Jessica Austin

Equal parts nerd, jock, and class clown, Jessica is a voice teacher and a writer. For her project, she’s recording oral history interviews with local trans women as she teaches them how to feminize their voices. Across three interviews, these women will talk about their lives in DC as their voices come to better reflect who they are. If trans women’s dehumanization often begins with language, then Jessica believes language can help restore their humanity—affirming that they’re individuals with stories and voices of their own.

Instagram: @thetransjessicaaustin. Website: thetransjessicaaustin.com

Katie Kirkpatrick

Katie Kirkpatrick is the owner and founder of Off the Mall Tours, a tour company that highlights underrepresented voices and off-the-beaten path local DC history. She has a flair for fun history, costuming, and showing off her adopted city.  

 Katie is writing a book based off of her popular “Madams of DC” walking tour, which focuses on the lives of sex workers drawn to Civil War-era Washington by the large military presence and prospect of fortunes to be made.  

Identifying as a humanist, she tries to understand as many diverse perspectives as possible. She comes from a privileged background but has come in contact with people from all walks of life, from DC, to Brazil, to the Congo, and beyond. Katie believes humanity is fascinating, and the more she learns about different cultures, socio-economic structures, history, languages, etc, the more empathy she gains for individuals that are different from herself. 

Rhonda Henderson

Rhonda is the co-creator of the Dap Project, a platform for preserving community narratives. A graduate of Benjamin Banneker, her project will recount through oral history the community advocacy that led to the construction of a new building, and will produce an advocacy guide for young people. Rhonda identifies as a culture-bearer who practices joy and resists erasure.

Muskanpreet Kaur

Muskan is a Queer Punjabi artist working on cultural projects within DMV and global communities. They organize under “MotorMouth”, a values-driven platform focused on DIY collaboration that hosts skill workshops, benefit concerts, fundraisers, and art markets across the DMV.  

Their fellowship project focuses on highlighting the ways in which BIPOC immigrant communities in the DMV create a home for themselves through the medium of food. Their goal is to produce a zine of interviews, recipes, photography, and resources.

Delia Beristain Noriega

Delia Beristain Noriega | Mexico and PG County raised, based in Columbia Heights, DC | Community archivist | Cultural organizer | Cat mom

Delia is excited to build a digital archive that preserves the stories behind Las Muertes Más Bellas del Mundo–a DC based documentary film created by Salvadorans about the Salvadoran diaspora in the DMV. As both a producer and an archivist with the film crew, she hopes to encourage immigrant communities in DC to continue documenting our collective histories and explore avenues for healing through memory keeping and art. This archive includes a mix of archival materials and footage, some featured in the film, some not—and will grow to include new interviews and written reflections from folks engaging with this history.

As a humanist and culture bearer, Delia works at the intersection of art, memory and justice. With every event or project she co-creates, Delia envisions her community reclaiming, sharing and preserving their stories, and building spaces that reflect who they are at their core. 

Yanci F.

Yanci F. — a creative spirit, community connector, and observant storyteller — brings authenticity, resourcefulness, and a deep love for service to everything they do. As an Independent Practitioner Fellow, they are creating a vibrant graphic booklet celebrating the joy, resilience, and lasting contributions of Central American immigrants in D.C. Yanci identifies as a culture bearer because they were raised in DC, shaped by its schools and programs, and remains rooted in honoring and uplifting the community that raised them.

Claude Elliott

Claude L. Elliott grew up in Detroit, Michigan in a segregated, working-class neighborhood, coming of age during Civil Rights and Black Power Movements. His career transitioned from seminary to social work, to philanthropy, to curatorial, to arts administration, and to humanities. His ongoing project “Creating Space and Opportunities: DC Black Owned/Managed Art Galleries and Spaces” documents the impact of these art spaces on generation of Black artists who forged careers between the 1970s and 1990s outside of mainstream art spaces not accessible to them. The focus of the Fellowship is to develop an exhibition concept and design that addresses the vitality of these spaces as an important sector of DC’s cultural development and entrepreneurial landscape. As a cultural bearer Claude’s goal is to highlight the history of a vibrant DC Black artist community and the contributions of art spaces which attracted people to venture into culturally diverse neighborhoods.