Nava Dunkelman is a percussionist and improviser based in Brooklyn, NY. Born in Tokyo, Japan and raised in a multi-cultural environment by an American father and Indonesian mother. Her musical approach is innovative and dynamic, combining virtuosity and intuition. Meticulous in an intrinsic way, she uses her distinctive sound palette to explore and give life to a vast spectrum of musical possibilities.

Nava's current projects are electro-percussion experimental noise duo IMA with Amma Ateria, and percussion duo NOMON with her sister Shayna Dunkelman. She also has performed and collaborated with Angélica Negrón, Brandon Seabrook, Du Yun, ÉMU (Maria Takeuchi), Fred Frith, gabby fluke-mogul, Ikue Mori, John Zorn, Pauchi Sasaki, William Winant, yuniya edi kwon, and many others. She has performed classical and contemporary pieces with the William Winant Percussion Group, Joan Jeanrenaud, Raven Chacon, San Francisco Girls Chorus, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players and others.

Her work has been recognized through notable awards and residencies, including Civitella Ranieri Music Fellowship (2026), Jerome Artist Residency (2024–2025) and Jerome Commission at Roulette (2023–2024), Hermitage Artist Retreat (2025), Loghaven Artist Residency (2024), create Award with the American Composers Forum (2023), and New Music USA Creator Development Fund (2022).

About Kirin McElwain

Kirin McElwain is a cellist and composer working in the realms of experimental, contemporary classical, and improvised music. Weaving together classical and Baroque influences with an affinity for sub-bass and harsh electronic textures, her music explores themes of desire, shame, perfection, and belonging.

Her solo discography includes the 2023 EP Viriditas (self-released) and the 2025 full-length Youth (AKP Recordings)— both included on year-end lists at A Closer Listen and Anxious Magazine— as well as singles and remix work for Mystery Circles and sound artist/dj/composer Omar Ahmad. 

As a cellist, Kirin can be heard on various film and television scores, including Devonté Hynes’ (Blood Orange) solo cello soundtrack or the feature length film The Invite directed by Olivia Wilde (A24 Music). Kirin has additionally served as a music coordinator and cellist for composer Tamar-kali, in addition to work for clients such as HBO, National Geographic, Gimlet Media, and NPR.  Outside of the studio, Kirin has performed live with Post Malone, Ioanna Gika, and This Will Destroy You, among others at the MET, the Detroit Institute of the Arts, James Cohan Gallery, Neue Galerie, Carnegie Hall, National Sawdust, the Kimmel Center, Le Poisson Rouge, Public Records, and Roulette, in addition to many community-run venues.

Kirin has been an artist-in-residence at EMS Stockholm and Westben Center for the Arts, a New Amsterdam Records Composers Lab Fellow and her work has received support from the Foundation for Contemporary Art. Her duo with vocalist Alex Koi is the recipient of a 2024 Young Arts grant for their upcoming collaborative album which will be released in Spring 2027. 

About Aidin Turganbekov

Aidin Turganbekov is a musician from Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan. His musical path began at the age of 8 when a youth music school was established in his small village near Bishkek. He learned to play the komuz and participated in various other classes, such as choir and music theory. After studying at that school for six years with outstanding grades and frequent public performances, Aidin, with the support of his komuz instructor, chose to further his education at a Kyrgyz State Musical College to learn the prima kiyak, which is a Kyrgyz violin. Aidin did not complete his studies at the music college but transitioned to becoming a sociology student at the American University of Central Asia. His presence in New York City is a product of his educational journey; however, he has continually played the komuz and shared his cultural heritage with others.

In New York, Aidin hosts Central Asian cultural nights, providing a platform for his community to connect and feel acknowledged.

Special thanks to

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Nizar is a Moroccan culture advocate and the founder of the Women's Museum of Marrakech, the first institution in Morocco and North Africa dedicated to showcasing the history, culture, and creativity of Moroccan women.

His passion for preserving Moroccan heritage goes beyond museum walls. Nizar brings traditional practices to international audiences, notably through Moroccan tea ceremonies he leads in New York City. These gatherings offer a sensory experience rooted in ritual and hospitality, allowing people to connect with Moroccan culture in a deeply personal way.

In the contemporary art world, Nizar has emerged as a significant curator, with a portfolio that spans photography, painting, and multimedia installations. His exhibitions provide platforms for both emerging and established artists, encouraging artistic dialogue and celebrating diversity in expression.

Through his wide-ranging initiatives—blending tradition, innovation, and social impact—Nizar reflects a blend of vision and rootedness, all driven by a deep belief in the power of culture to connect and inspire.

