winning author of four books: the poetry collections Electric Arches and 1919, the nonfiction work Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago's South Side, and a novel for young readers, Maya and the Robot.
She is the co-author (with Nate Marshall) of the play No Blue Memories: The Life of Gwendolyn Brooks. She has written several projects for Marvel Comics, most notably the Ironheart series, and is currently writing Black Panther.
Ewing is an associate professor in the Department of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity at the University of Chicago. Her work has been published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times, and many other venues. Currently she is working on her next book, Original Sins: The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism, which will be published by One World.
Damon Williams
Damon A Williams is a movement builder, organizer, hip-hop performing artist, educator and media maker from the south side of Chicago. He is the Co-Founder of Respair Production & Media, and the Co-Creator of AirGo, a weekly podcast in Chicago that reshapes the culture of the city and beyond for the more liberatory and creative. He is the co-director of the #LetUsBreathe Collective, an artistic activist organization birthed out of supply trips to support the Ferguson uprising in resistance to the murder of Mike Brown.
Williams and #LetUsBreathe transplanted the experiences from the front lines and continue to organize direct actions and community enrichment events throughout the streets of Chicago and in their movement building community center The #BreathingRoom Space, with the mission of utilizing cultural production and popular education to redistribute power and resources, eradicate systemic violence, and transform inequity.
In honor of his leadership, Damon has been named a TIME Magazine’s 2020 Guardian of the Year, a Field Foundation 2021 Leader for a New Chicago, a Margaret Burroughs Fellow by the UIC Social Justice Initiative’s Portal Project, and a Power of Cash Narrative Change Fellow by Economic Security of Illinois.
Benji Hart
Benji Hart is an interdisciplinary artist, author, and educator whose work centers Black radicalism, queer liberation, and prison abolition. Their words have appeared in numerous anthologies, and been published at Time, Teen Vogue, The Advocate, The Funambulist, and elsewhere.
They have led popular education and arts-based workshops for organizations internationally, and presented at the Barnard Center for Research on Women, the American Repertory Theater, the National Museum of African American History & Culture, and the Chicago Architecture Biennial.
Their performances have been featured at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Den Frie, BRIC, and Museo del Chopo. They have held fellowships with Yaddo, MacDowell, the Amsterdam University of the Arts, and are a 2023 Lab Artist with Chicago Dancemakers Forum.
