2022 Festival Artists

Bea Colon

Bea Colon is a nonbinary, queer, Latinx digital illustrator. Their work specializes in character design and narrative works centered around their journey to self love and acceptance as a queer person.

Róisín Nolan

Róisín Nolan (B. 1991) is an Irish analog collagist based in Dublin, Ireland.

Specialising in collage on paper, a satirical Dadaist influence is evidenced throughout her work. Detached from digital with a sole focus on analog, Róisín sources physical imagery to visually narrate stories through an intersectional feminist lens. Through an active approach, Róisín seeks out local imagery for her work. This involves trips to second hand book stores, charity shops, thrift stores, etc. As part of her practice, she uses the time searching for imagery to research symbolism and meaning to employ in her work.

Critical of gender inequality, wealth disparity, the lack of intersectional representation in prolific spaces, conservative politics and the influence of the Catholic Church, are themes undulating throughout her practice.

As an early career artist, Mulan spends her time refining her practice and building her creative business in her Dublin based workspace.

Eager Zhang

Eager Zhang (b. 1997, China Mainland, she/they) is a visual artist and graphic designer. Being brought up as multi-lingual and trained with coding tools in college, she explores among the territory of nature studies, language issues and poetry writing, and expands her practice into printmaking, editorial design, and web architecture. Zhang’s recent works were featured & awarded by Tokyo Type Directors Club (3 times), ItsNiceThat, Asian Pacific Design No.17, Society of Typographic Art (STA 100), The Design Kids 20’, etc, and were widely exhibited at Kansas City, Chicago, Mexico City, Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing, etc. She graduated from School of the Art Institute of Chicago as an MFA, and received a Bachelor of Engineering from Tongji University, Shanghai. Currently, Zhang is a full-time assistant professor at Kansas City Art Institute as an AICAD Post-Graduate Teaching Fellow, teaching in the Graphic Design BFA program.

Khandoker Upama Kabir

I am a Bangladeshi Architect studying master's in Germany in Heritage. Since a young child, I have always expressed myself with art and as a queer person living in a conservative society, it has always helped me a lot during times of depression. You can see my fight with duality in my painting.

Lidya Zelke

Lidiya is Multi disciplinary Self taught Artist experimenting between photography, digital art and painting. Her works landed on the pages of En Vie uk magazine , Picton Magazine, Feroce Magazine and including Vogue Italy website. she had participated in various local and international exhibitions including Hey layers SATOSHE project as one of the selected 20 Artists from all over the world.

Olivia Dawson

Originally from New Mexico, Dawson moved to Salt Lake City to study at Westminster College and graduated in 2019 with a B.A. degree in Art. For two years Dawson worked at the Kimball Art Center in Park City as a Studio Assistant and is now back at Westminster working as a Ceramic Technician. They have shown work at a variety of institutions throughout Salt Lake City, including Urban Arts Gallery, Salt Lake Community College, Salt Lily Magazine, Under the Umbrella Bookstore and Westminster College Student Art Gallery.

Estafani Schubert

Estefani Schubert is a queer Uruguayan Jewish poet, painter, and social worker based in Salt Lake City. They are the host and creator of Alone Together: A Monthly Poetry Open Mic at Under the Umbrella Bookstore. Their work explores themes of love, death, rebirth, sex, mysticism, anti-capitalism, and ancestral wisdom through written and visual mediums. They are fascinated and fueled by absurdism and surrealism in all forms. Check out their work at EstefaniSchubert.com

Rosa Bandeirinha

Rosa is a communications professional based in Salt Lake City. She earned a Master’s Degree in Architecture from the University of Coimbra in her native country Portugal. After working as an architect for 4 years in Madrid, Spain, Rosa started her journey in the communications field for non-profits. Rosa is passionate about public art, graphic design, the urban space, and social justice.

Ashley Eberlein

If I can see something that no one else has seen, or that others haven't had the chance to appreciate, but I can capture it and make them take the time to see it-see it, not just 'see it' but to actually See it/contemplate it/enjoy it/disagree with it, etc., etc… It’s like I get to give them a little present—here is something that I saw, that perhaps you didn’t, and it’s quite possible it won’t ever exist again; do with it what you will, but thank you for taking the time to see what I saw!

