Free Day: Juneteenth 2024

Amanda Shea (she/her) is the 2022 & 2023 Boston Music Awards Spoken Word Artist of the Year. Shea is an artist, performer, educator, artivist, co-founder, publicist, host, and curator. She has hosted and produced numerous intergenerational poetry/hip hop events as well as performed at festivals; including Boston Calling, BAMSFest (Boston Art & Music Soul Festival), and the Jos Literary Festival in Nigeria. Her work can be found in the Museum of Fine Arts, The Boston Globe, TEDX, TEDXRoxbury, Netflix, Prime Video, BBC News, and much more. Shea will be releasing her first book, Pieces of Shea and her first EP titled, God, Again in the Spring of 2024. Amanda's work examines her personal life experiences, social justice issues, and healing through trauma utilizing art as the tool.

Des Bennett (they/them) is a cultural worker whose practice emphasizes creativity and storytelling as central to community care, social wellness, and QTBIPOC+ liberation. They are a collage artist, zine maker, drag performer, dramaturg, director, facilitator, fiber artist, and producer currently working as the Queer (Re)Public Programs Manager at The Theater Offensive. Des is a co-leader of Gender Explosion, a coalition of trans artists across the country empowering, advocating for, and creating space for trans artists in the performing arts sector, and has led trans inclusion workshops in Boston and on Broadway. Their recent directing work includes: The Interrobangers (Assoc. Dir., Company One); Grief Love (Co-Conceiver & Dir.); True Colors Troupe (TTO); we and other goddexxes (C1); Sunday Swings an Old-New Gospel (Huntington); Common Ground: Revisited (Ass. Dir., Hunt.); My Body Is a A Season (SpeakEasy); and Scenes From Metamorphoses (Northeastern University). They have held Research Assistantships with Dani Snyder-Young PhD on her projects, Theatre participation and arts-integrated peer leadership in substance addiction recovery processes (2019) and Digital performance, wellness, and equity (2020), and contributed to Procedurally authored performances of mindful practice: Theatre-for-one, audience labor and self-optimization (TDR, 2022). Des holds a BA in Theater and a minor in Psychology from Northeastern University.

Amir Dixon is a filmmaker, visual Artist, and Founder & Chief Creative Officer of ANI (Amir Now Inc.), a creative production firm committed to advancing equity & disrupting social norms and amplifying marginalized voices through art. Amir also has been an advocate for Black & LGBTQ folks through his artistic, cultural & community organizing. 

Recognized for his advocacy & storytelling, Amir has also been named one of the Advocate Magazine's 40 under 40, and has been featured in Ebony Magazine, Buzzfeed Digital, The Rainbow Times and others.

Dzidzor’s style of call and response has reimagined poetry and story-telling as a way to include the audience in an experience to challenge, inspire, and encourage self beyond traditional forms. Dzidzor weaves her love for spoken word, storytelling, mixing and collaging sound within her performance. Dzidzor’s ability to sound collage soundbites from familiar voices, re-telling stories, the sound of nature, and the use of percussion to curate a space of wonder, imagination, and confusion.

Giselle Byrd is the newly appointed Executive Director of The Theater Offensive, located in Boston, Massachusetts, where she is passionately continuing and amplifying the theater’s mission for uplifting and elevating the work of queer and transgender artists of color and LGBTQIA+ youth and their allies. With over ten years of experience, holding multiple roles in talent management, production, casting, script coverage, brand partnerships, and fundraising, Byrd has used her expertise to help elevate both talent and brand collaborations. Aiming to inspire members of her community to find their voices and showcase their greatness, Byrd has represented clients who work in the entertainment industry, social justice activism, and digital media. As a producer, she holds the honor of being the first transgender woman to be accepted into Through Her Lens: The Tribeca Chanel Women's Filmmaker Program. Her documentary film debut, Giselle’s Story, directed by Susan O’Brien, was accepted into the Imagine This International Women’s Festival. Her subsequent film, When We Arrive As Flowers, executive produced by Alexandra Billings, was screened in numerous film festivals throughout the country during the 2022-2023 season, continuing her personal mission of advocating and educating a diverse array of communities on the beauty of transgender life, through a cinematic lens. In addition to this work, Byrd serves on the Board of Directors at both Callen-Lorde Community Health Center, which provides healthcare and resources to members of the LGBTQIA+ community, regardless of their ability to pay, and The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, which is the world’s only contemporary art museum dedicated to LGBTQIA+ artists. She is also a member of the advisory board for The Ali Forney Center, which provides transitional housing, education, health, career, and food services to displaced at-risk LGBTQIA+ youth.

Follow on Instagram: @thegisellekristina

crystal bi (she/they) is a queer, mixed race, Taiwanese American, multimedia artist working in the public realm. Her participatory art projects explore themes of imagination, creative archiving, and belonging. Her practice includes weaving sculptures with natural materials, collecting voice messages, and creating installations out of plexiglass. As a public artist, professor at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, and Creative Engagement Consultant with Design Studio for Social Intervention, Crystal works with others to design interventions that imagine possible futures. She is currently fulfilling a dream to build a Department of Public Imagination, which creates infrastructure for horizontal dream work in Boston. 

www.crystal-bi.com

Quincey J Roberts, Sr. is a long-time community leader and visionary for making empowering, queer, Black spaces in Boston. He co-founded the Hispanic Black Gay Coalition with his husband, Corey Yarborough, in 2009 to support LGBTQ people of color through holistic advocacy and services. A man of many firsts, Quincey created the City of Boston’s Office of LGBTQ+ Advancement as the inaugural Executive Director in 2022 and was appointed the inaugural LGBTQ+ Chair for the Boston NAACP in 2024. For his bold and groundbreaking leadership, Quincey is considered by many as the “Godfather” of Boston’s LGBTQ+ community.

Boy Nirvana is a visual artist and museum educator based in New Hampshire. In their art work, Boy explores themes of queerness and close looking at New England’s landscapes and folk art. In the museum, Boy centers personal experience and close looking as they seek to actively “Queer” or challenge dominant interpretations. Boy can be found wearing their blue headphones listening to Nine Inch Nails or Alex G.  

Follow on Instagram - @boynirvana