WE CREATE 2020 COHORT





Ella Mahoney
Ella Mahoney is an Aquinnah Wampanoag artist, illustrator, and teacher currently based in Brooklyn, NY. Her work is based on storytelling and draws inspiration from creation stories; as well as from narratives of her personal experience of indigeneity through lenses of love and nature. Her recent projects explore large scale silk painting and installation as a medium that invites people to play and participate in creating comfortable, loving spaces.






Vanessa Ly
Vanessa Ly immigrated in 1982 from Lima, Peru to Boston, Massachusetts at the age of four. From a young age, issues of women of color have been particularly important to her. In 2015, Vanessa co-founded Sisters Unchained, a community organization focused on prison abolitionist work and dedicated to supporting the collective leadership and healing of young women with incarcerated parents. Vanessa is also a self-taught documentary filmmaker. Her first short film, “Eternally Misunderstood,” shares the stories of nine young women with incarcerated loved ones. The film has been screened at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston College, and Harvard University. In every creative endeavor, Vanessa aims to embody the language closest to her heart: storytelling, which she sees as a medium of self-healing.






          Karishma Javier
Karishma Javier is a Lyric Coloratura Soprano with an extended vocal range from F#4 - Bb6. She sings in 10 languages and 17 genres. Javier was trained at the Conservatory of Music of P.R,  the Interamerican University (BA in Jazz music) and the Bellas Artes School of Acting (film, television). Javier is the winner of the F.A.M.A grants from The Operetta y Zarzuela and the Jovenes Amigos Foundation at the P.R. Metropolitan Opera Council auditions. 





Madhvi Venkatesh
Madhvi Venkatesh is a dancer and educator who specializes in the Indian classical dance form Bharata Natyam. She trained for over ten years with Viji Prakash and performs as a soloist across the U.S. and India. She has toured with the Dakshina/Daniel Phoenix Singh, Shakti, and Prakriti Dance Companies and continues to perform with Prakriti Dance, which she co-founded in 2014. Madhvi is also passionate about bringing her art to schools and community organizations. She has received recognition and support for her dance pursuits from organizations such as The Boston Foundation, National YoungArts Foundation, and Maryland State Arts Council.







Jenny Oliver
A Boston based dance educator with tribal affiliation to the Massachusett Tribe at Ponkapoag, Jenny Oliver uses choreography as advocacy raising awareness and funds for social justice issues affecting people on the margins. In 2019 her work, Hot Water Over Raised Fists, premiered at the BCA to sold out audiences with excerpts presented at the MFA Boston, Mark Morris Dance Center and University Settlement in NY. During the same year she was nominated for the Brother Thomas Fellowship. You can find her teaching weekly technique classes that are open to the public in Cambridge and Somerville. 







Nayda Cuevas
Nayda A. Cuevas Ramos was born in Hato Rey, PR. Her family migrated in 1990 to Deltona, FL. She obtained a BFA in Fine Art (2002) from Stetson University in Deland FL and her MFA in Visual Arts (2015) at Lesley University College of Art and Design in Cambridge, MA.
Ms. Cuevas' passion emerged for unearthing a visual language to better articulate through visual arts her observation and/or interpretation of her Latino American experience. 







Rachael Devaney
Rachael Devaney is a freelance reporter and photojournalist for multiple publications on Cape Cod, the South Shore, and New York City. Devaney grew up in Centerville, MA, attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, double majoring in Journalism and Social Thought and Political Economy. Devaney has worked for social justice organizations like the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES); and the National chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).  Devaney also co-founded the Adoption Circle for Women of Color (ACFWC) in 2010.  Most recently, in April of 2018, Devaney, who was adopted from El Salvador in 1978, was re-united with her birth family, after being separated for 40 years. Devaney currently resides in Onset, MA, with her daughter Fressia Jones and her partner Juarez Stanley, and can be contacted at rachaeldevaney@yahoo.com. 





Erin Genia
Erin Genia (Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota) is a multidisciplinary artist, educator and organizer whose practice merges cultural imperatives, pure expression and material exploration with the conceptual. Genia seeks to create a powerful presence of Indigeneity in the public realm, extending from the body outwards into the cosmos, to invoke an evolution of thought and practice within societal instruments that is aligned with the cycles of the natural world and the potential of humanity. Erin’s work has been seen by national and international audiences, at the US Pavilion - Venice Architecture Biennale, the International Space Station, and the Urbano Project in Boston.