Michael Darough graduated from the University of Memphis, earning an MFA in photography in 2011 and his BFA in photography from Arizona State University in 2007. His work explores the intersection of personal and cultural identity though tableau and portraiture. Darough received a Fulbright seminar grant addressing diversity in German education, which was hosted by the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. He is a nationally exhibiting artist whose work has recently been shown at the Brooks Museum of Art in Memphis, TN and the Center for Fine Art Photography in Fort Collins, CO. He is a Silver Eye Fellowship 20 recipient and a 2020 finalist for the Arnold Newman Prize For New Directions in Photographic Portraiture. Currently, Darough is a practicing artist and educator working in St. Louis, MO.

Azya Lashelle is a Black artist who was born and raised in Ypsilanti, Michigan. She currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia where she is attending Georgia State University and pursuing her Masters of Fine Arts in Photography. Through storytelling, she creates work that seeks to give a voice to the voiceless. Currently, her work focuses on the concept of being "Blue Black." This is a concept she has identified as the sadness she feels about the ongoing social issues that are going on today. In future work, she hopes to explore the effects of race and racism on the human psyche and how generational trauma has impacted Black people.