Akiya McKnight is a multidisciplinary storyteller, producer, and art curator dedicated to amplifying underrepresented voices across television, podcasting, and the visual arts. With over eight years of experience in the entertainment industry, she has collaborated with major studios and networks including Tyler Perry Studios, AMC, Warner Brothers, and The Gersh Agency. Her creative portfolio includes the short films SERVED, Black Mask, Drift, Bone Deep, Daddy’s Home, and Monet, as well as branded content for the Recording Academy.
A lifelong lover of the arts, Akiya’s curatorial practice is rooted in a deep appreciation for cultural institutions like Yale, The Met, and MoMA, which she frequented from a young age. In 2015, she co-founded Creative Society CT, an art collective that connected emerging artists with local businesses through curated events. Her debut solo exhibition, Black Love is Liberation: A Visual Timeline Through the Ages (2023), was met with critical acclaim and is currently being developed into a touring show across the U.S. and abroad. She is also curating a forthcoming exhibit on grief, exploring healing, identity, and community.
Based in Los Angeles and Connecticut, Akiya remains committed to telling stories that reflect the full spectrum of women's and minority experiences. Beyond her creative work, she is deeply engaged in community service and advocacy. She previously served on the board of Forever Family, a nonprofit supporting children of incarcerated parents, and currently holds board positions at the Michael’s Daughter Foundation and the Ely Center of Contemporary Art.
Diana Abouchacra is a Lebanese American mixed-media artist who received her M.F.A. from Louisiana State University and her B.F.A. from the University of Connecticut. She works in a variety of mediums including video, printmaking, installation, and sound art. Diana loves incorporating experimental strategies and techniques into her studio practice, with recurring themes of grief, vulnerability, ephemerality, multiplicity, and transformation.
Dario Mohr is an interdisciplinary artist, curator, and nonprofit leader who creates altar-inspired installations, sculptures, and public works rooted in ancestral veneration and indigenous traditions. He splits his time between NYC and New Haven, CT. His work has been presented at venues such as the Jacob Javits Center, Lewis Latimer House Museum, Wave Hill, Brooklyn Children's Museum and internationally at Tafaria Castle in Kenya, supported by residencies, fellowships, and grants from organizations including EFA, LMCC, ApexArt, MYSCA and NEA. He is also the founder and Director of AnkhLave Arts Alliance, Inc., a nonprofit dedicated to amplifying the voices of artists of color and indigenous communities worldwide.
Lauren Flaaen holds an MFA from Yale School of Art in Painting and Printmaking. Their work has been exhibited at the Metal Museum, Memphis; the Logan Center, and the Ely Center of Contemporary Art. ‘My artistic practice centers around transforming everyday objects into anthropomorphic forms, where the material world splits and reconverges, entangling matter to flow, move, and propel forward. I cut, paint, stitch, construct found objects, building materials, and steel into corporeal assemblages. The materials and processes I use symbolize the cyclical nature of transformation, where rupture and repair coexist, responding to the embodied and disembodied experiences inscribed with societal expectations and norms.’