That is what photography is for me, a communication tool that captures utterly unique moments in time & space and preserves them.

When I'm not behind the camera, I'm either writing movies, practicing yoga, or enjoying this crazy lava and salt water that is perpetually swirling around in the universe.

Hannah Scharton

Hannah is an interdisciplinary artist who enjoys working with recycled materials. Their work frequently explores themes of trauma, healing, and self-love. Professionally, they studied web design & development and have worked in the marketing and tech industry for 10 years. Their family is made up of 2 dogs, their partner, and a very close-knit friend group that describes them as having “Big Crow Energy”. When they aren’t working, they enjoy snuggling with their dogs and/or friends and creating any number of trash-filled art pieces for their business, Queer Whimsy.

Madeleine Bavley

Madeleine is a queer ecologist that cultivates and creates from the ecosystem of Salt Lake City, UT. Her work explores concepts of pleasure, porosity, and penetrability, with particular emphasis on concerns of petroleum and pollution. As in the words of Stacy Alaimo, “the anthropocene is no time to set things straight.”

Hannah Olivia

Hannah Olivia is a sculpture student and installation artist based in Utah. Her work has appeared in The Urban Arts Gallery, The Woodbury Art Museum, and in Touchstones Literary Magazine. In her work she likes to explore immersive magic, and the myths of mutual exclusivity. When she's not making art, she can be found collecting bones and talking too much about the plots of video games.

lucy & milo

lucy and milo live with a black cat under the same roof in an industrial hellscape commonly known as salt lake city. they spend their time together cooking food they found in the dumpster, riding bicycles, and imagining beauty returning to this land in an interdependent future. as queer anarchists, their rage furnaces burn hot. as an outlet, they create radical art in loving resistance.

Jessy Christ

Jessy Crist (she/her) is a queer dance artist based in Brooklyn, NY. Originally from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, she graduated Cum Laude with a BFA in Dance Performance from Montclair State University in 2019. Jessy has performed works by Martha Graham, Bill T. Jones, Shapiro and Smith, Christian Von Howard, Joshua L. Peugh, Winston Dynamite Brown, and Robyn Mineko-Williams. Jessy has performed professionally with Dark Circles Contemporary Dance Company, The Dynamite Experience, VOID Movement Project, and danced in The Imitation of Christ NYFW F/W22. Jessy is currently dancing in her first season with LA Dance Project. 

As a freelance artist, Jessy creates her own work in collaboration with multimedia artists. Her most recent creations/collaborations include G Y P S U M, an experimental dance film exploring stored trauma in the femme body. G Y P S U M has been selected as an installation for Currents: New Media Festival in Santa Fe, NM, and as a Panelist Pick for the Shana Simmons Constructed Sight Dance Film Festival.

Ariella Cohen

I am a Senior at the University of Utah, pursuing an Animation degree. I love pancakes and cats. I live in Utah with my awesome supportive family and 12 cats and 2 dogs. As an introverted hermit who barely leaves the house, I am never wanting for fluffy pet company. However, in the human department, - well, let's just say applications are open. I am currently developing a comic with queer and bipoc representation at its core. One of my goals is to become a storyboard artist in tv and film animation. My dream is to create my own animation studio. I strive to create works that change peoples' hearts.

Rae Luebbert

Rae Luebbert (she/they) is an artist, writer, dance educator, and arts administrator based in Salt Lake where they work as an Academic Advisor at the University of Utah in the College of Fine Arts, a dance teacher at South Valley Creative Dance, and as an independent choreographer and maker. Rae graduated from the University of Utah with an Honors BFA in Modern Dance and a BA in Spanish. Rae has worked professionally at Dance Place, Jane Franklin Dance, Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, Dance/USA, and Callahan Consulting for the Arts. She has presented literary, choreographic and visual art work work with Great Salt Lake Fringe (Utah), Queer Spectra Arts Festival (Utah), Dance Place (DC), Juanita Winston Dance Company (Maryland), the Hirschhorn Smithsonian Museum (DC), Sample Series (Utah), and the National Arts Festival (South Africa). Rae is interested in using art for community building, storytelling, and as an impetus to share laughter and snacks.

