Sarah williams

Co-founder & Executive Director

Sarah Williams is a co-founder and Executive Director of the Feminist Center for Creative Work. Born and raised in Los Angeles, Sarah returned to the city in 2006 to attend USC’s Curatorial Practice in the Public Sphere M.A. program after receiving a B.A. in Art History from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Since then she has been producing projects, exhibitions, programs, events and publications with ForYourArt, FCCW, CLOSING, and the Art Book Review.

mandy harris williams

Programming Director

Mandy’s work seeks to get everybody the love that they deserve. She focuses on desirability privilege as a real and mythological market and political force. She graduated from Harvard, having studied the History of the African Diaspora, as well as the mass incarceration crisis, and other contemporary black issues. She received her MA in Urban Education and worked as a classroom teacher for 7 years in low income communities.

She integrates a holistic and didactic style into her current creative practice. Her creative work has been presented at Paula Cooper Gallery, Institute of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, Art + Practice, Navel, Knockdown Center and Feminist Center for Creative Work to name a few. She has a monthly radio show, the #BrownUpYourFeed Radio Hour, on NTS. She has contributed writing work to Dazed Magazine, MEL magazine, ForHarriet, and The Grio and is a frequent radio and podcast guest.

Kamala Puligandla

Communications & Marketing Director

Kamala Puligandla is a writer of autobiographical fiction and essays, on queer love, friendship and futures. She has earned degrees in Creative Writing from Oberlin College and UC Riverside, and is the author of two books, Zigzags (Not A Cult, 2020) and her novella, You Can Vibe Me On My FemmePhone (Co-Conspirator Press, 2021).  Kamala has many years of experience working as a copywriter and content strategist at tech companies, and was the Editor-in-Chief at the lesbian culture site Autostraddle.com, before coming to Feminist Center for Creative Work. She is the one sending you Feminist Center for Creative Work emails, so you know how to get involved in the many great opportunities here!

Raquel Hazell

Graphic Designer

Raquel Hazell is a Vincentian-American graphic artist and publisher born and raised in New York. In 2017 she graduated from the School of Visual Arts with a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Art where she spent perhaps too much time reminding people not to touch her hair. Her work is deeply rooted in and inspired by the ever-changing relationship between fact, fiction, and fantasy. Since 2018, she’s collaborated with artists and friends to create printed matter for what feels like the end times. In 2020, she (officially) founded Saalt Press, an independent publishing and design studio. Despite not having a design background, she’s managed to convince people to hire her. It’s been going well so far. Sometimes a writer, kind of a dj, never a morning person.

Stella Ramos

Programming Manager

Stella Ramos is a writer and dancer raised in Seattle, WA. She graduated from Occidental College in 2020 — where she studied Religious Studies with a focus on Environmental Ethics and Indigenous Futurity. She joined the Feminist Center as the 2020 Programming and Press Getty MUI intern, supporting the Programming and Co—Conspirator Press teams. After her internship, Stella stayed on as the Programming Manager and Administrative Assistant to support the vibrant programming and operations of FCCW.Joking that she’s a “Professional Virgo,” Stella works as a Studio Manager and Creative Assistant for individual artists. Stella’s motivations are to support the logistical frameworks, creative visions, and long-term goals of artists and creatives through her work within and outside the Feminist Center. Outside of work, you can find her at your nearest bookstore buying one-too-many new books, at the park writing, or at home with her two cats.

Jai English

Archives Intern

Jai English (she/they) is a Los Angeles-based writer and sound artist. As a lover of speculative narratives, she weaves together poetic text and surreal structure to explore the intimacies of love, beauty, relationships, land, queerness, and time. Imbued with rhythm and repetition, their work takes on a musical quality that reflects their dual interest in experimental sound. Currently, they work as the Archives Intern for the Feminist Center for Creative Work. You can read more of her work on her Substack and follow her on Instagram @jaienglish.

Aandrea Stang

Board Chair

Stang has diverse professional experience including education, curatorial, and management roles at museums, galleries, and academic institutions with additional experience in non-profit galleries and government agencies. She has developed and launched contemporary art and arts education programs for a variety of audiences at major cultural organizations including Hauser Wirth & Schimmel, Occidental College, and MOCA, Los Angeles. Stang holds degrees from USC and Oberlin College.

Rebecca Lehrer

Vice Chair

Through her work with The Mash-Up Americans Creative Studio, she works with companies like Hello Sunshine, Soul Pancake, National Domestic Workers Alliance, Google, and Automattic using audio to elevate and center Mash-Up stories. She has lectured at Yale University and Loyola Marymount University and her work with The Mash-Up Americans has been lauded in The New York Times, Forbes, Los Angeles Magazine, The Guardian and more.

Stefanie Botelho

Treasurer

She consults on strategy, marketing, and product for consumer brands like Chateau Margaux and is an active angel investor looking to support minority and otherwise marginalized voices. A Southern California native, she earned her MBA at Harvard Business School and her BA at Harvard University and has been awarded various accolades including Forbes 30 Under 30.

Carolina Ibarra-Mendoza

Secretary

Carolina Ibarra-Mendoza is a graphic designer, creative strategist, photographer, and Xicana feminist. She runs her own creative practice, where she translates social complexities into dynamic designs. She also works with Anne Bray as the Creative Director of the non-profit LA FREEWAVES. She’s a recipient of the “Woman’s Building and Metabolic Studio’s Special Projects in Archiving” art fellowship.

Notable past work includes creating the archive website for Suzanne Lacy and Leslie Labowitz. As a visual artist, she understands the power of design to provide resources for marginalized communities, and that’s the kind of work she wants to be a part of.

Susan Nwankpa Gillespie

Susan Nwankpa Gillespie, Founder of Nwankpa Design, is a Nigerian-American architect and interior designer based in Southern California. Her firm specializes in the holistic design of residences, restaurants and hospitality projects, and commercial spaces for retail and office. Over the course of her career, her bold, contemporary designs have been published in some of the industry’s most-read publications including Dwell, Interior Design Magazine, and The Architect’s Newspaper, and have been recognized by the American Institute of Architects.

Jessica Simmons-Reid

Jessica Simmons-Reid (she/her) is an artist, writer, and critic based in Los Angeles and Joshua Tree. Her work spans drawing, printmaking, photography, and occasionally poetry. She has contributed writing to Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles (CARLA), Artforum, and The New York Times’ T Magazine, among others. She received her MFA in Printmedia from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she was also a Writing Fellow, and her BA in the History of Art and Architecture and Visual Arts from Brown University. Previously, she worked in the curatorial departments at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. She also managed editorial content at ForYourArt. Currently, she is co-developing a film project based on and inspired by the work of the late French photographer and theorist Hervé Guibert.

Young Joon Kwak

Young Joon Kwak (they/them and she/her) is a LA-based multi-disciplinary artist and educator whose work spans sculpture, performance, music, video, and community-based collaborations, creating connections that bridge communities across a wide variety of socio-cultural, institutional, and alternative art contexts. Through sculptural manipulations in the form, functionality, and materiality of objects, they question common modes of perception and bodily objectification, while posing alternative ways of viewing bodies “beyond the skin.” Kwak is the founder of Mutant Salon, a roving beauty salon/platform for collaborative performances and installations with their community of queer, trans, femme, POC artists and performers. They are lead performer in the electronic-dance-noise band Xina Xurner.