(in alphabetal order)
Samantha Maria Blancato is an Artist and Herbalist currently working on a long term land-based art project, Terracotta Farmacia. Through Terra I take care of a medicine garden, run a small batch artisan apothecary where I hand make all the plant medicine from the herbs I grow, and make art reflecting my lived experiences and those of my ancestors. My people come from the Mountains of Southern Italy and herbalism has been a part of my life from the beginning, it is how my family has always taken care of themselves and those around them—my current work is a continuation of these ways. I take care of my medicine garden in the same regenerative way my contadini ancestors did, with respect for the living soil and larger ecosystem by not tilling, feeding the soil, and nurturing diverse densely planted polycultures. I grew up in a matriarchal household in a diverse working class community and the love, camaraderie, and ingenuity I experienced has deeply shaped who I am. I stand firmly in solidarity with all workers and people rejecting their oppression and working towards liberation worldwide. I operate outside the margins and am interested in telling stories that often remain in the dark. My deep unwavering love of and connection to the Earth is the driving force of my life and work and I hope to help others remember how vital all of our connections with land truly are, as empire continues to sever this connection, enclose the land, and exploit our material existence. Seeing a direct connection between the degradation of our life producing planet and those who produce life on this planet, as evident in the environmental and femicide crises—I focus on ethnobotany, folklore, and the ancient and persisting cross-cultural Earth and Mother centered cultures we come from—and collaborate with the Earth directly, in the name of restoring balance, our ecological place, and re-enchanting our world.
Gabriella Ciancimino is a visual artist and bioenergetic practitioner whose practice is modeled on relational dynamics and communication, where art is a catalyst for social change and community engagement. She considers her artwork to be a synthesis of her studies in anthropology, sociology, botany, and politics combined with studies in quantum physics principles applied to daily life. Influenced by Murray Bookchin’s theories of Social Ecology, her primary source material is landscape and the observation of nature from which she draws connections between humans and plants. She views the dynamics of cohabitation between native and immigrant plants as a metaphor for how different communities can coexist through the sharing of knowledge and ecological collaboration to overcome cultural differences. She has a degree in painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Palermo (2005) and has exhibited extensively in Italy and internationally, including at Museo del 900 (Milan, 2022), at MMOMA (Moscow, 2016), MACBA (Barcelona, Spain, 2014), Kunsthalle Mulhouse (FR 2013), Museo Villa Croce, (Genova, Italy 2013), PAV (Turin, Italy, 2013), Triennale di Milano (2013), Benin Biennale, RISO – Museo d’Arte Contemporanea della Sicilia (Palermo, 2010), American Academy, Rome (2009), Darat al Funun (Amman, Jordan 2010), Working For Change, Project for A Moroccan Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale (Venice, Italy, 2011) and the Biennale Benin (2012). Her works are in the public collections of Museo del Novecento, Milan (IT), RISO – Museo d’Arte Contemporanea della Sicilia, Palermo (IT), Museo Villa Croce, Genova (IT), Frac Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, Marseille (FR).
Sofia Rosa Tobia Gage, “FIA” is a 21-year-old artist and student of public history. She was born and raised in Queens, NYC, to a Sicilian-American family. Her music and academic/organizing work is rooted in intergenerational memory and anti-imperialist struggle. A singer-songwriter and musician, FIA blends Sicilian & American popular folk with R&B. Her newest project, a collaboration with Rapper Lena X and Producer/Rapper Shamard Stoddard, is titled “Almost Nostalgia” (Summer 2024). FIA performed at The Iron Horse in Northampton, MA and is opening for artist Arima Eddera at the Smith College WOZQ Spring Concert series. In fall 2023, she sang with El Coro Haroldi Conti at the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo Tecnicatura de Música in Buenos Aires. Her documentary “Donde Hubo Muerto, Cantar” is about the chorus, memory and justice. FIA is working on an EP, which will be released in Summer 2025. Sofia is currently a Volunteer Interpreter for political education events at the Western Massachusetts Asylum Support Network. Sofia is a researcher, outreach coordinator and exhibit educator for the Fineberg Series Exhibit: Be Revolutionary; UMASS Solidarity with Central America in the 1980s. As a research assistant for Dr. Diana Sierra Beccera, she is also conducting oral history interviews with Salvadoran revolutionaries and US solidarity activists (interviews will be added to the UMass Amherst Library Archives.) Since 2023, she’s been organizing for Palestinian liberation, in both conducting grassroots fundraising for the Abu Dayeh Family and through her involvement in Students for Justice in Palestine. In fall 2024, Sofia organized, grant wrote, and co-hosted “A Conversation with Gazan Journalist and Student: Shaza Abu Dayeh” Recording Here. (Recording Password: &?Z!?0a8.) Shaza and Renad Abu Dayeh were awarded $10,000 for their talk. To contribute to their gofundme and read Shaza’s book, click here. In the past, Sofia worked as an Oral History & Education Intern at Villa Grimaldi: Parque Por La Paz and as a research intern at The Calandra Institute for Italian American Studies at Queens College. This May 2025, Sofia is graduating from Smith College with a BA in History, focused on migration and revolution across the Americas.
