THE 1FUTURE TEAM

Cannon Hersey  Project Director

Cannon Hersey is a photographer, fine artist and organizer of large-scale cultural efforts.

Hersey believes that as an artist, he has a role beyond the studio, working as an educator and organizer to address social change through art, media and education. Hersey has exhibited at numerous institutions and galleries including Lincoln Center’s Frieda and Roy Furman Gallery, the opening event of the 2008 Sao Paulo Bienale at the private collection of Kim Esteve, the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporic Arts (MoCADA), the New York Open Center, the Johannesburg Art Foundation, and the presidential award ceremony for Nelson Mandela at NYU.

Jody Weiss Development Director

Jody R. Weiss is a mass-consumer marketer, fund-raiser and corporate sponsorship expert, with a special focus on the transformation of consciousness through the lens of human rights. Weiss launched PeaceKeeper™ Cause-Metics™ in 2002 and served as the company’s CEO and salesperson.  PeaceKeeper was the first cosmetics company to give donations to urgent human rights issues and sold in 500+ stores across the United States. Additionally, she has worked as a sports agent at International Management Group (IMG) and went on to develop a campaign to advocate for ending violence on and off the field at sporting events around the globe.

Taku Nishimae Media Director

Taku Nishimae is a Peabody Award winning journalist and a filmmaker, with work spanning nearly 30 years. He covers a wide range of business, economy and culture topics as a news producer and interviewer based in New York and Tokyo. Nishimae is a founder of ZENGO, Inc., which produces feature films, documentary films, television programs, multimedia digital contents and educational contents and workshops. His films have screened at international film festivals, and have garnered a Peabody Award, the Galaxy Award (Japanese Emmy) Grand Prix and the ATP (Association of TV Producers) Award in Japan. For PIKADON Project, he produced live music/art shows in 16 international cities around the world including NY, London, Berlin, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Shanghai.

Shannon Shird Outreach Director

Shannon Shird is a producer, writer and filmmaker whose work centers around art and social activism. She serves as producer and conducts marketing, outreach and distribution efforts for award-winning documentary film Black and Cuba. Since June 2013, she has organized campaigns and projects with Black Alliance for Just Immigration that work to address racial equality, economic justice and immigrant rights including, ICE-FREE NYC, Safety Beyond Policing, and more.  She is co-founder and creative director of ARTrepreneurship art collective and is currently producing her first short film, BodyMore, set to be released in 2017.

Bahiyah Robinson PR Director

Bahiyah Yasmeen Robinson started her first business importing textiles from Tanzania to the United States. Since then, she has worked largely as a consultant and advisor, engaging public-private sector stakeholders and building partnerships to drive ecosystems with demonstrated social and economic impact.  She has worked with organizations including Ashoka, News Deeply, Global Citizen, the Rockefeller Foundation, the U.S. Department of State, The Paul Allen Foundation, the ONE Campaign, UNICEF, and the U.N. Foundation. Robinson is also the Founder of Young Art Collector, an initiative that convenes and engages young contemporary art collectors to build, grow and internationally showcase their collections around African Diasporan art.

Zanele Mazibuko 1Future South Africa Director

Zanele Mazibuko has over a decade of combined experience in journalism, research, communication, media strategy, and marketing in both mainstream and alternative media. She worked as a full-time journalist for Sowetan-Sunday World, City Press and Daily Sun before she was promoted to Gauteng editor of City Vision, a Media 24 Community publication. Mazibuko has worked for projects such as Crosspathculture and the International Arts Alive Festival, among many others.

Ken Hirama Production Director + Filmmaker (Tokyo)

Ken Hirama (kenhirama) is an award winning director, photographer and a visual artist based in Tokyo, Japan. His first project to garner attention was hi test video “D90 Short Film,” which was chosen as the “Best video done by the Nikon D90 on d90plus.” His work has been shown at Huis Marseille Museum, Amsterdam with Japanese leading photographers Mika Ninagawa, Rinko Kawauchi, Risaku Suzuki and other photographers around the globe. Hirama’s collaborations include shotahirama, pleq, Anna Rose Carter, Natalia Noelia and Japanese art label mAtter and SIGNALDADA.

Peter Bill Educational development, Media creation

Peter Bill is an Artist, Activist and Educator. He has, since learning photoshop v. 1.5 been interested in connecting under-represented communities with digital tools so their voices may be broadcast. He has been involved with large scale video projections, guerrilla art actions, and community building since the 90s.

Peter Bill’s award winning paint and video landscapes have shown in such diverse venues as The Kitchen(NYC), the Henry Art Gallery(Seattle), FILE Festival(São Paulo, Brazil), and other international venues. He continues in his Oil paintings and video work to weave the painterly with the digital, pixels and paint, indigo and 191970 blue. He envisioned and realized the first time-lapse film festival in North America, the Gila Timelapse Film Festival and has curated and directed shows on three continents. “Art must be realized on the streets, as an agent of change and progress.”

Dell Chess –  Marketing + Technology Director

Refiloe Mnisi – Social Media Manager

Walter Puryear – Co-Curator, Strategic Partner, Director of Andrew Freedman Home