Sam Holleran

Is an artist, designer, and writer. Sam was CUP’s Communications Coordinator from 2011 to 2014. He attended the the Cooper Union where he was the recipient of the Herb Lubalin Fellowship for Typography and the Benjamin Menschel Fellowship for Creative Inquiry. Sam has worked extensively in printmaking; his fields of interest include: photogravure, letterpress, Ukiyo-e, and silkscreen.

Valeria Mogilevich

Valeria is a visual storyteller who creates tools for participation in collaboration with social justice organizations. She also consults with cultural institutions, education non-profits, and others on community engagement and youth education. Valeria was formerly the Deputy Director of CUP, where over the course of eight years she created popular education tools with community-based organizations and developed curricula to help public high school students change the way the see their own neighborhoods. She has shared her thoughts on project-based learning, collaboration, and design for social impact at places like the New Museum, the Cooper-Hewitt, Pratt Institute, and institutions from Indianapolis to Rotterdam. Valeria holds a Bachelor of Arts from Brown University in Modern Culture and Media.

Dillon de Give

Dillon de Give is an artist and educator who acts in a spirit of humane experimentalism. His projects set a stage for subtle alterations to everyday social performances and expose novel and equitable methods for distributing an experience of art. Dillon holds a BS in Radio/Television/Film from Northwestern University and an MFA in Art and Social Practice from Portland State University.  He is a co-founder of the Walk Exchange, a cooperative walking group. He organizes the annual Coyote Walk Itinerancy, a retreat that traces a path between New York City and the wild.  Dillon worked with CUP to produce the videos “Common Cents,” “Now Boarding,” and “Who Rules?”

Ro Garrido

Ro Garrido is a Youth Education Program Coordinator at CUP. Ro was born in Lima, Peru and grew up in Jackson Heights, Queens. Ro is a self-taught, multidisciplinary artist and educator whose work grapples with memory and intimacy. They work with mixed media, sculpture, fiber, archives, installation and community engagment. Ro’s work has been featured at the Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, Goddard College, and Flux Factory. Ro was a 2014 Create Change Fellow and 2016 Commissioned Artist with The Laundromat Project. Ro is currently a 2018-19 Engaging Artists Fellow at More Art and a 2019-20 Artist in Residence at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center. Ro has a BA in Individualized Studies with a focus on Visual Art and Mental Health from Goddard College.

Gabe Gordon

Gabe Gordon grew up far-sighted in Cleveland, Ohio. Fascinated by postal systems and mail objects, Gabe’s work and writing circulate around the art and politics of correspondence. As a Teaching Artist, Gabe has been lucky to work collaboratively on projects with children and teenagers of all ages across New York City, Western Massachusetts, and Detroit, Michigan. xxgg.work

Fielding Hong

Fielding is a Youth Education Program Manager at CUP. He has over 10 years of experience as a youth educator working at the intersections of history, the arts, and social justice. Fielding has worked as both a high school history teacher in Philadelphia and a museum educator in New York. He holds a B.A. in Film Studies from Wesleyan University, a teaching degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Master’s in Culture and Gender Studies from Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea. 

Ilaria Ortensi

Ilaria Ortensi is an artist and art educator with an interest in architecture, urban landscape and the representation of contemporary spaces. She uses both documentation and fiction to create images that viewers are encouraged to question. Born in Italy, she received her MFA from Columbia University in 2015 and is currently part of the Hercules Art/Studio Program in Long Island City, NY.

Fielding Hong

Fielding is a Youth Education Program Manager at CUP. He has over 10 years of experience as a youth educator working at the intersections of history, the arts, and social justice. Fielding has worked as both a high school history teacher in Philadelphia and a museum educator in New York. He holds a B.A. in Film Studies from Wesleyan University, a teaching degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Master’s in Culture and Gender Studies from Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea. 

Fielding Hong

Fielding is a Youth Education Program Manager at CUP. He has over 10 years of experience as a youth educator working at the intersections of history, the arts, and social justice. Fielding has worked as both a high school history teacher in Philadelphia and a museum educator in New York. He holds a B.A. in Film Studies from Wesleyan University, a teaching degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Master’s in Culture and Gender Studies from Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea. 

Hugo Rojas

Hugo Rojas is a Media and Art educator, and multimedia artist. He has a B.A. in International Relations from Mexican University and an M.A. in Media Studies from The New School. With over nine years of experience in education having taught from Spanish Language to Photography and video production in Mexico, Brazil, and NYC. Currently, he is teaching residencies in Manhattan and Brooklyn. He also explores public space through his art intervention, and in his spare time he bikes around Brooklyn.

