MEET THE CURATORS!
Alyssa Quintyne is a Bajan-American community organizer and creative based in Fairbanks, Alaska. She has had more than 16 years’ experience as a visual artist - her work focusing on people, their identities, and the ways they relay their ethereal characteristics. Her incorporation of flora, life cycles, figure, social and cultural movement art history are common themes in Alyssa's work that tie her subjects to the tangible and intangible. Her mediums include watercolor, ink, mixed media, and colored pencil. Alyssa has shown her works in many different venues in both Fairbanks and Anchorage, Alaska, ranging from local First Friday showings, gallery exhibitions, collaborative art shows, to personal curated events. She hopes to expand the local venue culture to be more inclusive of other young creatives of color and of identities marginalized. She strives to share her learnings and knowledge to other creatives looking to share their works with their communities.
M.C. MoHagani Magnetek (pronounced: emcee mahogany magnetic) resides in Anchorage, AK at her Wonder Woman Wonderdome.
She’s is a prolific writer who is cooler than ice water, has earned degrees in Anthropology (B.A.) English (B.A.) Forensic Death Investigation (graduate certificate) and a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing & Literary Arts. She is currently working on getting her life together. A Coast Guard veteran, Community Organizer and a Human Rights Advocate who is world renown, nationally recognized and locally accepted as the undisputed people’s champ because she believes poetry is therapeutic.
Some of her published works include “Shhh Be Quiet” Building Fires in the Snow (2016). “Acrimonious Black Woman Sparks Climate Change Debate with the President” Alaska Women Speak (Spring, 2019). “Girlfriend, What’s Your Recipe for Lemonade” Woman Scream: The International Poetry Anthology of Female Voices (2020). Her first novel: “The Mad Fantastic, 2098” (2020). “Death by a Thousand Kisses: A Ms. Mahogany Bones Murder Mystery” (2021).
Her list of accolades also include jumping over five cars on her bike and chaining herself to a tree for justice, equality and respect for all people. Selling laundry detergent pods to crusty children and dusty adults who all just want to be fresh and clean is her favorite pastime.
Amable J. Rosa is an active resident of the city of Anchorage. While working closely with several groups and organizations around town, their mission is to create a more equal and inclusive community across the state of Alaska. As a former title holder with the Imperial Court of All Alaska, a not for profit organization that works closely with the LGBTQ+ community and raises money for a scholarship fund awarded to an involved individual, they recently (fall 2019) stepped down as the Grand Duke 18 of Anchorage, Alaska, where they introduced the idea of Underground Ballroom culture. Their goal was to clarify and bring to light the magic of what the underground ballroom scene was, and educate on how the scene created a safe haven in New York in the 80s and 90s for queer and trans identified black and POC individuals to go and express themselves freely after being thrown out of their homes by parents and family who did not accept them.
Aside from their philanthropic and volunteer work, they are well known for their artistry through dancing, acting, and singing. Their passion for performative art has landed them with honorable roles such as; choreographer for the 2019 Mad Myrna’s production of Rocky Horror Show, the title role in Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and the Rat King in Pulse Dance Company’s Nutcracker: redux. They are also well known for their gender-fluid and androgynous expressive drag performances as Glenn Coco. Their work as a drag artist includes performing at the annual Anchorage Pride festival and performing in Seward’s first ever drag show, where they raised money to pay the rent on a safe space for the entirety of 2020. They organized (with the help of other BIPOC leaders) one of Anchorage’s Black Lives Matter protest march in early June 2020. They have worked diligently to be productive with their activism in their communities and continue to speak out on the injustice against BIPOC lives and amplify the voices of the marginalized.