Ash Smith is a director, designer and new media artist who grew up in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in North Carolina. Ash incorporates strategies of play and speculation to solve problems, re-imagine systems and build worlds—to create interactive stories, mixed reality experiences, simulations and prototypes of the future. Data, science and/or humor may be used to tell stories for film, stage, and improvisation that may blur the distinction between art & life, fact & fiction, and nature & technology—a liminal space—that considers how myth and history modulate a present reality while simultaneously engendering future dreams. Ash is interested in the dreaming collective and how these virtual shared spaces may bleed into the real and shape our co-existence. Ash also plays music in a few bands and loves to parallel park.

During 2017 their residency at Elsewhere, Smith created 11½ Spells for Our Future Selves. In 2019 Ash was the resident artist for the 2019 Rural Residency in Appalachia and created Southern Devices//Appalachian Futures.

Amelia Nura is a senior at UNCG, majoring in Photography and Media Studies. She is an interdisciplinary artist with a curiosity for uncovering psychological and social fabrications of identity and interpersonal relationships. Her fascination with uncovering truth and providing a platform for lives and narratives that are often neglected or misrepresented, manifests itself primarily through photography and film, where spaces and emotions are built into scaled-down worlds of light, sound and action, to communicate our constructed realities. Amelia likes journaling, night walks, Suspiria and Black Sabbath (minus the Dio years).

Programs 2016-2019

Gui Villalba Portel is a Greensboro-based storyteller, theatre artist, and arts organizer from Buenos Aires, Argentina. An indigenous latinx and undocumented queer, Gui often thinks about visualizing: the amplification of marginalized narratives, collective deviation within social constructs, and "new" recipes.

President of the Board of Trustees for the Phillips Foundation, which implements high-impact grants within the Greensboro/Guilford County community. At Phillips Management Group he oversees strategic growth for the organization and its portfolio of communities. Prior to his current position, Kevin worked for a subsidiary of Goldman Sachs as an analyst in Dallas, Texas.

Emily Ensminger, born in Durham, NC, is a conceptual artist and advocate for independent multi-use live/work organizations. Through programming, textiles and functional systems, Emily’s work addresses necessity as a creative practice operating at the intersection of admin, art, and daily life. Curatorial, project coordination and presentation focus is on experimental production and organizations outside art centers.

Emily led the organization as Creative Director (2018-2020).

George Scheer (Co-founder / Board Director) is Co-founder and former Executive Director of Elsewhere. George is a writer, scholar, and artist who fosters creative communities at the intersection of aesthetics and social change. George is also the grandson of Elsewhere proprietress and puzzle maker Sylvia Gray, whose stuff he has been moving around for years! George holds an MA in Critical Theory and Visual Culture from Duke University and a BA from the University of Pennsylvania in Political Communications.

Stephanie Sherman (Co-founder / Board Director / Program Committee Co-Chair) is a designer, director, and collaborative conspirator based in London, UK. She founded Elsewhere with George in 2003 and co-directed it with him for 10+ years. She since founded Common Field, Radioee.net, and Supervisions, a social design studio.