Isolde Brielmaier is an associate professor at Tisch School of the Arts at New York University as well as chief strategy officer of WOAH (Work of Art Holdings), a global arts and cultural firm at the crossroads of art, business, and impact, based in New York. She was previously deputy director at the New Museum in New York, where she also served on the board of trustees for four years, as well as curator-at-large at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York. Prior to this, Isolde was the director of art, culture and community initiatives at Westfield World Trade Center in New York. She is the author of several books, including I am Sparkling (2022) and Culture as Catalyst (2020). She holds a PhD from Columbia University, New York. Isolde is deeply committed to the promotion of social justice and human rights, specifically global women’s issues and criminal justice reform. She serves on the boards of Another Tomorrow (a sustainable women’s luxury brand) and is also an advisor to One Love Community Fridge (OLCF), the Women’s Prison Association (WPA), and Malaika, an all-girls school in the Democratic Republic of Congo. She resides in New York. Awol Erizku is a conceptual artist based in Los Angeles. His work has been exhibited at institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); and the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA), Dublin. Erizku's work is in the permanent collections of LACMA, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, among others. Akeem Flavors is a writer, archivist, and art historian interested in Black visual culture and the history of photography. He holds a BA and MA in Art History and is currently completing his PhD in Art History & Archaeology at Columbia University in New York. His research focuses on the intersection of, and relationships between, archives, photography, and the African diaspora. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University professor and director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University in Massachusetts. An Emmy, Du Pont, and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker, literary scholar, and institution builder, he has published numerous books and produced and hosted an array of documentary films about Black History, most recently Great Migrations (PBS, 2025). Gates’s groundbreaking genealogy and genetics series, Finding Your Roots , which received an Emmy nomination, is in its twelfth season. His latest book, The Black Box: Writing the Race (Penguin Random House, 2024), was named one of The New York Times 100 Best Books of the Year. Most recently, he was awarded the prestigious Spingarn Medal from the NAACP and the 2025 Vilcek Prize, and he was elected an Honorary Fellow by the Royal Academy of Arts in England. Gates is a recipient of a number of honorary degrees, including from his two alma maters, the University of Cambridge, and, in 2025, from Yale University in Connecticut. Michael Lynton served as the CEO of Sony Entertainment until 2018. Prior to that, he had multiple positions in the media and entertainment business including CEO of Penguin Group. Lynton also sits on the board of trustees of The Tate, London, and the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian in Washington, DC.Noa Wynn is a writer, curator, and art historian based in New York. She holds a BFA and MA in Photography and Art History & Archaeology from New York University. Her academic and curatorial work centers on photography, global visual culture, race and gender studies, and curatorial theory. Wynn has worked across museums, nonprofit art organizations, and galleries committed to lens-based practices and socially engaged art. Her interdisciplinary approach reflects a deep commitment to visual storytelling, critical theory, and the role of the arts in shaping cultural discourse.
