Renato Miracco is a scholar and curator who was awarded the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic for Cultural Achievements in 2018. He served as Cultural Attaché for the Italian Embassy in Washington from 2010 to 2018. Prior appointments include Director of Cultural Affairs for the Italian Cultural Institute in New York (2007-09), and Art Advisor at NYU’s Washington Square campus (2006-07), working with the Italian Department and Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò to create exhibitions related to Italian artists. Miracco currently serves as adviser to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Italy on the restitution of artworks, and advisor for the Venice Biennale. Dr. Miracco curated important exhibitions with the Tate Modern in London, and with The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Miracco has published widely on Giorgio de Chirico and Lucio Fontana, as well as Giorgio Morandi. He was co-author and co-curator with Matthew Gale for the exhibition “Beyond Painting: Burri, Fontana, Manzoni” at the Tate Modern.

As a disabled queer woman, I am drawn to things that are cast off or othered, to beauty that is ignored or needs to be unearthed. I like the idea of spending hours meticulously crafting something generally viewed as ruined or frightening. I want to invite people to push past their discomfort and look closer.

I have worked with a range of non-traditional media over the years, including insects, packaged food, medical ephemera, and polymer clay. From miniature scenes constructed with mantises, to cross-stitch on Chex cereal and realistic reproductions of food and insects, one consistent factor across my work is the joy I take in tiny details. My experience of invisible disability and chronic pain play an integral role in how I view the world and create art.

Judith Klausner is a Somerville, MA artist with a love for small, intricate, and overlooked things. She received her degree in Studio Art from Wesleyan University in 2007 after constructing her thesis primarily out of insects, and has since continued to search the details of her surroundings for inspiration. Her experience of invisible disability and chronic pain play an integral role in how she views the world and creates art. Her work has been featured in Harper's magazine, Reader's Digest, the Huffington Post and NPR, and exhibited in venues internationally including the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center, Susquehanna Art Museum, Museum of Natural History, RI, Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, and the Boston Children's Museum. Judith enjoys playing with her food, both recreationally and professionally.

Using vernacular, ethnographic and medical photographs from the early 20th century as source material, I examine historical archives to trace Black women’s life-stories. Moving between figuration and abstraction, the historical and the intergalactic, the spiritual and the profane, I use printmaking (e.g. etching, woodcut, lithography, screenprinting) and drawing to re/animate the rich and sometimes quiet stories of Black women's lives. Ink, graphite, wood and paper are among the tools I find useful to do this creative, documentary work. In doing so, I work to build an archival imaginary—a visual representation of the present and future that is conceived through what should have been possible for Black women in the past.

Deborah Grayson is a fine art printmaker, painter and scholar. She creates work about the interior lives of Black people and how they fully live in their lives. In her work Grayson is interested in capturing the nuance, beauty and dimensionality of Black lives that often gets drowned out by the necessity of always having to say truly obvious and basic things like Black lives matter. Kevin Quashie tells us that there is heft and history in everyday moments. For Grayson, to reflect on these everyday moments – to recognize and relish them –provides an opportunity for more expansive ways of seeing and being. Born and raised in Washington, DC and Montgomery County, Maryland (Go-Go for life). She earned a BA in English Language and Literature from the University of Maryland, College Park and an MA and PhD in American Studies from Michigan State University where her areas of concentration were literature, history and science. Her studio is located in NE Washington, DC.