2025 Creative Impact Fund Panelists

A national panel of artist experts.

The Creative Impact Fund Panel is responsible for reviewing and scoring every grant submission and making all funding recommendations to Assembly for thirty (30) Cuyahoga County artists in 2025.

This year’s CIF Panel is comprised of twelve (12) accomplished artistic practitioners curated from across the country, representing 12 states, 10 cities and 11 creative disciplines. Panelists were recommended to Assembly by previous CIF grantees and are selected based on our Panel Composition Criteria. Please welcome this incredible cohort to Cleveland!

Ariana Brown

Ariana Brown is a queer Black Mexican American poet from San Antonio, TX, now based in Houston. She is the author of the poetry collections We Are Owed. (Grieveland, 2021) and Sana Sana (Game Over Books, 2020).

Rosa Chang

Rosa Chang is an artist based in Baltimore and New York whose work is deeply rooted in fostering a harmonious relationship between humans and nature.

Mahwish Chisty

Mahwish Chishty combines new media and conceptual work with materials and techniques of South Asian art and craft traditions.

Christopher Gonzalez

CHRISTOPHER GONZALEZ is a queer Puerto Rican writer living in New York. He is the author of the short story collection I’m Not Hungry but I Could Eat (SFWP, 2021)

Kei Henderson, Founder + Head of Creative Strategy

Kei Henderson is the founder and head of Third & Hayden, an Atlanta-based management label and publishing company, as well as a creative entrepreneur and Grammy-winning manager

Shabez Jamal

Shabez Jamal, is an interdisciplinary artist and educator. Their visual practice and research explore the temporal nature of photographic imagery and memory relating to physical, political, and socio-economic spaces.

Brit Krohmer

Brit Krohmer is an object maker, using ceramic as a primary medium, an educator, and art handler from Rockford, IL, currently living and working in Milwaukee, WI.

Laura Lambuley

Laura Lambuley is a highly accomplished pianist, composer, and producer with a Latin Grammy award to her name.

Vagner Mendonça-Whitehead

Vagner Mendonça-Whitehead is an artist, educator, and academic leader. His art practice encompasses traditional and newer media, community projects, and creative writing

Hyeyung Sol Yoon

Hyeyung Sol Yoon is an artist at the margin of her American and Korean identities who plays the violin, composes, teaches, and organizes arts communities

Nina Young

Nina Young is a screenwriter, director, and producer from Detroit, MI with a passion for exploring the Black female identity through film.

Jade Yumang

Jade Yumang uses three-dimensional, site-specific installation, and performative work as a way to see how the body resists or submits through materiality.

Cuyahoga Arts and Culture

The Creative Impact Fund is a program of Assembly for the Arts, made possible by the residents of Cuyahoga County through a public grant from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture. This individual artist grant program is designed to support and sustain the growth of Cuyahoga County artists and their creative practices, which enhances their ability to positively impact our regional communities.

by Meg Matko

Month: September 2025