Every once in a while we have the good fortune of working on a project that we feel truly matters, a project that we’ll still be thinking about years from now. Maybe even something we can imagine telling our grandkids about – surely you’ve had moments like that where something you did in your professional life really mattered?

Kyle Lamont

My focus as a music journalist and podcast producer is concert culture and Concert Cast is my rockumentary podcast network dedicated to live music storytelling and helping people connect more deeply with their concert communities.

Our long-form rockumentary podcasts blend music journalism, personal anecdotes, and live music to create audio pieces that make you feel like you’re right there with me—in the front row, backstage, or even in a she-shed turned festival headliner greenroom. Read more>>

Aly Sikora

It’s honestly quite difficult for me to decide which project has been the most meaningful to me. It’s important to me to be intentional about utilizing my creative projects for something greater than myself, so my projects tend to be meaningful in some way because that is ultimately the goal. One project that stands out is my recent short film, Fountain. It’s dedicated to the memory of my grandmother and all proceeds go directly to a freshwater well I’m funding in Eswatini through Thirst Project. While the plot and characters are fictional, I am grateful to acknowledge my Grandma through the dedication and share how special she was to me and so many people. Read more>>

Max Feldman

I released six albums of experimental music between 2021 and 2023 through my Spa Water project. I loved making them all but I’ll mention “COW PLAN” from 2022 and “Weak Planet” from 2023, both released through my friend Myles Byrne-Dunhill’s online labels. At the time of making these albums, I wasn’t freelancing yet and I was working very stifling office jobs, so creating these albums felt like building a space for myself in which anything was possible. I felt very alive and really believed in what I was doing because I had this feeling that there was a wild world out there for me to discover one sound at a time. Office jobs can make you feel like there’s not that much worth getting excited about, because your boss is always trying to hype you up about “exciting new initiatives,” and what they mean is an AI driven sales platform or a new way to organize Excel spreadsheets, so you start to think gosh if that’s what ‘exciting’ means I guess life just isn’t worth getting excited about, but that’s not true because art is the space in which we recover that sense of discovery that makes genuine enthusiasm possible. Read more>>

Benjamin Nolot

The most meaningful project for me so far is my first feature documentary, Nefarious: Merchant of Souls. I learned about human trafficking for the first time in early 2007 and was desparate to do something about it. My work on Nefarious took 4 years and has ended up having an impact bigger than I ever coiuld have dreamed. Read more>>

Katie Jo Finai

In 2020 my fifth and unexpected child was born. For reference, my other children are in their twenties. I had a thriving career in sales and management and had never intended to leave, but with lack of childcare and baby formula due to the worldwide pandemic, things shifted. Read more>>

Sagnik Sengupta

One project that is particularly close to my heart is one I handled during the pandemic in 2020. At the time, I was working as a Supervising Producer at Viacom18 India, and MTV India was riding high on the success of its first rap reality show, Hustle, which had launched the previous year. To build on this momentum and further spotlight hip-hop culture, MTV India collaborated with BBX India to create a month-long series featuring beatbox artists from across the country, hosted by Raka Vee, the founder of BBX India. Read more>>

Gaston Leguizamon

My next project is an original play called “The Neighborhood Laundromat”, and I can say it is my most meaningful piece of work so far not only given that it’s my first full length play in the English language, but also because the themes it explores are somewhat the culmination of experiences that truly defined my twenties. Generational cycles, family burdens, types of relationships and why we do the things we do, are all topics that have intensely driven my character as a twenty-something year old Latino immigrant in Los Angeles. Delving into these existential issues through the lens of four grotesque characters stuck inside a mysterious laundromat during an earthquake is very special to me as I have a keen connection with the power that absurdist comedy has to make you both laugh and make important questions. Read more>>

Aalyana

The most meaningful project I have worked on to date is a drawing I created shortly after my 16th birthday, depicting a moment I shared with my mother. We exchanged speeches during that time, and it was such a profound and memorable experience for me. I felt compelled to capture that significant moment in my own artistic style. Read more>>

Isomania

As a band, we are currently working on our most meaningful project to date. Our debut album and film, titled “DAWN”.

DAWN is a layered underdog story with equal parts relatable and dreamlike plot lines.
The accompanying film is action packed and very visually striking.

