RaFia Santana is a Brooklyn-born multidisciplinary artist using animated graphics, self portraiture, and music performance to self-soothe, seek pleasure, and crack jokes throughout their experiences with mental illness, chronic fatigue, sensory overload, and everyday racial violence. RaFia uses bright saturated colors and rhythm-centric productions to stimulate energy and attention. The artist uses hashtags and slogans as both memorization practice and call to action. RaFia constructs looping animations that “breathe” which calms her anxiety and helps her focus. She performs her music against her animations projected onto her body and stage, using singing and rapping lyrics to bring her slogans to life.

RaFia has exhibited their work at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, MoCADA, Tate Britain, the Museum of the Moving Image, and Times Square. They have been featured in Vogue, Teen Vogue, Paper Magazine, Cultured Magazine, VICE, and other leading publications. They have performed & participated in panels, discussions, and events at Black Portraitures at Harvard University, Pratt Institute’s Department of Digital Arts, Newspace Center for Photography, Afrotectopia at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, & MoMA PS1.

Discover more about RaFia’s multidisciplinary artistry at https://www.instagram.com/rafiasworld and https://rafiasworld.com/

At left, Self Portrait

Ali Santana is a multidisciplinary artist from Brooklyn, NY, who draws inspiration from community, nature, ritual, ancient technology and Hip Hop culture. His work combines time-based media, rhythmic storytelling and emerging technologies to create immersive experiences that explore history, identity and Black abstract improvisational traditions. Santana currently works across video, sound, sculpture, live performance and installation.

Ali has exhibited at the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam’s (IDFA) DocLab, Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA) and Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute. Santana has performed at Brooklyn Museum, Mana Contemporary and Roulette Intermedium, and was commissioned by Onassis Foundation to create an immersive installation for the 2023 Archive of Desire Festival.

Ali is an award-winning educator recognized for collaborations with local community organizations and larger institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and Apple Inc. Ali is a member of ONX Studio and the multi-generational artist collective, The Santana Project.

Discover more about Ali’s multidisciplinary artistry at https://www.alisantana.com

Stephanie M. Santana constructs narrative works that explore interior worlds, mythologies, navigational tools and resistance strategies within the Black diasporan experience. Working across fiber arts and fine printmaking, while frequently employing improvisational techniques and what feminist theorist of visual culture Tina Campt terms the “haptic encounter” with archival photographic imagery, her intuitive practice spans time and geography with the intent of unearthing useful information.

Santana has exhibited at The John & Robyn Horn Gallery at Penland School of Craft, Claire Oliver Gallery, and Museum of Fine Arts Boston, among others. Notable exhibitions include A Contemporary Black Matriarchal Lineage in Printmaking (2021) presented at Highpoint Center for Printmaking and The Power of Portraiture: Selections from the Department of Drawings and Prints (2022 - 2023) at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. She has received generous support from EFA Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop, Sustainable Arts Foundation, Windgate Foundation and The Print Center, and is a 2023 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Printmaking/Drawing/Book Arts. Her work is held in both private and public collections, including the The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art and Getty Research Institute.

Santana holds a B.A. in Communication Studies from Western Washington University and an A.A.S. in Textile/Surface Design from Fashion Institute of Technology. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Discover more about Stephanie’s amazing and diverse work at https://stephaniesantana.com/

Reference: Campt, Tina M. Listening to Images. Duke University Press, 2017.

Portrait at right by Noémie Marguerite.