Category: About us

Azad Azizyan

Azad Azizyan I am a documentary filmmaker and graduated from UCLA in Documentary Production. I am interested in documenting the voice of historically oppressed and marginalized communities and individuals. Research Interests: Kurdish cinema, Postcolonial cinema, and collective memory
Monica Ambalal

Monica Ambalal Monica Ambalal was born and raised in Stockton, CA and began her academic career at San Joaquin Delta College before continuing on to receive: a BA from the University of New Orleans, an MA in Musicology from CSU Long Beach, an MA in Ethnomusicology from UC Davis (and soon a Phd from UC…
Nicol Hammond

Nicol Hammond Assistant Professor, Cultural Musicology, ARI Faculty Director (2024-2027) Nicol Hammond is an Assistant Professor of Cultural Musicology at the University of California at Santa Cruz. She is an ethnomusicologist and popular music scholar specializing in South African popular, traditional, and choral music, and in feminist and queer studies.
Aaron Samuel Mulenga

Aaron Samuel Mulenga Aaron Samuel Mulenga is an interdisciplinary artist and Visual Studies Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC). His area of study includes contemporary art of Africa, and the roles that museums play in shaping cultural narratives. Mulenga’s interest in Zambian culture and heritage led to his latest work which…
Ohal Greitzer

Ohal Greitzer Ohal is a composer, performer and mixed-media artist, working across a wide range of contexts including film scoring, sound installation and research. Their work is concerned with consciousness, and its inherent vulnerabilities and sequential failures as it vacillates between forces of causation and chaos. Featured in WIRE and Fader Magazine for their solo…
Nina Barzegar

Nina Barzegar Nina Barzegar is an Iranian composer, pianist, educator, and actress. Her diverse musical styles encompass concert music, film, and theater compositions. In her music, she attempts to integrate diverse resources, creating a blend of traditional and contemporary musical ideas. Barzegar experiments with Iranian musical figures and aesthetics, exploring their potential when combined with…
Stephanie Valadez

Stephanie Valadez Stephanie Valadez is the Executive Artistic Director of Xicameri Productions, a 501(c)3 organization that uplifts the voices of under-represented communities and promotes justice and equal opportunity through its thought-provoking music and dance. She enjoys collaborative and multidisciplinary work, and works as a composer, singer, and multi-instrumentalist. Some of her performances have included Showcase…
Alberto Miguel Vazquez

Alberto Miguel Vazquez Alberto Miguel Vazquez is a Central California Chicano artist in his first year in the Environmental Art + Social Practice MFA program at UC Santa Cruz. His work exists between the Santa Maria Valley, the Central Valley’s Fresno, and the Monterey Peninsula and all involves multidisciplinary approaches to collaborating with the communities…
Robert Johnson III

Robert Johnson III Robert Johnson III is an artist /photographer/ filmmaker whose work explores the black cultural identity, liberation, migration and the concept of home. His work explores a reframing (positive) of the black identity through the use of analog film and archives to examine blackness in America and how that idea has survived, evolving…
Raty Syka

Raty Syka Raty Syka (they/she), aka NUMPIE, is a comic artist and illustrator based in Santa Cruz, CA. With a background in sociocultural anthropology, folklore, and American Studies, Numpie makes comics and visual projects based on ethnographic research. Collaborative works highlight stories of agriculture in California – from the sustainable to the surprising. Raty has…