Our music can most simply be defined as grunge. Introspective, often melancholy vocals, heavy guitar, powerful drums, and big groovy bass lines. The range of soft and heavy sounds that we have in our arsenal gives us a wide pallete to tell a story. Read more>>

Keezy Keese

My album “Professionally in Love” This album is a reflection on a time in my life when I was dating professional dancers. Read more>>

Ryker English

The most meaningful project that I’ve worked on is a song called “Timekeeper” that was released a few years ago. It was my first serious release as an artist and one that I did not expect to happen. In 2020 I had quit my full time job working for a pharmaceutical company and moved to California from Colorado to go to a Christian ministry school. At that time in my life I was not creating music or pursuing music in any real sense. It never seemed feasible to me. While at school, I started meeting some other creatives around me who were passionate about music. One of these people had a dream to create an album with 10 different artists and he invited me to be on the album. Read more>>

Alex Super Beats

I am the co-founder of OWPN Academy (owpn.space) this is a non-profit that offers free psychotherapy and professional lessons for electronic artists in Romania. A team of young and ambitious trainers, teachers, coaches, therapists and famous artists working together for electronic culture in our country. Read more>>

Aimee Paxton

The most meaningful project was writing and performing a one woman show, ‘untouchable’ inspired by true stories from my childhood. Furthermore, the piece has since been transformed into a short film. Since I was 3 years old, I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis and had to take various medications/injections that made me sick every week. And later I developed Perthes Disease in my left hip, which resulted in using a crutch for the duration of middle school. Not to mention, the already awkward situations a budding teen has to navigate: dodging bullies (even a teacher), attending good ol’ church youth group and asking way too many questions, and enduring the humiliation of being the high school mascot. untouchable will premiere and make festival rounds starting this year. Read more>>

Atiya Brown

The most meaningful project I’ve had the pleasure of creating is the Divine Androgyne Showcase & Fashion Show (DAS). Ultimately I want to connect with others who also embrace their androgynous energy, those who pride themselves in embodying their divine feminine and their divine masculine energy. I hadn’t seen a space where creatives including myself could fully express this energy through spirituality, fashion and community. The Divine Androgyne Showcase + Fashion Show is intended to be that safe space, with plans to continue this work as far and beyond as we can. I am honored to share that it is an ongoing project, which I originally started as a series of video features and photoshoots, now having grown into a regularly produced show. We’ve done two shows in Baltimore, Maryland and co-produced a festival experience in Dallas, Texas.The Divine Androgyne Showcase & Fashion Show is soul meaningful to me because it’s connected to my spiritual journey. I have leaned more into The Divine and what it means to honor self and GOD; DAS allows me the opportunity to share that with others. Read more>>

Drew Dravis

Quietchild has been the most meaningful project I have worked on. Before joining the group I was always searching for some way to stay in music. My dream ever since I was a kid was to be in a band. The issue is I don’t play any instruments, besides my voice, and it’s hard to find a band that only needs a voice. So instead I threw myself into other projects like choir, acapella groups and theatre, but nothing scratch that itch of performing like this band has. This group came into my life at the perfect time and satisfied a deep desire I had to continue learning, living and breathing music. I feel like it can be so easy to just leave your passions in the past, especially after school is all done, but Quietchild gave me an outlet to not accept that. It gave me a way to channel my energy in a unique way and expanded my artistry in ways I could’ve never imagined before. It gave me a reason to fall even deeper in love with an art I could never fully let go of. This band has helped me grow in so many ways inside and outside of the music, but for now I’ll leave it at this, it gave me a reason to dream, even when it felt like it was too late to. Read more>>

Sophie Elgort

The most meaningful project I’ve worked on just premiered this month after four years in the making – Portrait Mode with Sophie Elgort, a new four-episode series I’m hosting and executive producing that is finally premiering next week on WNET’s ALL ARTS – rolling out on streaming and online through mid-March with a broadcast premiere slated for June 6th at 8pm EST. Read more>>

Jake Anthony

The most meaningful project I’ve worked on is my radio show, Magic Lamp Radio. It was founded on the belief that local artists who are putting in the work—practicing at home, mixing, creating playlists, learning the craft of DJing, and networking—deserve a chance to be showcased. They deserve the spotlight for their sound and style to be heard. Magic Lamp Radio is about support, authenticity, effort, and never giving up. Read more>>

Luna Lovelee

As a Burlesque performer, I noticed that alot of my showgirl colleagues were self identified “crazy cat ladies”, which is a group I consider my tribe as well! I have 4 rescue cats and they are my world.

