ADVISORS AND ASSOCIATES
ADVISORY BOARD
javiera benavente
javiera benavente is an artist, cultural organizer, facilitator, and educator dedicated to collective practice and co-creating new futures of care. Born in Santiago, Chile (Wallmapu) just months before the Unidad Popular government of Salvador Allende was overthrown by a military coup, she has been deeply impacted by the legacy and failure of this utopian political project and its aftermath throughout her life.
javiera’s current work explores collective grief, loss, and memory; cultivating right and reciprocal relations with land and more than human relatives; and communal, embodied practices of surrender and belonging. She is the co-curator of Chile Nunca Más: making memory, making future, an exhibit and memory making project that marks 50 years since el golpe (the military coup) in Chile and the subsequent 17 years long dictatorship.
She serves as Assistant Dean of Collaborative and Community Engaged Learning at Hampshire College where she co-chairs the Decolonization & Reciprocity Working Group. javiera lives on the ancestral homelands of the Pocomtuc, Nonotuck, and Nipmuc Peoples with her partner, daughter, and dog.
DONNABELLE CASIS
is a Filipina-American artist, curator, radio show host, and community arts advocate. She has received numerous grants and awards. Her work has been exhibited in galleries and museums in the US and abroad, and is included in several public and private collections. www.donnabellecasis.com
MARY RAMSAY
has worked in grant writing and project development for museums, colleges, and arts organizations in Massachusetts and Hawaii and recently co-founded Nonprofit GrowthGen, a small consulting business that trains and mentors grant writers and provides grant writing services. She is a longtime practitioner of authentic movement, is trained in social justice mediation, and is currently studying somatic abolitionism with Resmaa Menakem and is using authentic movement to explore how white people embody and enact oppression, privilege, and reparations.
CARLA COSTA
is a career coach and leader of interdisciplinary arts programs in higher education.
TRENDA LOFTIN
is a multi-passionate creative and co-operative real estate professional with an entrepreneurial spirit. She is committed to mobilizing collective resources of all kinds to cultivate a deeply felt sense of liberation.
CATRIN LLOYD-BOLLARD
is a multidisciplinary artist and non-profit arts administrator. She is the Deputy Director, Programs, at HB Studio, a historic NYC acting studio. She is a life-long creator and performer of theater and music, and currently performs with Brooklyn-based experimental theater companies Object Collection and Title:Point. She was born and raised in Northampton, MA, and is thrilled to have recently relocated to the area after many years away.
ART MIDDLETON
is an educator and writer who has been teaching for over a decade in colleges and universities here in Western Massachusetts and in the Bay Area of California. From 2018-2021, Art was the Forbes Library Writer in Residence where he curated the Our Work and Why We Do It reading series.
ADVISORY BOARD
Javiera Benavente
Donnabelle Casis
Carla Costa
Trenda Loftin
Catrin Lloyd-Bollard
Art Middleton
Mary Ramsay
ASSOCIATE ARTISTS
Jil Crary-Ross
Robin Doty
Roy Faudree
Andrea Olsen
Sheryl Stoodley
Jen Polins
Michael Tillyer