Artist Pipeline Program: Artist Cohorts

payal's visual work alchemizes folk art from their ancestral villages in Bihar with traditional Americana motifs to amplify peoples’ movements and explores the in-between spaces of trauma, coloniality, queerness, and embodiment. payal was a 2021 recipient of the Boston Foundation’s LAB grant. They are an organizer with Subcontinental Drift Boston, a monthly multilingual open mic centering South Asian diasporic voices, and with transnational organizing collectives fighting for labor, race, caste, and gender equity. Through creative strategies, they cultivate playful spaces that challenge the state's monopoly on Imagination so that we may all fully unearth and activate our collective power.

Bangera has launched a consulting community organization called Healing Empowers Ancestral Love (H.E.A.L) which offers three programs that are aimed to uplift QTDBIPoC (Queer, Trans, Disabled, Black, Indigenous, People of Color) community members by addressing systemic oppression through reclaiming our own identities using arts as a catalyst. She was selected by the Boston Women's Fund in partnership with the Boston Foundation for their 2022 Women of Color Leadership Circle. She was also a teaching artist & writer at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston and at the United South End Settlements. Bangera is a perpetual evolving shapeshifter, a work-in-progress, with her core values of radical love and liberation intact.

Brooke is Co-Founder of Non Issue Studio, a creative studio that produces hands-on art-making workshops and handmade goods. Partners have included the ICA, The Eliot School of Fine & Applied Arts, Boston Children's Museum, Blick Art Supply stores, Resist, The Children’s Room, Samuels & Associates, Good Boston Living, and beyond. Brooke has earned a BFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design from the Studio for Interrelated Media (SIM) program, and recently completed a User Experience Design Certificate program.

As he has grown as an artist, DeShaun has come to understand the most impactful aspect of his artistry: healing. With a heart-centered approach to programming and performing, DeShaun invites audiences into carefully curated spaces of musical healing, restoration, and wholeness.

Fiona states, "Footwear is a morally injurious field, often representing the worst of consumer culture. We have more hype and more options around footwear than ever before, yet companies still cannot think beyond a mens'/womens' dichotomy. TGNC people are not only underserved by the sizing schemes, but the cisheteronormative politics behind them. I want to be different: T4T, local, upcycled, proud, compassionate, transparent, and approachable. Fashion choices, and the struggle to develop gender expressions, should never be morally injurious."

Deborah Johnson (she/they) is queer Indian-American multidisciplinary artist and creative care worker based in Boston, Massachusetts. Deborah studied political science at Oberlin College and is currently getting her Masters in Social Work. Her work ranges from digital illustration and writing to movement practices such as yoga and dance.

Nina Bhattacharya (she/her) is a designer, educator, and social worker. As the visual artist Radio Rani, she stitches together reflections on liberation, community, and spirituality through digital collage. In her work as an educator and facilitator, Bhattacharya designs learning experiences that nurture and amplify the agency, wellbeing, and creative power of young people.

Erin Jackson received her Bachelors in Fine Arts in Painting from Lesley University College of Art and Design. She continues her involvement in the arts community through collaboration with the Brookline Arts Center, Harvard Ed Portal, and the Cambridge Arts Association.

Gustavo Tavares Barceloni (he/him) was born in Brazil and raised in Greater Boston. He creates illustrative tableware, installations, and community based projects that promote working class power and explore the complexities of living within the Brazilian diaspora. Gustavo holds a BFA in ceramics from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and a M.Ed from the University of Massachusetts Boston. He has taught middle school history, free community ceramics classes, and workshops on art activism. Currently, Gustavo organizes with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, a revolutionary organization by and for the working class, that seeks to collectively build the necessary power to secure a future free from capitalism.

Greg Marquis (aka Marquis Lavoie) is a musician and activist who has been part of the Boston music scene for about 12 years. His two main acts illustrate the dynamic dichotomy of his stylistic range as a singer, songwriter, and performer, from the cathartic screaming of post-hardcore band Actor Observer to the delicate finger-picking and crooning of his solo indie folk act Marquis Lavoie. Having graduated in 2014 from Northeastern University with a degree in Music Industry, Marquis has a penchant for being hands on with every aspect of his music career, from managing and merchandising, to booking and visual creative direction. Marquis is a jack of all trades, with experience working for numerous Boston venues, self-releasing multiple albums, and advocating for artist resources and affordable housing with his grassroots civics group Boston Artist Impact.