Magdalena Gómez is an award-winning performance poet, playwright, and teaching artist. She was born and raised in the Bronx, New York, and studied English and Theater at Lehman College, and Spanish Literature at the University of Sevilla, Spain. She is the author of Shameless Woman (Red Sugarcane Press, 2014) and Mi’ja: A Memoir Noir (Heliotrope Books, 2022), and the co-editor of Bullying: Replies, Rebuttals, Confessions and Catharsis (Skyhorse Publishing, 2012). The recipient of the New England Public Radio Arts and Humanities Award, Ms. Gómez was a member of the COVID-19 Cultural Impact Commission for the State of Massachusetts. She is currently a Commissioner with the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women for Hampden County and a Trustee with the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts. She was an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow from 2021-2022 and Springfield’s Poet Laureate from 2019-2022.
Jennifer Mary Guglielmo dreamed up this gathering last summer, sensing we might need to connect with our revolutionary foremothers and nourish ourselves with community, story, and radical wisdom at this time. I was raised by a large southern Italian family in New York in the 1970s/80s. I drew deep inspiration from my grandparents Grace & Angelo, and the other working-class and immigrant communities I grew up around. I am a writer, teacher, and public historian. I am also an associate professor of history at Smith College and have published on a range of topics, including women’s organizing in garment, textile, and domestic work, working-class feminisms, and the Italian diaspora. Most recently, I co-directed a community-based public history collaboration with the National Domestic Workers Alliance (nannies, home care workers, and housecleaners) to develop history as an organizing tool to mobilize domestic workers on a massive scale. I’m honored to say that this project received the National Council on Public History Award for Outstanding Public History Project. My publications include Living the Revolution: Italian Women’s Resistance and Radicalism in New York City, 1880-1945 (UNC Press, 2010), which gratefully received several national awards, and the anthology Are Italians White: How Race Is Made in America (Routledge, 2003), which has been translated into Italian: Gli italiani sono bianchi? Come l’America ha costruito la razza (Il Saggiatore, 2006).
Mark Guglielmo (b. 1970, New York City) is a multidisciplinary artist best known for his layered figurative works that incorporate a diverse range of materials to critically engage with themes of race, class, migration, and power. Rooted in his New York upbringing, Guglielmo utilizes collage as a central element of his practice, connecting his art to his background in hip-hop music through techniques like sampling, truncating, and reconfiguring existing materials into new compositions. His significant projects include “Portraits of My People” (2021-2025), which honors his Italian lineage while addressing the complexities of identity and the fraught nature of race-making in America, and “Cuba in Transition” (2015-2019), his series of large-scale photo-collage portraits at the intersection of international relations and the personal/collective narrative. Exhibitions of his work have been organized at The Loveland Museum, Colorado, Villa Victoria Center for the Arts, Boston, Central Connecticut State University, Vermont Center for Photography, and The New York State Museum. Guglielmo is the recipient of awards from The Puffin Foundation, the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts, Deerfield Academy TEDx Talk, Community Mural Institute Fellowship at Fresh Paint Springfield, and The Williston Northampton School Artist-in-Residence. A former rapper and music producer, Guglielmo aka Vesuveo rapped with Eminem on the Top 10 hit “Green and Gold” and shared the stage with KRS-One, Biz Markie, and Black Eyed Peas. He serves as Community Advisor for the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts’ ValleyCreates Program, in partnership with MASS MoCA’s Assets for Artists. He lives and works in Western Massachusetts.
Catherine Anraku Hondorp — Professional modern dancer and choreographer, Doctor of Chiropractic, certified Internal Family Systems Practitioner, PolyVagal informed therapist, Zen Buddhist priest, Dharma Teacher and Buddhist Chaplain with decades in private practice, as well as in university settings. Weaving together extensive knowledge of the human body with spirituality. Applying innovative approaches to building resiliency, individually and collectively. Engaging movement and the first language of all mammals, touch.
Monica Lopez Orozco is an assistant professor of Theatre at Smith College. She holds an MFA in Acting from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and has worked on stages across the country and in Chicago. Notable institutions include the Goodman Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Northlight Theatre, Victory Gardens Theater, and Utah Shakespeare Festival. Lopez Orozco has also appeared in numerous commercials and on television in various episodes of Chicago Med (NBC) and Soundtrack (Netflix). She most recently appeared in Heisenberg at Northern Stage. Previous directing credits include: The American Life of Dieguito Rivera y Kahlo with The Vagrancy’s Michigan Chapter (virtual reading, summer 2021) and Failure: A Love Story (spring 2021) and Nowhere (spring 2022), an original new work developed by students, at Oakland University where she was a visiting assistant professor from 2019-2022. As an educator and scholar, Lopez Orozco’s foci include decentering traditional theater training practices in order to incorporate and elevate voices from marginalized perspectives and championing linguistic justice in actor speech training. She is currently researching practices grounded in energy work to interrogate the connection between the mind and body and its ability to heal, promote whole-being wellness for the performer, and stimulate creative flow.