Katelyn Handy

Katelyn Handy is 20 year old queer singer/songwriter born and raised in Utah. They came out at age 16 and have been performing in and creating music for the LGBTQ community ever since. Katelyn grew up Mormon and writes about the conflict of being a queer person in a Mormon family. You can connect with them on Instagram and Tiktok through @katelynhandy

Nick Weaver

Nick Weaver is a dance artist from Salt Lake City, UT. He is completing a BFA in Modern Dance from the University of Utah. His work is often interested in notions of selfhood, and how lived experiences manifest in the body. Nick likes to climb rocks and cook for other people.

Hunter Hazard, Liza Kitchens & Becca Speechley

Hunter Hazard is a movement artist living in Draper, Utah. His credentials include a degree in modern dance. Liza and Becca are his friends. We made a dance together.

Eliza Sage Kitchens is a dancer and queer performance artist. After a lifetime of ballet training and graduating with a BFA in Modern Dance from the University of Utah, she is interested in reconstructing her understanding of the purpose of dance through an anti-capitalist lens with an eye toward community-building. She loves storytelling and performances that create discomfort by challenging the status quo.

Becca Speechley is a dance artist, storyteller, and educator. Becca is into softness, spring, sapphic stories, Taylor Swift, dance that leaves her wanting more, and being in good company. She is a lover of nature and quiet spaces. She is enamored with pop culture and its ability to connect communities. She doesn't love writing about herself in the third person but does enjoy the self confident high that follows and will be doing more of this. Becca really wants to test the limits of dance, because it's been bumming her out lately, and she feels there is really something here to be teased and toyed with to captivate and inspire people. And she will likely keep trying to find out what that is. She is thrilled to be performing with Liza and Hunter, two people she enjoys very much, and is excited to continue exploring her queerness though art.

Kit Francis

Kit Francis is an comic artist, painter, sculpture and performance artist. Their work focuses on mystery, mysticism and existing in the unknown. As a nonbinary person they are often defined by what they are not, they create in this mysterious space.

Aileen Norris

Aileen is a freelance dance artist and writer currently based in Minneapolis. She's passionate about empowering folks through movement, increasing accessibility throughout art spaces, and making weird art. Aileen received their BFA in Modern Dance and BA in English from the University of Utah, where she worked with Satu Hummasti, Stephen Koester, Anouk van Dijk, Daniel Clifton, and Alexandra Barbier, among others. Aileen is a co-founder and organizer of Queer Spectra Arts Festival; in their free time, they love hiking, spending quality time with loved ones, and playing Dungeons and Dragons.

Amanda Madden

Amanda Madden is a nonbinary, queer, feminist filmmaker, artist and educator whose work explores evolutions of intimacy, identity, body, and connection. They utilize performance experimentation, and collaboration to explore these concepts and use image and sound as material to manipulate time and memory, seek the unknown, gently disrupt consciousness, and in doing so, create space for new possibilities of being and connecting. Their work is about what they discover as they travel through inner and outer landscapes. It is rooted in their belief that video is a portal for breaking binaries, creating embodied experience, and perhaps even stepping towards collective healing – a way to see and be seen. They have worked as an editor, director, and creator of documentary, narrative, and experimental projects for 15 years and their work has been exhibited internationally.They are currently the Director of Phase 2 Productions and the Film Mentor at Spy Hop.

Tori Meyer & Nora Lang

Tori Meyer is a performer, choreographer, and dance educator based in Salt Lake City. An artist working in both dance and music making, she is interested in dance outside of the proscenium, queerness, and bodily autonomy. Her main body of work is directing a series of dance concerts in the style of diy house shows, transforming alternative spaces into pop-up dance theater events. She received her Honors Bachelor of Fine Arts in Modern Dance from the University of Utah in 2021. Recently, she has performed for local dance companies FemDanceCo and Deseret Experiment Opera. Her choreographic work has been shown at loveDANCEmore’s Sunday Series, SLC Arts Council’s Flash Projects, Queer Spectra Arts Festival, Damn These Heels Film Festival, Salty Showcase, Salt Lake Unity Festival, and Red Butte Gardens.

