At the intersection of fashion, photography, film, stagecraft, and design, artist Marina Fini creates hallucinatory, alternative worlds. Based in California, she collaborates with friends and artists alike in the staging of these otherworldly scenes, using colorful costumes and her own handmade, plexiglass jewelry to turn her photographic subjects into ethereal cyber goddesses. When asked how she builds these characters, Fini remarked, “there’s something about transforming someone into someone they wouldn’t normally be … that is, creating an extension of themselves that I see in them.” All of her characters exude a captivating power, like the whimsical and intangible figures seen through a psychedelic dream. By exploring alternative selves in familiar contexts – a convenience store, or the Californian seaside, for example – Fini explores how subjecthood is fluid, and how such creative “shape-shifting” can alter the way we perceive our immediate reality.

Jerry Stifelman directs his flmmaking collective, CreatoDestructo Imagery and is a freelance writer and creative director for commercial brands that stand for something. He is an authenticity junkie, describing himself as “drawn to pretty much anything that comes a deep and true place, whether it's funny, ugly, beautiful or ferce.” His commercial work frequently takes him to large cities in other countries, but he loves his little home city of Carrboro, which he describes as “the funkier, gritter, hippier ( and hipper), less posh neighboring town to Chapel Hill, home of the University of North Carolina. It's an easy place to live, easy to bike everywhere, near the airport, and has loads of culture and the sense of optimism that comes from lots of students at the phase in life where all roads are open and anything is possible. It's also a place of great style — lots of people expressing themselves without listening to anyone else. It's also an easy ride to the Blue Ridge Mountains and the beaches.”

Mitzi Akaha is a New York-based actress with roots in the Midwestern US, Japan, and the central coast of California. After developing her career in Japan, she relocated to New York in 2014 where she continues to contribute her particular talents and peculiar humor to a variety of projects, starring in national commercial spots, music videos and films. She is also a published writer and illustrator and has multiple scripts in development.

Future-facing designer / director

director + writer // stage + screen