I’ve always been a supporter of animal rescues, and donated here and there when I could, but I wasn’t involved with specific charities. While I was trying to rescue my now 4th cat Lucy, I was having a really hard time finding anyone to help me. She was this tiny kitten stuck in a car engine, and I didn’t know the owner. I just heard her tiny mews for 2 days straight while I frantically tried to get her out. I called the fire department and animal rescue, and both told me they couldn’t help me. But there was a tiny kitten in a car engine! I had to do something. Read more>>

Daisha Bates

The most meaningful project of my career so far as a Wardrobe Stylist has been working with R&B singer and songwriter, Nikki Hayes. I recently styled Nikki for a Pre- Grammy performance and after- party, and if someone told me even 6 months ago that I would have that experience so soon I wouldn’t have believed them but it was so special and meaningful for me. I began styling Nikki a few months ago, and the journey has been nothing short of incredible. As the first stylist she has ever worked with, we built her signature look from the ground up—establishing her color palette, defining her most flattering silhouettes, and refining her overall brand image as an artist. Our goal has been to ensure she shows up as her most confident, authentic, and empowered self in interviews, performances, and shows.Read more>> 

Ramon Theobald

The creation of an opera studio in Brazil is meant to provide a structured environment for young artists—something I didn’t have when I began developing my career as an opera pianist. Read more>>

Kymberlee Stanley

As a professional artist and psychotherapist who uses visual arts in her private practice, I am lucky to witness the way creativity and compassion can change people every day. In a way, creativity itself has been my expression of being a “hope merchant” to the world. Although I have been a licensed clinical social worker for over 20 years, I began pursuing professional oil painting seven years ago, at the age of 46. I first started painting for my own healing journey, as I was homesick for the California coast after moving to Nashville in 2012. As a native Southern Californian I had left my friends, family, and a mental health program that I loved to join my husband and daughter in a new world of the South-I was lonely and needed a way to process the change and grief. Read more>>

Kerry Lee

The most meaningful project I’ve ever worked on is “Ribbon Dance of Empowerment: Chinese Dance through the Eyes of an American,” a production I co-directed for the Atlanta Chinese Dance Company in 2019 inspired by my personal journey growing up Chinese American in the American South.

Like most other Chinese dance groups around the world, Atlanta Chinese Dance Company has historically presented choreography by and about China. As a Chinese American, I’ve found these dances to be simultaneously near to my heart culturally yet far removed from my life as an American. Through my work on staff at Alternate ROOTS (a regional arts service organization based in the South), I had the opportunity to meet artists and cultural organizers advocating for social change via community rooted art. This led me to the radical idea of using Chinese dance to share rarely told American stories. Read more>>

Actin’ Up

I have had the pleasure on working on several meaningful projects over the past year in particular but the peice that it has all lead to so far is Melanated Pole Fest. (MPF) This is the US’ first All BIPOC Pole Festival meaning every paid postions from back stage had to perfromers all the way to instructor and panlist were carefully curated to feature a multitude of BIPOC Humans. Read more>>

Nissa Sorenson

Like a necklace, my memory of covid lockdown is strung together. Each day feels small and round. Full, in a way. But with a hole…straight through it’s center. The bead of today sits next to the bead of yesterday. Somewhere, lost in the rows of pebbles, sits a pearl. Serene and hopeful. This was the day I drove across town to retrieve my old sewing machine, covered in dust in my parents basement. I gathered it in a blanket, like a baby lamb. I hadn’t seen my folks for many months. We sat in the living room and I read a poem through a hot mask. My mother pulled out her mountainous fabric collection and spoke four beautiful words…’take what you’d like.’ Although I didn’t know it at the time, this was the day I started my quilting-for-money journey. Read more>>

Elizabeth O’connor

For almost twenty years, I had walked past this garbage-strewn eyesore in my neighborhood: an abandoned lot in Woodside, Queens. It was an overgrown jungle of 7-foot tall invasive weeds covering much of the property, but I saw so much potential. As a new mother with a one-year-old and a full-time design job in EdTech, I thought, ‘Why not add another project to my roster?’ Read more>>

Little Tree And Alchemy

Feeling lost and void of a sense of self and direction, is a place artists find themselves often. I find this precipice to be daunting and most turn around and choose to follow a path along the edge before there is some “misfortune,” or unforeseen outside circumstance that pushes you up to and over the edge. I call the other side of this, “Oblivion,” and for me it represents what happens on the other side of the edge before landing, its the in-between the limerence of the old becoming new or taking flight. Being adopted as a baby, “pushed me over the edge,” from outside circumstances and dealt me that hand as a gift called life. I feel like being able to bring together and record a piece of art, with all the different time and threads that you have to weave to bring it out into the world it such a meaningful gift, and my song, “Oblivion,” was the beginning of this for me truly. Read more>>