Christine Gaspar

Christine is the Executive Director of CUP. She has over fifteen years of experience in community design. Prior to joining CUP, she was Assistant Director of the Gulf Coast Community Design Studio in Biloxi, Mississippi, where she provided architectural design and city planning services to low-income communities recovering from Hurricane Katrina. In 2012, she was identified as one of the “Public Interest Design 100.” She holds Masters in Architecture and in City Planning from MIT, and a Bachelor of Arts from Brown University.

She’s been a CUP fan since 2001, and a staff member since 2009.

Matt Ledwidge

Matt was a CUP design Intern and a senior at the Cooper Union School of Art. He is excited about cities, mapping, landscapes, archaeology, history and philosophy. He makes graphic design, public interventions, videos and images. He believes that art and design can change the way that people understand and experience their cities in unexpected ways. Originally from Toronto, Canada he enjoys going for underprepared hikes in the wilderness and biking around Brooklyn.

Fielding Hong

Fielding is a Youth Education Program Manager at CUP. He has over 10 years of experience as a youth educator working at the intersections of history, the arts, and social justice. Fielding has worked as both a high school history teacher in Philadelphia and a museum educator in New York. He holds a B.A. in Film Studies from Wesleyan University, a teaching degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Master’s in Culture and Gender Studies from Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea. 

Kyle Richardson

Kyle Richardson is a Graphic Designer and Artist, raised and based in NYC. She studied Graphic Design and Painting at Cooper Union.  She has worked for Opening Ceremony, Baggu, Friends & Family and currently, she is a part of the in-house design team at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). She self published a publication called Tropical Fantasy that was distributed through Printed Matter’s Art Book Fair 2016 and currently at Topos Bookstore in Ridgewood close to where she grew up. Growing up a New Yorker she feels a responsibility to preserve her home for lower income families, neighbors and friends as the city wouldn’t be the same without them. 

Clara Amenyo

Clara was the Program Manager for CUP’s Public Access Design program from 2012 to 2014. Before coming to CUP, she worked in Structured Credit for Barclays Capital. Clara has a Bachelor of the Arts from the University of Pennsylvania.

Association For Neighborhood and Housing Development

Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development (ANHD) is a 501c3 membership organization founded in 1974, comprised of 98 nonprofit neighborhood housing groups serving low- and moderate-income New Yorkers. Over the past decade alone, ANHD’s training, policy research, advocacy, strategic communications, and leadership development for grassroots groups and residents has leveraged over $1.3 billion for affordable housing, rescued over 30,000 apartments and 160 buildings for low-income residents, and created break through policies for community development. ANHD is collaborating with CUP on an MPP about the Responsible Banking Act and contributed to the development of the Affordable Housing Toolkit and Zoning Toolkit.

MANY

MANY is a design studio based in New York City, founded by Christina Beard and Andrew Shea. MANY develops solutions in a range of mediums for a variety of clients. They have collaborated on projects since meeting at Maryland Institute College of Art, where they earned their MFA in graphic design. Both are active design educators and writers.Shea’s recently published new book, Designing for Social Change: Strategies for Community-Based Graphic Design features projects and strategies to help designers work more effectively with communities.Their individual design work and writing has been featured in Core77, AIGA, Designer’s Review of Books, Communication Arts, HOW, and Change Observer, among others. They are committed to creating meaningful design that positively impacts society and they partner with people and organizations who share that passion.

Clara Amenyo

Clara was the Program Manager for CUP’s Public Access Design program from 2012 to 2014. Before coming to CUP, she worked in Structured Credit for Barclays Capital. Clara has a Bachelor of the Arts from the University of Pennsylvania.

Petra Farinha

Petra Farinha is a NY Interaction Designer with several years of experience. She works at Purpose as the Lead Interaction Designer and co-manager of the Design Department. From developing websites for large scale collective action for nonprofits, political movements  to civic engagement platforms, Petra promotes and advocates for the value of design thinking and human-centered approaches. Petra studied at ITP, Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU, where she explored the possibilities of technology,  their impact in our daily routines and how they are changing the way we experience cities. Before moving to NY, Petra was a freelance interaction/ visual designer and design faculty at the School of Arts and Design in Caldas da Rainha. prntscreen.net

Christine Gaspar

Christine is the Executive Director of CUP. She has over fifteen years of experience in community design. Prior to joining CUP, she was Assistant Director of the Gulf Coast Community Design Studio in Biloxi, Mississippi, where she provided architectural design and city planning services to low-income communities recovering from Hurricane Katrina. In 2012, she was identified as one of the “Public Interest Design 100.” She holds Masters in Architecture and in City Planning from MIT, and a Bachelor of Arts from Brown University.

She’s been a CUP fan since 2001, and a staff member since 2009.