Kelsey Sharpe is a queer multidisciplinary conceptual artist and filmmaker of color from Jersey City, NJ of Jamaican-Indian and Irish-Slavic descent. Sharpe graduated from Oberlin College in Oberlin, OH in 2019 with a Bachelor of Arts in Cinema Studies and Anthropology. Sharpe’s practice examines the intersections between the digital and physical world and the ways in which those spaces alter human connection.

IG: @sharpekelsey

Website: kelseysharpe.com

Thea Cohen (she/her) | Productions Manager 2020-2021

In her creative practice, Thea places an emphasis on process and experimentation and likes to learn by doing. She has a background in multimedia installation, furniture making, and methods of fabrication including woodworking, welding, and machine sewing. Her creations utilize various combinations of set, prop, puppet & costume design, video, animation, sculpture, projection, and performance. Thea enjoys non-linear storytelling and is especially interested in the distortions that occur within repetitions across materials, scale, and time. She is fascinated with functionality (or the lack there of) regarding the ways in which physical characteristics influence movement and provoke assumptions around how to inhabit space. Community is an integral part of Thea’s life, and she is always looking for ways to collaborate in all aspects of creating and living.

Christian Lee is a Puerto Rican comic who draws comics, poetry, and books. Their illustrative work varies from subcultures, to horror, to speculative fiction. Under the skin, the heart of their art and uses fiction as metaphor to explore real human relationships.

As a performer, their drawings accompany them to the stage in mixed-media performances using humor and storytelling to digest their experiences as a Hispanic POC, gender expectations, and grief.

Rae Red (they/them) encourages the radical act of laughter in the face of darkness by translating everyday realities into performance and play. Their work exposes the magic and wonder within our daily functions, from the wizardry of sight and color theory, to the way water invisibly keeps our lives flowing smoothly like a ghost within the walls. They explore subjects that are universal like blood pumping through veins, while bringing light our own mortality and to the death that is continuously occurring around us. Through performances across the United States Rae Red investigates topics that unite viewers by exposing commonalities while examining the disparate facets within them. They have presented their work in every type of space imaginable from dive bars and the backs of donut shops to The Museum of Human Achievement, High Concept Labs, Cucalorus Stage Festival, and The Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History. They received a BA from Bard College and an MFA from Towson University’s Theatre Arts Program.

Shelter Elsewhere Fellow

Kinari Council (he/they) is a Community based mixed media artist, designer located in North Carolina.

He attended NCA&T’S VISART Program and utilizes the skills he learned to create socially conscious art centered around creating awareness and engaging subjects concerning marginalized groups. His passion is to use my creativity to speak to and for those that often go overlooked.

Travis Laughlin (Board President / Executive Committee / Governance Committee Chair)

Former Elsewhere Interim Executive Director Travis Laughlin has worked within the intersection of arts and education for over 25 years. As the former Senior Director of Programs at the Joan Mitchell Foundation, Travis was responsible for the oversight of the Foundation’s various artist support programs and a member of the Foundation’s senior management team. In his previous role as the Art Education Director for the Joan Mitchell Foundation, he served as the visionary and implementer of all Foundation art education initiatives. Prior to his role as Art Education Director, he worked with the Foundation as the Professional Development Program Coordinator creating and implementing comprehensive and equity-focused professional development for the Foundation’s Artist-Teachers. Travis began his career in education as a teacher at an alternative high school in Charlotte, North Carolina. Upon moving to New York City, he worked with the Jacob A. Riis Neighborhood Settlement House as a Program Coordinator for their after-school pregnancy prevention program. A North Carolina native, Travis earned his BA in Secondary Social Studies Education from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and his MS in Education from Bank Street College.

Zach Whitworth (b. 1996) is a scholar, art worker, and educator from southern Oregon, USA. He studies ecology, networks, information, and some other things. He likes books, conversations, long walks, and skipping rocks.

