Shasparay Irvin
Program Coordinator
Shasparay Irvin is a fat, Black, and queer arts leader and community advocate based in Austin, TX with a background rooted in both creative expression and arts administration. Shasparay holds a Master of Arts in Business from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Prior to this, she earned a Bachelor of Science in Theatre & Drama with a minor in African American Studies, graduating as a Notable Graduate and recipient of the First Wave Full Tuition Arts Scholarship.
As the Founder and Artistic Director of the Black Arts Matter Festival in Madison, WI, Shasparay has overseen the festival’s growth and success since its inception in 2018. Through her leadership, she has secured multiple grants, fostered community partnerships, and provided opportunities for over 120 artists and performers.
Shasparay’s passion for performance extends beyond administration; she has acted in various theatrical productions, was the 2022 4th Ranked Woman Slam Poet in the World, and was awarded a 2023 Audio Verse Award for her voice acting work on the podcast Old Gods of Appalachia.
Our Board
Zac Traeger-is the founder and Director of The Museum of Human Achievement. He has led the organization through 10 years of award winning programming. Past awards include the Austin Chronicle’s “Best “Not A Museum” Museum”, Austin Critic Table’s “Best Independent Work of Art” (AHöM) which included 100+ local & global artists, and the Chronicle’s “top 10 contemporary art galleries in Austin.” Programming has been recognized and reviewed regularly in print & online media, including Pitchfork, NPR, Austin-American Statesman, BOMB, Arts+Culture, KLRU, KVRX, KUT & Glasstire.
Free Hamze– Free was born in Lebanon and has a background as a journalist, he is a part of aaaaa.five a collective of artists working on starting a farm in arizona and is invested in the garden at MoHA. He also runs Sahar Studios out of a shipping container studio that focuses on free or affordable access to artists who lack resources for traditional recording studios.
Rachel Koper-It all began at the tender age of 11, when Rachel Koper realized she had a knack for drawing horses. Now the practicing artist and director at Gallery Lombardi, Koper is a ruthless yet selfless promoter of local art in Austin. At virtually every opening, talk, and performance, she’s there creating opportunities for those around her.
Lynn Osgood- Lynn Osgood is an urban planner and researcher whose work explores the intersection of the arts, planning, civic capacity building. Trained in landscape architecture and urban planning at the University of Virginia, Lynn moved to Austin in 2003, where she became Adjunct Faculty at the University of Texas. In 2011 she started Civic Arts (previously GO collaborative) and led the development of such projects as the NEA Exploring Our Town website, and the ArtPlace America funded Drawing Lines project, and technical assistance services for the LISC/Kresge. Today serves as Executive Director.
Maxim Tumenev- Maxim is an experienced creative arts and culture expert. His experience in different cultural environments stems from his engagement into intercultural dialogue across east and west, environmental and social justice, deep belief in structured education, exchange of ideas and visionary approach to arts policy. Seeing arts as the most powerful language to reach mutual understanding between nations and communities his work in arts administration and curatorial practice was always focused on artists and communities around them.
Isa Carrillo– Graduated in Visual Arts from the University of Guadalajara. Her work has been defined by a research of hidden and enigmatic aspects of the collective unconscious and a connection to a critical and empirical vision of ancestral studies and practices. Her interest in invisible phenomena began to develop at the start of her career by combining themes referring to the subconscious present in everyday life. Using as tools of exploration primordial teachings such as astrology, numerology, palmistry, graphology and other ancient systems or traditions, the artist stores information that she later uses as catalysts to develop her project. In this way, the point of departure becomes the place of union between memory and form thus proposing a bridge towards the invisible.
Jaime Castillo– Jaime Salvador Castillo is an independent curator and founding member of Los Outsiders art collective. In 2005 he received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Art from the University of Texas at Austin. A committed arts professional, Jaime has served on the City of Austin’s Art in Public Places Panel (2009 -2015), the Curatorial Board for Generous Art (2014-2015), and the City of Austin’s Arts Commission (2015-2022), was the portfolio advisor for “Young Artists @ Arthouse” (now the Contemporary Austin) and was a contributing arts writer for The Austin Chronicle. Jaime was the executive producer of “Eyes Got It! An art competition”, an American Idol-style art competition that ran from 2010-2019. Jaime continues to find ways to help artists gain their next experience and has served on the board of Unlisted Projects since summer 2023 to provide artists an avenue to do so.