Claude Bunny Massassa is a contemporary artist from Gabon. She created Bunny Studio in 2016, a start-up dedicated to photography production, which became DWABI Studio in 2021. As an artist, she has represented Gabon in many international exhibitions in Senegal, Uganda, France, the United States, and Italy. In her art, she denounces social stigmas around issues of identity and mental health, and explores themes of traditions and myths.
Executive Director Kimberly Aceves- Iñiguez has been passionately committed for over 20 years to social justice organizing and advocacy efforts that bring voice and power to youth, LGBTQ people, people of color, and working-class communities in the Bay Area. Before coming on as the Executive Director for RYSE, Kimberly served as the Executive Director for Youth Together, the founding organization of the RYSE Center.
Kanwarpal Dhaliwal is one of the co-founders of RYSE and currently acts as the Associate Director. She supports and guides the implementation and integration of healing-centered practices, grounded in racial justice and liberation, and also develops, promotes, and advocates for policies, investments, practices, and research that enliven healing, justice, and liberation. Kanwarpal believes that the purpose of her work and life is to contribute to movements, communities, and legacies of liberation that honor the ancestors who fought for her existence and survival, and to forge a world that is just and gentle for future generations.
Sagal Ali is the founder and executive director of SAF. After a few years in her career in heritage protection in the cultural sector, she decided to develop the initiative to directly support young creatives in Somalia by launching her own foundation. She hopes to bridge the social gaps and inequalities women face in Somalia, both in society and in the arts scene.
Co-founders Catherine Dunga and Marleen Palmaers created Kitambo to bridge the gap between the African diaspora in Colombia and the narratives from the continent. From Kinshasa and Antwerp respectively, they work to connect African artists from the continent and their peers from the Colombian diaspora.
Martha Kazungu is a curator, art Historian and Founder of Njabala Foundation, an organization that curates periodic exhibitions and organizes a public program of activities to create a safe space for female artists to thrive and blossom.
Alicia Hansen is a photographer and teacher from New York. She founded NYC SALT in 2008 and, beyond teaching valuable creative skills to her students, has developed a long-term support system to uplift them through school and into their early artistic careers.
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The Project
“I chose to collaborate with Moleskine Foundation to release a set of Artists Edition Series Notebooks to raise awareness and support the transformative work the Foundation is undertaking to support creative young minds at the center of the Foundation’s unconventional educational programs. For many years now, the eponymous Moleskine notebook has been an integral part of my creative process. Although the digital world provides convenience and increases productivity, many in the creative world continue to find inspiration in putting pen to paper. My thinking process and all my creations begin with a sketch in a Moleskine notebook.
The Foundation is an independent, international charitable organization on a mission to mobilize a new generation of creative changemakers. All profits from the sale of each Artists Edition Series Notebook will help support AtWork’s important work to educate youth worldwide about the empowering effects of creative thinking as a tool for change.” – Aida Muluneh
The Artist – Aida Muluneh
Born in Addis Ababa in 1974, Aïda graduated with a degree from the Communication Department with a major in Film from Howard University in Washington D.C. Her photography can be found in several publications and also in the permanent collection at Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art, Hood Museum, The RISD Museum of Art and the Museum of Biblical Art in the United States.
She is the 2007 recipient of the European Union Prize in the Rencontres Africaines de la Photographie, in Bamako, Mali, the 2010 winner of the CRAF International Award of Photography in Spilimbergo, Italy, a 2018 CatchLight Fellow in San Francisco, USA. In 2019, she also became the first black woman to co-curator the Nobel Peace Prize exhibition and in the following year she returned as a commissioned artist for the prize.
She has been a jury member on several photography competitions, most notably the Sony World Photography Awards 2017 and the World Press Photo Contest 2017. She has also been on various panel discussions on photography, such as the African Union cultural summit, Art Basel, and Tedx/Johannesburg. In 2019, she also gave the renowned Sem Presser Lecture at the World Press Photo Festival in Amsterdam.
A Canon Ambassador, Aida is the founder of the Addis Foto Fest (AFF), the first international photography festival in East Africa held since 2010. As an educator and cultural entrepreneur, she continues to develop projects with local and international institutions in Ethiopia and Côte d’Ivoire.
The artwork – “The Past, The Present And The Future”
“Since making this piece, I have shown it to my friends to see which one of the three heads they think is the past, the present and the future. It’s interesting to hear each remark about the image, however, what I find even more fascinating is how much they like the image.
I love the color blue in all its forms and red has been something that is in most of my work, which at times symbolizes strength, life, rebellion and also history. The headscarf is something that reminds me of how Muslim women here wear their wraps but not in this long piece. This piece is dedicated to Ethiopia.”