Cheryl Cullom Stewart (Board Director / Development Committee Chair) has worked in public art administration since 1984. She has placed and promoted public art in central NC as the Public Art Consultant with the Raleigh-Durham International Airport for the renovation of Terminals 1 and 2, the Cemala Foundation, Action Greensboro and currently the Piedmont Triad International Airport and the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro‘s Public Art Endowment. She has managed many public art projects in her career working at Metropolitan Transit Authority’s Art for Transit in New York as the manager of the Permanent Art Program for the NYTA, LIRR and Metro-North Railroad, Program Coordinator for the City of Tampa’s Public Art Program and as a Project Coordinator for Miami-Dade County’s Art in Public Places. She received her Master’s Degree in Art History from Florida State University. She is past-president of the Board of Green Hill Center for NC Art and the Weatherspoon Art Museum Association.

Marjorie Loflin (Board Treasurer / Executive Committee / Finance Committee Chair) is a Senior Accountant at Bernard Robinson & Company.

Kerri Mubaarak (Board Director / Executive Committee / Board Secretary)

If you encounter Kerri Mubaarak, it won’t take you long to figure out that her perspective is different. The way she approaches a subject—any subject— whether it’s an artist’s proposed work that she evaluates or a socio-political paradigm addressed in her performances is different. In fact, it’s difference that underlies all her works of theatrical art.

Kerri chose theater as a medium to express what she sees and senses interacting with “people in the periphery” a term she uses to describe those who are often marginalized by race, gender, religion or cultural norms. “The gift of this medium,” she says “is that the raw emotion of human experience can be shared openly and in the safety of an audience.” She considers the craft a practice of both art and healing that pre dates modern theater.

Kerri has a balance of skills earned during her tenure as Director of Caldcleugh Arts Center and as the Operations Manager for Elsewhere—a living museum and residency for visual artists. In 2015, she established Scrapmettle Entertainment Group—a theater development company—from an idea born from the desires of a community whose lives were positively influenced by the subtle healing effects of participating in live theater. Her team of emerging artists, directors and writers now use this platform to create new work, hone their craft or learn another aspects of the industry.

Kerri has written and produced a number of devised performances with her theater community in Greensboro, NC. She is an advocate for the arts, artists and the advancement of expressive art therapies.

Programs Curator

Jess Hoyle (they/them), is an artist, art worker, activist and writer. Their personal work explores ideas of memory, histories and concepts of truth and personal fictions through the use of primarily lens-based mediums, printmaking and textiles. Their activism work centers around anti-racism, anti-sexism and equity work, creating level ground. At Elsewhere, they work as the Programs Manager.

Laura Richie (Board Vice President / Executive Committee / Program Committee Co-Chair) is co-founder of The Carrack, a zero-commission community art space in Durham, NC. Ritchie served as Director of The Carrack from 2011-2018. A native of Salisbury, North Carolina, Ritchie studied at UNC-Chapel Hill (BFA), SACI Florence, and at the Institute for Curatorial Practice at Hampshire College. She is pursuing a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies at Duke University. Through community-engaged projects, Ritchie strives to be a catalyst for collaborative, interdisciplinary work across the arts in the Triangle region of North Carolina.

House Manager / Curator

Avery Rose (they/them) is a 3rd generation dumpster diver, collector, maker, and jack of all trades wannabe raised in Waxhaw, NC. They have a BFA in painting and a range of professional experiences in furniture, upholstery, design, and restoration related fields. They like to explore color, shape, and line through textile work, tattooing, painting on unconventional surfaces, and collecting natural and discarded objects. Avery's work founded on interests in sustainable and communal living, travel and exploration, environmentalism, homesteading, and diy culture.

Avery has been the House Manager/Curator at Elsewhere since 2018. They have completed a number of projects including building a new front desk from collection, co-creating the Shelter Elsewhere Residency, and patching various holes around the museum in unexpected ways. Avery can be found at @dirt_soup on Instagram.

Sam Cone is a financial consultant with Pinsker Wealth Management. He earned his JD cum laude from the New York University School of Law in 2008 and his BA in mathematics and philosophy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2003. Following law school, he was a law clerk to Justice Mark Martin of the NC Supreme Court, after which he practiced in the litigation group of Irell & Manella in Los Angeles, CA. Sam is active in the community and is presently involved with several non-profits devoted to youth health, gender equality, charitable giving within the Jewish community, and other causes. Sam is a certified professional stunt performer, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu student, and roller derby