Lee Dalton

Keeping plastic in any form out of landfill is a pillar of living sustainably. As a homeowner and an Executive Director of an environmental conservation organization, I found myself faced with the dilemma of adding a large amount of plastic debris to landfill from my summer landscaping project. My yard project was estimated to take 148 single-use plastic bags of mulch. I just couldn’t do it. I needed bulk mulch and finally found Green Box homes, a regenerative landscaping company in Tucker, GA, who was able to provide it, thus eliminating the need for pre-packaged, individual bags. Read more>>

Bret Raybould

I would say Race: The Movie: The Play has been the most meaningful project I’ve worked on. It had a very successful off-Broadway run. I got to work on it with a bunch of friends and fantastic creative collaborators. We took something that was just originally a joke between me and my co-writer and good friend Cristian Duran, and years later had a full show that sold out its last six performances at the Soho Playhouse. Read more>>

Heloise Wilson

I am currently working on a new production that will be part of the Tank’s new core season for the spring of 2025. I first wrote this play in 2017. It received a workshop production at Dixon Place and was directed by Ciara Griffrin.
“Astronauts Wanted”. Inspired by the Mars One Project, which aimed to send the first human beings to Mars. The play is multi-media driven, with projections. The piece is based on real-life interviews with the Mars One project participants and in collaboration with the scientific community. We follow three volunteers (Sol, Sorcha, and Tallulah) on their way to Mars. Playing with their fate, they push the boundaries of their own humanity and look deep within as they embark on a no-return mission. Read more>>

Hayes Geldmacher

My name is Hayes Geldmacher, and I am hopelessly in love with making horror games. For as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated by that dark pit in your gut, the one that only forms when the lights are off and the corners of your bedroom loom large in the dark. I first began making games as a clueless high schooler, watching coding tutorials and drawing level maps in my history textbook in a clumsy attempt to create experiences that captured the way It felt to be truly scared. Read more>>

Michelle Girardello

In my role as an artist assistant, I had the honor to assist Sheila Pepe last year on a public art crochet installation at Madison Square Park. To bring something this monumental, this soft, this queer, to the public space was so inspiring. Something I took from that space was the way Pepe brought the community together, encouraged everyone involved in the project to lean into what they were good at, play in that space. She brought together all kinds of folks from different backgrounds to crochet together, worked with the horticulture team and staff at the park to design an installation that would literally grow and change through the seasons. Read more>>

Twyla Wang

The most meaningful project for me is Opensourceism, which I founded 2 years ago. The core philosophy of Opensourceism as a brand is to oppose information monopolies, encourage people to break free from information cocoons, and promote equal information sharing, thereby truly advancing the democratization of information. Read more>>

Dustin Steuck

As an events coordinator working within an art museum, my role is client driven while also aligning under a mission that aims to serve broader audiences through community engagement. For me, finding meaning in every project I absorb is crucial toward a sustainable career and practice. Investing time to deepen connections with stakeholders strengthens our understanding of one another and how to set each other up for success. Life is an ever-evolving project and I look forward to welcoming new collaborators and lessons along the way. Read more>>

Nick Restivo

This question is difficult to answer because I have been involved in so many different bands, but if I have to choose one, I am going with my first “serious” band, Ourselves Alone. This project started out in a bit of a disjointed way. Originally, I had worked on some compositions with an old college friend of mine who was a very melodic bass player. He and I had bonded over a mutual love of post-rock and progressive music. We had jammed together throughout college, and after I graduated, we kept playing together with regularity. We had spent the better part of a year creating about an hour’s worth of music that flowed from one song into the next, and despite being a duo consisting of just bass guitar and drums, we had created a pretty engaging and melodic piece (I thought so, anyways). I think, due to the fact that we had created something that was so busy and self-sufficient, we found a challenge in getting a third member to touch the songs in the right way. Read more>>

Farah Kathwari

The most meaningful project I have worked on recently is the restoration and renovation of a classic mid century home in Mamaroneck, NY. The moment I saw the first photo of the house, I fell in love, even though the house was in a bad state of disrepair and neglect. I decided I would buy the house, restore it to the original architect’s intentions, and add spaces to make the house practical for modern living. Read more>>