The Makers
A series highlighting creatives of color making an impact in the local arts scene.
WBUR Presents: The 2025 Makers
The natural world has been a powerful muse for artists across the ages, and in our present era, engaging with our environment is more urgent than ever. Meet 10 local...
Artist crystal bi cultivates space for collective imagination
Artist crystal bi is transforming Boston’s public spaces with interactive events that invite residents to reflect on memory, belonging, and the power of imagination. Through collaborative experiences inspired by ancestral...
Community artist Tanya Nixon-Silberg finds power in repair
Known for projects that explore heritage, motherhood, and resilience, Nixon-Silberg uses repurposed fabrics and deep-rooted storytelling to help Boston’s young people find meaning in their histories and repair what has...
Dancer Marissa Molinar combines movement with activism
The Boston artist is using her background in environmental science and activism to train and empower the next generation of dance leaders. “Culture is really an integral part of resiliency...
Jo Nanajian interrogates memory's durability through natural forms
Using materials like plaster, glass and wire, the artist creates abstract, textured wall sculptures inspired by forms found in nature. Nanajian tries to represent all the ways that human memory...
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Sound designer Skooby Laposky amplifies the hidden lives of plants
The audio explorer and plant DJ collaborates with gardens and trees to turn up the volume on their hidden role in our environment.
Jake Blount's dystopian folk music is an omen for the present
The Providence musician released his first album of Black mountain music during America’s racial reckoning. Amid Trump’s DEI purge and environmental collapse, his Afrofuturist folk hits different.
Filmmaker Homa Sarabi maps her place in the world
The Iranian-born artist transforms memories and conversations into visual stories. Exploring longing, displacement, and belonging, Sarabi charts connections between cultures, people and place, even from oceans apart.
Andre StrongBearHeart is reviving Indigenous culture and decolonizing the land
The Nipmuc cultural steward teaches traditional Indigenous arts and advocates for Indigenous communities to be able to access, and even help manage, conservation land.
Artist Lani Asunción confronts the injustice of climate change
In downtown Boston, the artist's installation “SONG/LAND/SEA: WAI Water Warning” rings out a message about climate change.
For environmental architect Justin Brazier, change comes from community
Cities are confronting waves of extreme climate challenges in their neighborhoods. Solution-driven designers and architects like Brazier are engaging communities in new ways.
WBUR Presents: The 2024 Makers
The work of these 10 artists of color inspires awe, creates joy and transforms communities.
Photographer Feda Eid explores Arab Muslim identity in luminous self-portraits
The Quincy artist stages elaborate images designed to challenge the exoticizing gaze so often directed at Arab women.
Visual artist Maria Servellón creates with a little magic and a lot of herself
The 34-year-old writes, produces and directs her own films. Her calling card is dreamlike, emotional authenticity.
Painter Jameel Radcliffe blends the natural world with the urban
Radcliffe takes inspiration from masters of the form, like John Singer Sargent and Diego Velázquez, but his work expands the canon of who gets to be a subject of fine...
Saxophonist Jonathan Suazo breaks new ground in Latin Jazz
Inspired by his late father, the Puerto Rican musician explores his Dominican roots on an album the New York Times selected as one of the best of 2023.
Violinist Pranav Swaroop fuses music from around the globe
The 27-year-old began his musical journey in Bangalore, India. Now, his band Project MishraM brings its signature blend of traditional Carnatic vocals, guitar shredding and synthesizer to international stages.
Filmmaker Mushen Kieta wants to open doors for the next generation
The 34-year-old mentors teens at Artists For Humanity and also has a production company, Wunderus. His vision is to create a community of local talent in the film industry and...
Musician Naomi Westwater uses song to conjure new ideas of belonging
The singer-songwriter has always loved folk music, but the genre hasn’t always uplifted non-white artists. They are working to expand the perception of folk music to include people of color...
Elizabeth Mochizuki empowers dancers to bring their full selves to the stage
After dancing professionally for decades, Mochizuki decided to create change in the dance world. She founded a dance company designed to showcase the Asian American experience.