Artemis Montague is a multi-hyphenate composer-lyricist-librettist-singer who believes in art and musical theater as an affinity space, or place for community members to see themselves without the gaze of oppression. They write music and musicals for POC, queer/trans folks, and disabled communities, and are working on an EP of feminist, radically soft music about love, friendship and healing.

Mal Devisa is the stage name of Massachusetts-based songwriter Deja Rene Carr, what she calls a “liberation project” as she grapples with identity, disability, and other struggles related to making art. We fell in love with Mal Devisa at our SXSW showcase this spring, and can’t wait to help her realize her goal of broadening her genre scope and recording a record with some new gear.

Kyoko Takenaka is a multi-disciplinary performance artist, musician, actor and filmmaker splitting their time between L.A., Tokyo and London. They believe artistic expression is a conduit for personal and collective liberation, and are constantly exploring unbinary ways of thinking, moving and creating. Through their music and art, they channel diasporic experience and create a sensory space for queer folks to take refuge.

Farmer Zoe is the alter-ego of Delaware-based multi-disciplinary artist Zoe Scruggs, whose work explores how systematic oppression has shaped her relationship with nature. She does this by contextualizing her personal stories into America’s ideological framework for understanding the relationship between the human and non-human worlds, particularly where Black, ecological and labor issues collide. She’s working on a live set bridging the research-heavy fine art side of her musical practice with the freeform aspect of the Farmer Zoe persona. 

Julia Sinelnikova is a singer-songwriter and DJ who performs as ORACLE666. Light as a fluid medium and Eastern European folk tales from their upbringing in Russia serve as the foundations for their artistic practice, as they aim to create a womb-like setting for the audience’s healing and self-observation. They are working on their full-length album TIMEBENDER, which will ultimately be presented as a multi-day audiovisual showcase and performance.