EunYoung Sebazco is a New York–based artist working at the intersection of ecology, ritual, and public space. Through plants, photography, and site-specific installation, she creates moments of pause — inviting audiences to experience the city as a living, breathing environment.

Trained in landscape architecture and horticulture, she works with layered, living materials to cultivate connections between human presence and the natural world. The Japanese tea ceremony is the heartbeat of her practice, extending into ceramics, floral design, and landscape interventions. Her work asks viewers to become co-creators — slowing down, paying attention, and recognizing the quiet life that surrounds them.

Growing up in a family of builders, she was inspired to construct forts from natural materials in the woods of 1970s Staten Island, suggesting a future inspired by nature and the built environment.

In 1994, Brody earned an MFA in Fibers and Material Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, marking the beginning of a 30-year career as an independent installation artist. Grants and artist residencies awarded by respected institutions such as NYFA, NYSCA, LMCC, Pollock/Krasner Foundation, Bronx Council on the Arts, Skowhegan, Headlands Center for the Arts, and Wave Hill allowed her to maintain a full-time creative practice as a mixed-media environmental artist outside of traditional gallery markets.

Michele has created commissioned installations in France, Costa Rica, Germany, and Taiwan alongside national shows in Chicago, Indiana, Arizona, and Vermont. Collaborations with NYC exhibition venues showcasing her work include LES Tenement Museum, Hudson Guild, Bronx Museum, NY Botanical Gardens, and the artist-run spaces of JVS Project Space and AAA3A.

She is currently preparing for her Artist Studio Program Spotlight, solo exhibition at the Bronx River Art Center, as she concludes a 3-year Artist-in-Residence.

Michele will introduce the Japanese tradition of making washi paper from Kozo, or the mulberry tree. Participants will be invited to re-purpose the used tea leaves from the day’s tea ceremonies by adding them to the paper, which is then dried and used for the Odes to Common Things poetry writings by the community members.

Robin Lampman is a published poet and an educator with 35 years of experience teaching in universities, high schools, and elementary schools. She has a Master’s Degree in Bilingual Education and has taught literature in two languages in the public schools in New Mexico, Texas, and New York as well as at the University of Monterrey in Mexico and the American School of Madrid in Spain. She has also taught English as a Second Language to adults at the University of Texas in Austin and at the El Paso Community College in El Paso. Texas.

She produced a volume of poetry by eighth graders in East Harlem which was funded by the National Endowment for the Arts and published by the Big Read. For the last several years she has been teaching writing classes for The Noble Maritime Collection. She developed and taught an adult class on Poetic Forms and taught classes on the reading and writing of literature in two languages.

Robin is Editor in Chief of Unspoken Word, an online international literary magazine, and she is Director of Poetry and Tea for Tea Arts and Culture.

Justin Maki is a writer and editor based in New York City. He is the poetry features editor for Brooklyn Poets and formerly served as an assistant managing editor for Asymptote, a literary translation journal. Originally from Colorado, he spent four years as a teacher in Osaka, Japan, before joining the NYC bureau of a Japanese news agency. He provides editing services for memoirs, manga, and novels in translation.

Henne Lena Van Campen is a writer originally from Staten Island, New York. She has published three chapbooks of poetry and is currently in-process of selling her first novel, Pneuma. 

Leah Kogen-Elimeliah is a Moscow-born, New York–based poet, writer, educator, and curator. She is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of literature and creative writing at The City College of New York and is the founder and director of the WordShedNYC Reading Series. Her interdisciplinary work moves between poetry, performance, visual art, and film, exploring themes of identity, language, immigration, sexuality, and cultural memory. She has collaborated with independent artists across disciplines, developing cross-genre, multimedia projects that merge text, image, and movement. Her work has been presented at venues including La MaMa Experimental Theatre, Howl! Arts, Creative Time’s Red Stage, The New York City Poetry Festival, The Higher Ground Arts Festival, LatchKey Gallery, The Trops, and ROCA, among others. She is currently completing her poetry collection What to Pack in a Suitcase, developing a group art exhibition Notes from Daughters, and finalizing her experimental documentary film Good Girl.

Meg Kaizu is an artist and writer. She has published her poetry, fiction, essays, reviews and translation in journals and anthologies, and exhibited her artwork internationally. Having studied art and Russian at the University of Oregon, she obtained a Master’s degree in philosophy at the CUNY Graduate Center. 

