DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS

Ally Bell is a multi-disciplinary artist living in New Paltz. She attended SUNY New Paltz and graduated in 2012 with a BFA in Graphic Design. Since then, she has used her design & marketing skills for small businesses and individuals. Through volunteer work for the New Paltz Open Studio Tour in 2017, she found Unison (or did it find her???) She is passionate about music, love, magic, and nonsensical theatrics.

INTERN

Ripley Butterfield is a visual artist and writer from Brooklyn, NY. She is currently studying sculpture and literature at SUNY New Paltz. Libraries, local ecology, and human care are her reasons for "making". She is a reference assistant at Sojourner Truth Library and a member of the interdisciplinary collective Eddy.

INTERN

Originally hailing from Rochester NY, Eoin is a recent BFA graduate from SUNY New Paltz. He specializes in oil painting and in his free time co-manages a DIY exhibition space highlighting students and emerging artists of the Hudson Valley.

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

Emilie Houssart is a Dutch American artist and curator who moved to the Hudson Valley in 2013. She believes in the transformative powers of experimental arts and youth leadership in growing thriving, equitable communities.

Emilie is Adjunct Professor of Art at SUNY New Paltz, where she is a Sustainability Faculty Fellow and member of campus/community flow collective Eddy. Her personal practice examines ideologies of food and land through performance and living installations. She also holds playful, restorative public workshops as The DIRT Project.

MOVIE LAB ASSISTANT

Ankita Sikari Sunuwar is a Nepali artist specializing in contemporary paubha painting. With a BFA from Tribhuvan University and currently an MFA candidate at SUNY New Paltz, Ankita's expertise spans concept art, character design, storyboarding, and 2D animation alongside her painting prowess. Her work reflects a fusion of tradition and innovation, showcasing her dedication to both her cultural heritage and artistic exploration.

BOARD MEMBER

Described by the New York Times as “spellbinding” and “delightfully quirky matched with interpretive sensitivity,” Phyllis Chen (2022 Guggenheim Fellow, 2019 Cage-Cunningham Fellow) is a composer, pianist, and sound artist whose music draws from her tactile exploration of objects and sound.

Phyllis holds a deep belief that music is a reflection of one’s personal identity and learned/instinctive language.

BOARD SECRETARY

Eliza Evans experiments with sculpture, print, video, and textiles to identify disconnections and absurdities in social, economic, and ecological systems. The initial parameters of each work are carefully researched and then evolve through interaction with people, time, and weather.

Our actions are indelibly inscribed in each other and the landscape. Eliza makes these inscribed relationships more legible.

BOARD VICE PRESIDENT

Matthew Friday is an educator, writer, and transdisciplinary artist whose research focuses on developing apparatuses and systems that examine and provoke new political ecologies.

Working both collectively and individually, Matthew’s research-based projects have taken up issues of urban ecology, watershed remediation, and the history and future of organized labor.

BOARD TREASURER

Christine Stage is a recently retired attorney. She was an Assistant County Attorney for 33 years, handling child abuse and neglect cases in Family Court.

After she retired from public service in 2018, she went into private practice representing the indigent in Family and Criminal courts and maintained a general practice until her retirement in 2022. She is also active in local politics.

BOARD MEMBER

Jean-Marc Superville Sovak is a multidisciplinary artist and teaching professional whose work is deeply rooted in the community around him.

His public works include organizing and officiating a “Burial for White Supremacy,” retracing speculative steps on the Underground Railroad across historic sites in the Hudson Valley, designing memorials to Afro-Dutch pioneers in colonial New Netherland, and “I Draw & You Talk,” a storefront portrait-drawing studio doubling as an oral history project.

BOARD PRESIDENT

Born in Lima, Peru, Richard holds a B.A. in History from Vassar College and an MBA from Oxford’s Said Business School.

Following his undergraduate studies, Richard enjoyed a brief career as a professional soccer player in Hong Kong, after which he began to pursue his interest in grassroots development work and education abroad.