Aitor Gil Flores (he/she/they) is a non-binary person currently finding their way and and place in the world. A young stylist, tattoo artist, and illustrator based in Barcelona, Aitor is developing his path as an artist, which began during childhood through acting and visual arts. Aitor is currently training at the Open University of Catalonia, where she has begun to experiment more with her body through performing and performance art.

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@the_archer_studio

Alexa Vasquez is a Pisces, a writer and artist from Oaxacalifornia. Her visual artworks are inspired by her birthplace, Oaxaca. She comes to Emerge through a joint residency with House of Alegría. Her writings are memories of growing up in an immigrant household, leaving home, transitioning and surviving trans womanhood. Alexa, a Voices of Our National Arts alumni, has been published as part of CultureStrike’s Home in Time of Displacement (2014) and Pariahs: Writing Outside the Margins (2016). She is currently one of 41 contributors in Harper Collins’ (2022), Some Where We Are Human, edited by Sonia Guiñansaca and Reyna Grande. Her visual piece, Cisnes En La Montaña, was part of TransLash’s Zine: Migration Stories. Alexa Vasquez graduated from Santa Ana Community College in 2020 with a degree in Fashion Design. Alexa lives in Corona, California with her husband, Ismael, and their four cats: Max, Mushu, Sully and Melon.

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Ching-In Chen is a genderqueer Chinese American hybrid writer, community organizer and teacher. They are author of The Heart’s Traffic and recombinant (winner of the 2018 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Poetry) as well as the chapbooks to make black paper sing and Kundiman for Kin :: Information Retrieval for Monsters (Finalist for the Leslie Scalapino Award). Chen is also co-editor of The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities and Here Is a Pen: an Anthology of West Coast Kundiman Poets. They have received fellowships from Kundiman, Lambda, Watering Hole, Can Serrat, Imagining America, Jack Straw Cultural Center and the Intercultural Leadership Institute. They have worked in Asian American communities in San Francisco, Oakland, Riverside, Boston, Milwaukee, Houston and Seattle and are currently part of the organizing core for Massage Parlor Outreach Project. They are descended from ocean dwellers.

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chinginchen.com

Dimple Shah is a transdisciplinary performance and printmaking artist from Bangalore, India. Her work grapples with humanitarian concerns, equality, justice reaction, and emotive responses borne out of her first-hand experiences of religious communal riots and clashes, women’s safety issues, suppressions, and ecological and environmental concerns in growing and developing cities in India. Dimple has been honoured with national & international awards, among them the Commonwealth Arts & Crafts Award, UK; National Award, Govt. of India; First Gold Prix in 7th Engraving Biennale, Versailles; IFA Grant; and Junior Fellowship from Govt. of India. She has performed in performance festivals and biennales in Berlin, Manchester, Wakefield, Amsterdam Munich, Gothenburg, Zurich, Paris, Lagos, Colombo, Dhaka and in several cities in India. She has curated performance festivals like KIPAF 2016, JAS summit 2021 and 2017, and Basavanagudi Live Art Project 2014.

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Twitter @dimplebshah8