Born in Peru, Paola Evangelista comes from a family of thinkers, community-driven activists, and makers. A household grounded on the tradition of craft-making is what drew Paola first to garment design and then to ceramics. Every step of the process is full of purpose, context, and perspective.

Paola graduated from Central Connecticut State University in 2012 with a BA in art where she was first introduced to clay, the topic she chose to give her focus. Since then, she has continued to pursue her never-ending curiosity and potential in expression of her worldview while developing her knowledge of the ceramic material through her own practice and workshops with other artists. In addition to her role as Ceramics Technical Assistant at Macalester, Paola works as a part-time teacher of ceramics at Saint Paul Academy, and as a teaching artist at the Northern Clay Center.

https://paolaevangelista.com/

Best known as a rapper, founder, and front-person in Brooklyn-based NOLA-funk/hip-hop band Big Village Little City. Forefeather (Zac Hills-Bonczyk, he/him) is a musical entertainer, presenter, event host, ecstatic dance guide, yoga teacher, yoga DJ, and unapologetic bliss enthusiast.

The youngest in a family of four Kripalu-certified yoga teachers and a student of hip-hop since childhood, Forefeather believes the key to a fulfilling life is unrestrained immersion in the present moment, whether through music, yoga, dance, or otherwise. He has been working to bridge gaps between ancient and contemporary practices since 2011.

In 2023, Zac and his partner co-founded The Herbal Pixie, a pop-up elixer and herbal libation bar blending botanicals, plant medicine, and wild-crafted natural extracts to awaken the senses and nourish the spirit. 

Isabel Nelson is an award-winning theater director, creator and performer. In 2010, she founded Twin Cities-based physical theater ensemble Transatlantic Love Affair (TLA), which collaboratively creates original works from the reimagined bones of old stories, and served as artistic director of the company until 2022. She is the recipient of the 2012 Emerging Artist Ivey Award and the National Theater Conference’s 2015 Emerging Professional Award, and is currently a 2025-26 McKnight Theater Artist Fellow at the Playwrights’ Center. She received her B.A. from Macalester College in Theatre and Religious Studies, completed a two-year program (M.F.A. equivalent) in Creating Theatre at the Lecoq-based London International School of Performing Arts (LISPA), and received her M.Div. in Theology and the Arts from United Theological Seminary. Most recently, Isabel has brought their creative practice to bear in collaboration with folx incarcerated at Stillwater Correctional Facility and Shakopee Correctional Facility. Isabel believes in singing and storytelling as vessels for healing, and theater as sacred action – a chance to imagine, embody, and create the just and generative world we deserve.

Ti(PH)anie —an invisibly disabled, neurodivergent artist-organizer—rose from the streets of North Minneapolis and now tends roots and soil around our beautiful state.. A first-generation Minnesotan, she walks in her ancestors’ wildest Queer + Witchy dreams, her pulse beating in rhythm with the communities that raised her.

A Washburn High graduate with a BA in Public Affairs from Wells College, Ti(PH)anie moves through the world guided by dance, love, and the electric power of connection. As a young Black girl, she traced the thread between sweatshop labor and her own becoming, and from that awakening sparked a lifelong devotion to political and racial justice. Her years shaping youth programs only deepened her vow to nurture early childhood education, voting rights, and food access.

Today, PH’s mixed-media and multimedia art is spellwork and sanctuary—advocacy stitched with spirit, healing carried in color and form. She channels the world’s emotions through her (PH)ull body, letting movement keep them from hardening into harm. Her layered, spiritual, and bold creations call folx to unearth the roots of injustice, tear down the walls of white supremacy, and conjure liberated worlds shimmering at the edges of the present.

Currently, you can find her Co-Directing the Powderhorn Children’s Choir 2.0 alongside Liz Digitale Anderson of Sing for Liberation creating space for our children to have a safer space to connect to their hearts + voices to use art to have fun and be more free. 

Let us use our (PH)ull bodies as vessels of creation—crafting art that heals ourselves, and the worlds within and around us. IG: @phullbodiedart

Guest Artist