Programs

Samantha Cortez, born in East Harlem in 1999 and now rooted in the Bronx, is a mixed-media artist with Puerto Rican and Nicaraguan descent. She transforms imperfections and mistakes into sources of inspiration, weaving them into her creative process and using them to foster connection within her community. Her bold vibrant work with purples, yellows, and oranges, confront the realities of gender-based violence, celebrate identity, and call for community care. Samantha’s art has been shown at Pace Gallery, AHL Foundation, and Midtown Community Justice Center. She joined Artistic Noise in 2017 through their Art & Entrepreneurship program, following her graduation from the Youth Speakers Institute, where she honed her voice as a passionate advocate for justice reform.

David J Wilson grew up in various cities in the American south where he found himself in and out of trouble throughout his teenage years and twenties, until he eventually found himself in New York City where he began to build a life around art, music, sound, teaching, social justice causes, and the fight for equality. Wilson is currently a sculptor based out of Brooklyn New York where he lives and continues to work in education and the arts. He has exhibited work, nationally and locally and various galleries and institutions, that centers upon craft as a political mechanism to critique the criminal justice system. His work relies heavily on research and the aesthetics of institutions that work against human dignity and our basic rights. Along with his chosen sculpture materials, Wilson also uses sound as a powerful component of his practice as a means of delineating space, confinement, time, and perception. Both his wooden sculptures and related sound work attempt to offer unique perspectives on our current moment in American history.

JJ’88 is a singer, rapper, and songwriter raised in North Long Beach, and shaped by the streets, the church, and 18 years of incarceration he began as a child. His passion for music ignited in prison, where freestyle sessions became a lifeline. Encouraged by peers and mentors like Tray Deee of Tha Eastsidaz, he sharpened his craft, using music as a path to redemption and healing.

Starr Davis is the author of the forthcoming poetry collection Affidavit (Hanging Loose Press, 2025), winner of the Founders Prize, and the memoir I Am Mostly Bad Blood (Autumn House, 2026), winner of the 2024 Autumn House Nonfiction Prize. Her writing has appeared in The Kenyon Review, Poem-a-Day from the Academy of American Poets, and Palette Poetry, where she was a third-place winner of the 2023 Sappho Prize for Women Poets. She serves as Creative Nonfiction Editor at TriQuarterly, teaches with Brooklyn Poets, and is a Visions After Violence Fellow with the After Violence Project. Originally from Columbus, Ohio and currently based in Houston, Texas, she holds an MFA from the City College of New York and a BA from the University of Akron, and her work lives at the intersections of motherhood, justice, and survival.

Fox Rich is an autodidactic documentarian who first captivated audiences in the incomparable Garrett Bradley-led Oscar-nominated film TIME (2020). Fox Rich is a skilled wordsmith, gifted orator, and natural-born storyteller. In 1997, her world was turned upside down when an ill-intentioned investor unexpectedly pulled out of a business venture, sending her and her husband, Robert Richardson, spiraling to regain financial solvency. In response to this heartbreaking setback, Fox and Rob did the unimaginable - they robbed a bank.

Morgan Mandalay is a visual artist, educator, and arts administrator whose painting practice explores transformation, accountability, and the lived complexity of life after incarceration. Working primarily in oil, Mandalay creates layered, process-driven paintings informed by myth, literature, and landscape, creating surfaces that accumulate, resist resolution, and carry evidence of time.

Marlon Peterson is a writer, performer, and cultural strategist whose work will examines incarceration, memory, masculinity, and intimacy under conditions of separation. A formerly incarcerated advocate and the author of Bird Uncaged, his practice blends narrative performance, music, and public inquiry. Over the past two decades, he has worked at the intersection of community organizing, violence prevention, and global justice, engaging issues of incarceration, gun violence, and collective trauma across local and international contexts. As a 2026 Fellow with the Center for Art and Advocacy, Peterson is developing When Steel Talks, a multidisciplinary performance investigating rhythm, remembrance, and father–son connection across incarceration and dementia.