George Emilio Sanchez is a writer and performance artist. He created a 24-hour ‘performance filibuster’ on gun violence and gun culture in the United States called Bang Bang Gun Amok at Abrons Arts. This marathon event brought together artists, activists and survivors to create a public space where everyone could acknowledge the trauma of gun violence while addressing how gun culture is historically embedded in our society. Bang Bang Gun Amok II was re-enacted on December 14-15, 2018 at University Settlement. He has been named a Social Practice Artist-in-Residence by Abrons Arts for 2018-2020. For the past 12 years, he has directed EmergeNYC, a program that explores the intersection of arts and activism. In conjunction with Sanchez’s residency, Dixon Place is commissioning a new work, XIV, which will have its world premiere at DP in June 2019. The production will launch his series, Performing the Constitution.

Jimmie Briggs is a documentary storyteller, writer and advocate for racial and gender equity. A member of the New York City Mayor’s Gender Equity Commission, he is also an adjunct professor in social change journalism at the International Center of Photography in New York. He was the co-founder and executive director emeritus of Man Up Campaign, a globally-focused organisation to activate youth to stop violence against women and girls. This led to his selection as the winner of the 2010 GQ Magazine ‘Better Men Better World’ search, and as one of the Women’s eNews ‘21 Leaders for the 21st Century’. Jimmie has served as an adjunct professor of investigative journalism at the New School for Social Research, and was a George A Miller Visiting Professor in the Department of African and African-American Studies at the University of Illinois: Champaign-Urbana. His 2005 book Innocents Lost: When Child Soldiers Go To War took readers into the lives of war-affected children around the world. Jimmie’s next book project is an oral history of Ferguson, Missouri in the wake of Michael Brown’s death in 2014, to be published in 2020. Jimmie holds a Medal of Distinction from Barnard College.