“ I’m not merely mending objects, I’m restoring memories.”

makomako is a New York–based Kintsugi artist and instructor specializing in the authentic art of golden joinery.

She is recognized for her expertise in restoring ceramics and diverse materials, including porcelain, Yixing clay, bamboo, agate, jade, and glass, using natural urushi lacquer and precious metals. Each repair is both functional and poetic, transforming fractures into visible landscapes of memory.

Her practice is rooted in traditional craftsmanship. While shaped by training under renowned urushi master Gen Saratani and with master artisans in Japan and China, she remains committed to developing her own refined, quiet, and restrained aesthetic. She favors the use of urushi lacquer, a beautiful, durable, sustainable material rooted in Asian tradition and drawn from the life of the tree, as well as other natural materials. She has also participated in urushi tapping in Joboji, one of the few regions in Japan where natural urushi is still harvested.

Her work is recognized for its deep respect for the original character of each object. Selected exhibitions include Contemplating at Ease (theBLANC, 2023) and IROHA Lake of the Heart (CIBONE Brooklyn, 2023). In addition to private commissions, she leads workshops and collaborations across New York and New Jersey, sharing the quiet philosophy of wabi-sabi and the enduring spirit of Kintsugi with a wider audience.

MakerSpace NYC is a non-profit, community workspace for makers, builders, tinkerers, hardware developers, hobbyists, artists, entrepreneurs, and anyone with a curious mind who wants to make something.

Special thanks to

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Nizar is a Moroccan culture advocate and the founder of the Women's Museum of Marrakech, the first institution in Morocco and North Africa dedicated to showcasing the history, culture, and creativity of Moroccan women.

His passion for preserving Moroccan heritage goes beyond museum walls. Nizar brings traditional practices to international audiences, notably through Moroccan tea ceremonies he leads in New York City. These gatherings offer a sensory experience rooted in ritual and hospitality, allowing people to connect with Moroccan culture in a deeply personal way.

In the contemporary art world, Nizar has emerged as a significant curator, with a portfolio that spans photography, painting, and multimedia installations. His exhibitions provide platforms for both emerging and established artists, encouraging artistic dialogue and celebrating diversity in expression.

Through his wide-ranging initiatives—blending tradition, innovation, and social impact—Nizar reflects a blend of vision and rootedness, all driven by a deep belief in the power of culture to connect and inspire.

Growing up in a family of builders, she was inspired to construct forts from natural materials in the woods of 1970s Staten Island, suggesting a future inspired by nature and the built environment.

In 1994, Brody earned an MFA in Fibers and Material Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, marking the beginning of a 30-year career as an independent installation artist. Grants and artist residencies awarded by respected institutions such as NYFA, NYSCA, LMCC, Pollock/Krasner Foundation, Bronx Council on the Arts, Skowhegan, Headlands Center for the Arts, and Wave Hill allowed her to maintain a full-time creative practice as a mixed-media environmental artist outside of traditional gallery markets.

Michele has created commissioned installations in France, Costa Rica, Germany, and Taiwan alongside national shows in Chicago, Indiana, Arizona, and Vermont. Collaborations with NYC exhibition venues showcasing her work include LES Tenement Museum, Hudson Guild, Bronx Museum, NY Botanical Gardens, and the artist-run spaces of JVS Project Space and AAA3A.

She is currently preparing for her Artist Studio Program Spotlight, solo exhibition at the Bronx River Art Center, as she concludes a 3-year Artist-in-Residence.

Michele will introduce the Japanese tradition of making washi paper from Kozo, or the mulberry tree. Participants will be invited to re-purpose the used tea leaves from the day’s tea ceremonies by adding them to the paper, which is then dried and used for the Odes to Common Things poetry writings by the community members.

Robin is a published poet and an educator with 35 years of experience teaching in universities, high schools, and elementary schools. She has a Master’s Degree in Bilingual Education and has taught literature in two languages in the public schools in New Mexico, Texas, and New York as well as at the University of Monterrey in Mexico and the American School of Madrid in Spain. She has also taught English as a Second Language to adults at the University of Texas in Austin and at the El Paso Community College in El Paso. Texas.

She produced a volume of poetry by eighth graders in East Harlem which was funded by the National Endowment for the Arts and published by the Big Read. For the last several years she has been teaching writing classes for The Noble Maritime Collection. She developed and taught an adult class on Poetic Forms and taught classes on the reading and writing of literature in two languages.

Robin is Editor in Chief of Unspoken Word, an online international literary magazine, and she is Director of Poetry and Tea for Tea Arts and Culture.