MEET THE 2024 FELLOWS
Ashley "Ifayomi" Douglas, a born and bred Eastside Detroiter, is a multidisciplinary artist with a commitment to holistic wellness, healing justice, and creative expression. Through photography, film, writing, and music, she explores ritual, community, and Black femmehood and how they create self-reliant healing within a society in constant antagonism of interdependence, health, race, and sexuality.
ifayomi christine
until it feels like worship
Chris INPAQ Sutton
Heaven in Detroit
Chris Sutton (who also goes by artistic alias INPAQ) is a Detroit born, 7 Mile and Meyers raised, visual storyteller, who uses the art form of filmmaking to impact social change, while elevating culture-shifting narratives within the realm of cinema. With over 15+ years of film production experience, INPAQ has spent much of his filmmaking career passionately honoring the often underrepresented stories of Detroit’s QTPOC communities (specifically from the African diaspora), His film work includes the 2010 short film "London" (AD, DP, video editor) , 2016 documentary "What’s T", 2018 narrative film "Femme Queen Chronicles" (DP, video editor), 2020 documentary Chosen Family (director, DP, video editor), 2020 abstract film "Iridesence" (DP, video editor), and the upcoming documentary "30 Years Of LGBT Detroit”.
Costa Kazaleh Sirdenis
Min Eedi (From My Hand)
Costa Kazaleh Sirdenis is a Detroit based artist who utilizes photography and filmmaking to convey varying tones of anti-imperialism and anti-consumerism, and what our near and far futures without such barriers could look like. His work highlights his personal connection or that of various other communities, to the realities of such stifling systemic and cultural conditions, and seeks to exemplify the justice and prosperity these shared communities desire.
Diop Russell
To Move in My Mother's Prayers
Diop Russell is a filmmaker, podcaster, and writer from Detroit, MI. She loves telling stories about reparations, family, healing, and home. Guided by a Black queer feminist perspective, she creates liberating and imaginative depictions of marginalized people. Diop was a 2020 finalist in the Detroit Narrative Agency’s Radical Remedies Screening. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from Spelman College, where she co-founded the Spelman College English Department Film Club, co-hosted The Blue Record podcast, and researched as a UNCF Mellon/Mays Undergraduate Fellow.