Nora Lang is a cross-disciplinary artist with a passion for collaborative art. They are a freelance dancer and artist based in Salt Lake City. They received their B.F.A. in Modern Dance at the University of Utah, 2019. Recently Nora has continued their freelance performances with local artists in the Salt Lake City area including Halie Bahr, Tori Meyers, Indigo Cook, and Christina Hughes. Outside of the studio you can find Nora taking photos, biking, and crafting puns.

arin lynn

arin lynn is a performance-maker, production designer, and multi-media artist based in Salt Lake City. Arin’s artistic work explores the body as a source of euphoria. They also enjoy playing with textures in video editing. Arin’s main goal in their art making is to create something that makes them smile.

Luz

An art style that grows heavily from my mixed heritage, drawing inspirations of Pacifika, Asian, Hispanic roots to heal the Irish side of my ancestral line. Luzsaint is expressive, passionate, reflective, colorful, and vibrant with chromatic energy. A multi faceted artist with a mix of drag performance alongside spoken word, flow and dance, Luz is sure to ignite your flame and caress the inner child.

Ali Lorenz & Mia Martelli

Ali Lorenz (she/they) is a Chicago-based performance artist. They have presented work through Queer Spectra Arts Festival (SLC), Deseret Experimental Opera (SLC), and Pink Slip Zine (Chicago). Ali applies found materials, quizzical thought, and sincerity to her work in effort to share her views on unpolished, vulnerable life.

Mia Martelli (she/her) is a multimedia performance artist. She aims to capture the physical scope of cutting up materials on a bedroom floor to volatile attitudes of punk performance, both of which are exercises in devotion. Mia was a 2021 LiftOff Artist-in-Residence for New Dance Alliance and a Visual Muze Governor’s Island Artist-in-Residence through the West Harlem Art Fund. Her most recent solo, Girly-Sound, is being presented by MAGMA (Gloucester, MA) and New Dance Alliance. This project is the first artistic collaboration between Ali + Mia. DIY ethics inspire and support them through the growing pains of being a human.

Red Miller

Red Miller grew up in the deserts of Arizona, loving anything that fostered connection between others. As an only child, she often felt lonely and misunderstood, so she took to the page. At 9 years old, Red began journaling and hasn't stopped since. She uses the blank page to work through her thoughts and emotions, and finds the process to be clarifying and validating, often including other mediums into her work as well (such as watercolor and digital art). She is currently working on a book that chronicles her coming out journey.

Sangram Mukhopadhyay

I am an emerging dancer based out of Kolkata, who uses the movement vocabulary of Whacking/Waacking(the names used interchangeably but marks two different eras of the dance form) to explore experiences of gender and contemporary life. As a genre that focuses on striking arm movements, poses, and footwork, I am interested in expanding this understanding, finding its relevance and responding to the contemporary
world beyond the prescribed performative formats(e.g. battling, showcase competitions etc). The genre lays an enormous focus to build technique via improvisation. My curiosity lies, to locate the self in the larger commonality of the style while affirming my individual expression in understanding waacking

Ira Kaufman

Ira Kaufman began their career as a multi-disciplinary artist working in the mediums of mixed media sculpture, dance, performance art, painting and music performance. They earned a bachelor’s and Master of Fine Arts in Dance from UCLA. Ira went on to collaborate with other performance and dance theater artists in the Los Angeles area creating work during the 1990s through 2014 when they left for Salt Lake City Utah. “Transitions” is the third dance film Ira has co-produced and performed in. They have co-produced and performed in “Burning Girl”, 2004, and “If I Were with Wings”, 1997.  In 1993 they were one of the original co-founders of the Los Angeles Women’s Theater Festival and remained involved through 1996, helping develop the mission and vision during the early developmental years of the festival, so it could be a venue that was inclusive of all women’s voices and mediums of art. Ira is also a gifted teacher and healer, and entered the field of physical therapy in 2011. They continue to bring their own artistic flair to healing using the arts and movement to facilitate healing for their patients.