Bobby LeFebre (he/him) is an award-winning writer, performer, and cultural worker from Denver, Colorado. He is a two-time Grand Slam Champion, a National Poetry Slam Finalist, an Individual World Poetry Slam Finalist, and a two-time TEDx speaker. His work has been showcased nationally and internationally on NPR, the Huffington Post, and The Guardian, and the LA Times. LeFebre has performed at hundreds of cultural events, social actions, detention centers, conferences, and colleges and universities across the United States and abroad. He is co-founder of Café Cultura, a non-profit organization that uses poetry as a tool for youth development and he is also founder of #WeAreNorthDenver, a grassroots and digital campaign dedicated to using art as an entry point for discussing gentrification in Denver. LeFebre has been named a 100 Colorado creative by Westword Magazine, is a National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures fellow, and has recently been appointed by the Mayor of Denver to serve as the Co-Chair of the Denver Commission on Cultural Affairs. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Metro State University and a master’s degree in Art, Literature, and Culture from the University of Denver.

Toluwanimi Oluwafunmilayo Obiwole (she/her) is a Nigerian-born, Colorado-raised multidisciplinary artist, healer, educator, and organizer. She was Denver’s first Youth Poet Laureate from 2015 to 2016. Since then, she has completed her Bachelor’s degree in Ethnic Studies and has toured and performed nationally. In 2016 Obiwole co-wrote and co-starred in a play called How I Got Over which was featured at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. In 2017 she was announced as one of The Root’s 25 Young Futurists. She was a member of SLAM NUBA from 2015 to 2017 and was co-director of the organization until 2019. In 2017 Obiwole was awarded the Excellence in Diversity and Inclusion Award by the University of Colorado Boulder, as well as the Black Excellence Award by the University’s Black Student Alliance. She served as a board member for the city of Denver’s Commission on Cultural Affairs from 2017 to 2019. She is a two-time TEDx Mile High speaker and the author of three poetry books: OMI EBI MI (2015), How to Become a Lightning Storm (2017), and HONEY (2018).

Paulie Lipman (they/them) is a former bartender/bouncer/record store employee/
Renaissance Fair worker/two time National Poetry Slam finalist and a current loud Jewish/Queer/poet/writer/performer. Their work has appeared in Button Poetry, Write About Now, The Emerson Review, Drunk In A Midnight Choir, Voicemail Poems, pressure gauge, Protimluv (Czech Republic) and Prisma: Zeitblatt Fur Text & Sprache (Germany). Their poetry collections from below/denied the light and sad bastard soundtrack are available from Swimming With Elephants Publications.

Chet W. Sisk (he/him) is a Futurist, author and the founder of The UBR Private Equity Fund. He helps organizations and individuals understand the current paradigm shift we're in. He also has created a fund to support businesses and ventures that help communities transform into climate resiliency.

Suzi Q. Smith (she/her) is an artist, activist, and educator who lives with her brilliant daughter in Denver, Colorado. She has shared her poetry on stages throughout the U.S., sharing stages with Nikki Giovanni, Talib Kweli, the late Gil Scott Heron, and many more over the years. Her work has appeared in Union Station Magazine, Suspect Press, Muzzle Magazine, Malpais Review, Peralta Press, and more, and her collection of poems, Thirteen Descansos, is available from Penmanship Books. She currently serves as the Executive Director of Poetry Slam, Inc.

Bianca Mikahn (she/her) is a power-house emcee, poet, composer, cultural activist, and educator who wears many hats. She is Executive Director of Check Your Head, a non-profit focused on youth mental health, and a Partner Artist with leading creative educators, Youth On Record. Bianca’s writing style is described as experimental and thought-provoking, fearlessly addressing themes of self awareness and community engagement. Whether performing alone or with various musician collectives in Denver, her stage presence and lyrical content have earned her multiple nominations for “Best Emcee” in Denver’s Westword. Mikahn has shared stages locally at Regis University and Denver University and in Stockholm, Sweden at the historic Fylkengin Theatre. Her lyrical work has also been featured in social justice courses at Wyoming University. Currently Mikahn is honing social emotional learning and art based facilitation to encourage trauma informed care and mental health first aid (adult and youth modules) in marginalized communities.

Laura Shill (she/her) is an artist based in Denver, Colorado whose work is a collision of sculpture, installation, performance, printmaking, and photography. Her work addresses ideas of the viewer and the subject, disclosure and concealment, absence and intimacy. Her works explore the transformative potential of people and objects through early and experimental forms of image making that pair the sinister and beautiful.

Shill earned an MFA in Interdisciplinary Media Arts Practices from the University of Colorado, Boulder in 2012 and has exhibited her work nationally and internationally at the 2017 Venice Biennale at the European Cultural Center, The Gallery Of Contemporary Art, Colorado Springs, Redline Gallery, Denver, and Hyperlink Gallery, Chicago. Her recent solo exhibition, Phantom Touch took place at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver.

Adam Gildar (he/him) is currently a nomadic curator and art dealer. He founded and ran Illiterate, an art publication and project gallery, from 2005 through 2011. In 2012 he opened Gildar Gallery in Denver. Through his commercial gallery, Gildar has curated more than fifty exhibitions in Denver, Los Angeles, Mexico City, and New York, and has participated in many national and international art fairs. He has consulted with local museums such as the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, the Denver Art Museum, and Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art. He has also consulted on and contributed his writing to Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia, a book and traveling exhibition organized by the Walker Art Center, in partnership with the Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive and the Cranbrook Art Museum. From 2012 to 2019, Gildar also directed ArtPlant, a nonprofit arts organization dedicated to creating cross-cultural dialogue within the Rocky Mountain region. With ArtPlant, Gildar developed the Biennial Ambassadors program—an artist residency exchange between Denver and Mexico City—for the Biennial of the Americas, and he launched an annual artist-centric symposium cohosted by Black Cube Nomadic Museum. In May 2019, Gildar closed his physical gallery and put his nonprofit work on hiatus, in order to travel and research decentralized yet regionally relevant models for engaging with the “art world.”

Anthony Garcia Sr. (he/him) was born and raised in Denver. He is the co-founder and executive director of Birdseed Collective, a Denver-based nonprofit that makes a positive impact in local communities through programs and projects with innovative arts and humanities offerings. He is a painter and mural artist, a former artist-in-residence at RedLine Contemporary Art, a 2022 Bonfils-Stanton Foundation Fellow, and co-founder/co-curator of Alto Gallery in Denver.