Catherine Gund (panelist) is the Founder of Aubin Pictures, Gund is an Emmy-nominated producer, director, writer, and activist. Her media work focuses on strategic and sustainable social transformation, arts and culture, HIV/AIDS and reproductive health, and the environment. Gund’s most recent projects include: Dispatches from Cleveland, a five-chapter documentary that looks at the police murder of 12-year-old Tamir Rice; and Chavela, a documentary about the life of the iconic Latin-American gender-bending diva, Chavela Vargas. Her past films include America, Born to Fly, What’s On Your Plate?, A Touch of Greatness, Motherland Afghanistan, Making Grace, On Hostile Ground, and Hallelujah! Ron Athey, which have screened around the world in festivals, theaters, museums, and schools; on PBS the Discovery Channel, Sundance Channel, Netflix, and Amazon.
Mae Hong (moderator) leads the Chicago office of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors and is responsible for serving individual donors, families, foundations, and corporations throughout the Midwest. In addition to providing high-touch, custom services to help clients manage their charitable giving, develop effective strategies, and discover the joy in their philanthropic journey, she is also a frequent speaker and writer about issues, trends, and ideas in philanthropy.
With nearly 25 years of nonprofit and philanthropy experience, she previously served as Program Director at the Field Foundation of Illinois. Her funding expertise includes children, youth, and families; poverty alleviation; women’s and girls’ issues; and advocacy. She has also been actively involved in RPA’s leadership on the issue of diversity in philanthropy. Prior to entering the nonprofit sector, she worked in the publishing industry for several years.
Mae currently serves as the board chair of Illinois Humanities and is on the board of the Council on Foundations. Other leadership affiliations include the Advisory Board of the Lake Institute on Faith and Giving at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University, and Leadership Council of the Dorothy A. Johnson Center at Grand Valley State University. She completed her graduate work in social service administration at The University of Chicago and is a graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.
Maria Gaspar (panelist) is an interdisciplinary artist whose work addresses issues of spatial justice in order to amplify, mobilize, or divert structures of power through individual and collective gestures. Through installation, sculpture, sound, and performance, Gaspar’s practice situates itself within historically marginalized sites and spans multiple formats, scales, and durations to produce liberatory actions. Gaspar’s projects have been supported by the Art for Justice Fund, the Robert Rauschenberg Artist as Activist Fellowship, the Creative Capital Award, the Joan Mitchell Emerging Artist Grant, and the Art Matters Foundation.
Maria has received the Sor Juana Women of Achievement Award in Art and Activism from the National Museum of Mexican Art, and the Chamberlain Award for Social Practice from the Headlands Center for the Arts. Gaspar has exhibited extensively at venues including the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX; the Luminary, St. Louis, MO; MoMA PS1, New York, NY; and has led a decade’s long social practice project inside and outside Cook County Jail, Chicago.
She is an Associate Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, holds an MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and a BFA from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY.
Terrence Bogans (panelist) is the Program Officer for the criminal justice strategy of the Art for Justice Fund. His primary focus is the Fund’s grantmaking function, working closely with the Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors program staff to ensure effective implementation of grant protocol and monitoring grant awards, and maintaining consistent contact and communication with the Fund’s grantee partners.
Terrence comes to the Fund after years of both direct representation and policy-level advocacy within the criminal justice reform space. Most recently, Terrence was the Director of Bail Operations at the Brooklyn Community Bail Fund (BCBF), a nonprofit organization that pays bail for low-income New Yorkers. There he managed all aspects of bail payment, oversaw client referrals, and supervised a team of associates. Prior to BCBF, Terrence was a Public Defender at Brooklyn Defender Services, representing hundreds of clients per year.
He holds a B.A. in Psychology and Sociology from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, along with a J.D. from the University of North Carolina School of Law. He is also a member of the New York State Bar Association.
Xaviera Simmons (panelist) sweeping body of work includes photography, performance, choreography, video, sound, sculpture, and installation. Simmons received her BFA from Bard College (2004) after spending two years on a walking pilgrimage retracing the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade with Buddhist Monks. She completed the Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Program in Studio Art (2005) while simultaneously completing a two-year actor-training conservatory with The Maggie Flanigan Studio, NY. Simmons’ works are in major museum and private collections including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Deutsche Bank, New York; UBS, New York; The Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Agnes Gund Art Collection, New York; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; The Studio Museum in Harlem; ICA Miami; Perez Art Museum Miami; The Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro; The Nasher Museum of Art, Durham; The High Museum, Atlanta; among many others. She was a visiting lecturer and the Solomon Fellow at Harvard University (2020) and has been awarded The Charles Flint Kellogg Award in Arts and Letters from Bard College this summer. This fall and winter 2021 Simmons will have works on view at Socrates Sculpture Park, NY, Times Square NY, Columbia University, and The Moody Gallery at Rice University among many other exhibitions.
