Aquil Charlton
A diversely creative and visionary leader, Aquil “AQ” Charlton leverages a wealth of experience as a teaching artist, consultant, and co-founder of artist collaboratives to make positive contributions in Chicago communities and the arts sector. Aquil is a gifted independent musician, rapper, songwriter, DJ, and producer who also plays electronics. He is the founder of Mobile Music Box, a mobile workshop practice of making musical instruments from common and recycled materials, and co-founder of Mobilize Creative Collaborative, which leads mobile play-based community art activations.
Yolanda Cesta Cursach Montilla
Yolanda Cesta Cursach Montilla is an independent curator and formerly the Curator of Performance at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Her practice is defined by working closely with local and international artists at every stage of investigation, creation, and touring, and building collaborative environments that center community and partnerships. Yolanda is a recognized knowledge leader about artists in Ibero-Latin America, Europe, and Sub-Sahara Africa. She is a Practitioner with Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation; a Facilitator of Moving Forward Dialogues at the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography at Florida State University; a mentor for Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artists; and Chair of Programming and Structure for Bodies of Work Festival of Disability Arts and Culture. She is a former Hub Site for the National Dance Project of New England Foundation for the Arts and Chair of International Programs and Board Member of National Performance Network. Panel service includes The McKnight Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Creative Capital, MAP Fund, and USArtists International.
Missi Davis
Missi Davis is a creative producer and arts manager who advances multi-faceted, non-traditional, cultural work that promotes and strengthens the intersection of the arts, social impact, and civic engagement. She brings close to 15 years of experience to HCL, having created and promoted hundreds of projects across multiple arts media; and a focus in strategic planning, business development, general management, event direction, and communications. Missi’s flagship project has been as the Producer of The Fly Honey Show, now grown into a Chicago institution with strong support and interconnection with its audience. She was a founding member of the Chicago multi-disciplinary arts organization The Inconvenience, serving as both Artistic and Executive Director; and General Manager of Hebru Brantley’s Nevermore Park. Her work also spans the cultural and commercial landscape, working with artists to create unique environments with lasting impact for the corporate field.
Angee Lennard
Angee Lennard is an arts administrator and printmaker dedicated to advancing Chicago’s non-profit arts sector in regards to equity, accessibility, community support, and operational and artistic excellence.
Motived by her own need for a welcoming and accessible space to take artistic risks, she founded the community printmaking studio, Spudnik Press Cooperative in 2007. She envisioned and built an innovative studio model where professional printmaking facilities offer a foundation for residencies, fellowships, education, exhibitions, collaborative projects and public programs, all grounded in printmaking’s history as a community-minded and accessible art form. She led the organization as Executive Director for 15 years.
As a professional printmaker, she has collaborated with local and nationally-recognized artists. Prints published by Angee Lennard have been exhibited at museums and galleries including The MoMA, the Smart Museum of Art, Monique Meloche, Editions VFO.
Her deep involvement in the arts, spanning organizational leadership, operational management, program development, studio maintenance, and print production has led her to a variety of local, regional, and national speaking engagements, as well as consultancy roles with colleges, universities, non-profits, and museums. She has been a lecturer at School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the Arts Administration and Policy and the Printmedia departments. She has served as a Marwen Foundation Teaching Fellow, a grant review panelist for the Illinois Arts Council Agency, and Treasurer for the Chicago Printers Guild (CPG). She earned a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts from SAIC in 2005, and has completed additional professional training through Kellogg School Center for Nonprofit Management.
Veronica Anne Salinas
Veronica Anne Salinas (she/they) is an arts administrator, educator, and sound artist. Her creative research practice is rooted in diverse sound disciplines including multichannel work, field recordings, live performance, podcasts, soundwalks, and text scores. Drawing from a professional background in digital media, editorial work, teaching, and non profit arts administration, Veronica brings a fusion of creativity and administrative expertise to HCL.
With an MFA in Sound from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and specialized studies from The Center for Deep Listening, Veronica's arts administrative journey reflects a commitment to nurturing artistic growth and immersive learning experiences.
As a teaching artist and board member of the Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology, as well as the managing editor of the archival project Nameless Sound: 20 Years of Sound, Veronica embodies a commitment to both the sonic arts and the vital administration that supports them.
Mallory Yanhan Qiu
Mallory Qiu is an interdisciplinary artist living in Chicago, IL and currently pursuing her bachelors of fine arts from the school of the art Institute of Chicago (2023). She uses digital visual media to express physical sensory experience and simulate biological action, as well as field recording and synthesizer to flip the front to back page of the world for the listeners. She also be interested in interacting the glitches between human and computer due to rapid technology development, filling the gaps as an artist. Focusing on interdisciplinary collaboration, she seeks to open up different experiences and perspectives in physical and virtual spaces.
Xinyang Xiao
Xinyang Xiao is an artist and student at the School of Art Institute of Chicago, working towards earning a BFA. Within the arts, Xinyang has a broad range of experiences and interests: She curates exhibitions, sometimes through virtual platforms; As part of the Art on the Mart program, her work has been projected onto the river facade of the Merchandise Mart; and she works on sound design for film and theater.
Within her artistic practice, she is currently focusing on sound and its interdisciplinary integration with other artistic mediums. She first became interested in different human relationships and focused on narrativizing energy movement within these relationships. Her studies have now expanded to consider the realm of audience, public, and general populations.
Xinyang splits her time between Chicago and Beijing, China.