Grace Givertz (she/her/hers) is a Boston-based indie folk singer songwriter. With a large voice packed into a tiny body, Givertz pairs her witty and honest lyrics with various instruments to bring a refreshing sound to folk.

Zakiyyah is an artist-activist who utilizes music and visual media to explore themes that centralize marginalized communities via her production company, Black and Bold Productions. As an actress and classically-trained singer who is well-versed in Opera, Hip-Hop, Jazz, and R&B, she employs her versatile skillset to reach a broad range of audiences and craft a sound that is uniquely her own—including her most well-known, "Hip-Hopera". She's had the pleasure of bringing these sounds to numerous audiences, from the House of Blues to the United Nations.

In addition to her artistic practice, she teaches voice at Harvard's Holden Voice Program, and serves as a racial equity consultant with Arts Connect International, supporting arts organizations in reassessing their practices through the lens of equity and creative justice. Her recent Tedx Talk, "Being Good Is a Privilege," highlights the repercussions of overlooking class in our quest for DEI and social change.

She's delighted to return as the co-facilitator for the second year of the Harvard Ed Portal's Pipeline program, where she can support artists in cultivating their own agency and taking control of their futures.

Resides on the land of the Massachusett peoples, in Dorchester, MA.

Mel documents arts exhibitions at several institutions in the greater Boston area such as the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, MIT List Visual Arts Center, Rose Art Museum, and the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum. Her museum work has been featured in Vogue, the New York Times, Boston Globe, ArtNet, Boston Art Review, Hyperallergic, WBUR, and more. 

Beyond the camera, she is deeply interested in increasing cultural equity within the arts and culture sector of Boston. Mel collaborates with institutions such as Arts Connect International, Harvard Ed Portal, Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center, and the Office of Justice, Transformation, and Equity at MassArt to advocate for equity in and through the arts. Mel was most recently a visiting lecturer at the Massachusetts College of Art & Design, teaching the course "Art, Life, Money" which offers knowledge about financial literacy to students as they become professional artists and designers. It is rewarding and fulfilling for Mel to share her knowledge so that all makers, artists, and designers can advocate for their full worth and value.

Mel is a proud alumni of the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, and holds a BFA in Film/Video. She is Vice-Chair of the Alumni Leadership Council, a volunteer cohort of alumni that work to connect alum to each other, to the college, and to the broader MassArt community.

Alyssa grew up spending time in local art galleries in Norfolk, VA with her father, artist Ted Liles. Those early experiences in galleries that supported and included the surrounding communities inspired Alyssa's interest in art. Alyssa earned her BFA in Painting and Printmaking from Virginia Commonwealth University and an MA in African American and African Diaspora studies from Indiana University, Bloomington. Alyssa then moved to Boston and taught in an alternative school called YouthBuild where she was inspired by the young people she worked with and became concerned about the lack of arts learning opportunities available to them. Hoping to learn more about these issues, Alyssa attended the Harvard Graduate School of Education and earned an Ed.M in Arts in Education where she focused her studies on race in education and issues of accessibility to the arts within urban education.

After graduating Alyssa worked as a Teaching Fellow for two years for the Arts in Education graduate program at Harvard. She then went on to work with youth/social justice oriented arts non-profit organization, The Urbano Project, while also completing a year long Silk Road Connect Fellowship in art education. Alyssa also worked in museum education at the JFK Presidential Library and Museum where she did outreach and helped produce educational programming. Additionally, she served as a Resident Tutor for Education and the Arts at Lowell House at Harvard University. Alyssa recently worked at Temple University as an Associate Director of Diversity Initiatives, and now is the Director of Community Engagement and Inclusion at the Please Touch Museum.

Resides on the land of the Lenape peoples, in Pittsburgh, PA.