People

is a director and new media artist. With a background in video, performance and interactive technology, he is most interested in exploring new methods of factual and fictional narrative. After graduating from Columbia University and studying at Trinity College Dublin’s School of Drama, Christopher worked first as an associate director for the visual arts and performance organization, Gale Gates et al and then as the founding partner and creative director for the New York based start-up Counts Media. Christopher founded UnionDocs in 2003 and is currently co-chairman of the board.

Johanna Linsley

creates projects in performance, text and sound which have been produced for venues and spaces around New York City, New England and Berlin. She’s interested in connecting a critical and political approach to an intuitive and sense-based artistic practice. She graduated from Smith College and is currently pursuing an MA in Performance at Queen Mary, University of London.

Jesse Shapins

is a media artist, urban researcher and design educator. Currently, he is pursuing a degree in the history and theory of urban representation in the Ph. D. program of the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Spring 2007, he was an Adjunct Professor at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, where he taught the seminar “Survey of Design Education Literature: History, Theory, Criticism & Practice”. He previously worked at the start-up Counts Media where he was a Co-Creator of Yellow Arrow. In 2005, he published “The Colors of Berlin” with his Berlin-based artist group Stadtblind and curated the festival “Loving Berlin.” He is also a contributing artist to Glowlab, the Brooklyn-based psychogeography network. He has been involved with UnionDocs as a member from the beginning, and is currently a Curator and Co-Chairman of the board. He graduated with a degree in Urban Studies from Columbia University.

DOCUMENTARY AUDIO PROGRAM DIRECTOR

Kara Oehler

creates audio stories. Her work has been featured on national and international public radio shows such as NPR’s RadioLab, Morning Edition and Day to Day, APM’s Weekend America and Marketplace and WBEZ’s Chicago Matters. Currently, she’s working on a the Song & Memory Series, with co-producer’s Ann Heppermann and Rick Moody, about people’s most vivid memories of music from childhood for Weekend America. Listen to Kara’s work at www.annkara.org.

OPERATIONS ASSISTANT

Amber Cortes

produces radio and other audio eccentricities- www.youneverknowradio.com. She has worked for the Village Voice, Listen Up!, and numerous documentary and feature films. Soon after discovering the glories of radio, Amber sacrificed a perfectly fine career working as a servant on mega yachts to produce the news at WBAI in New York . After a rewarding internship at the beloved WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show, she was hired to be the Operations Assistant at UD. And assist in operations she will. Can you please pass the dissecting forceps?

UDR RESIDENT CURATORS & PRODUCERS

Lila Dobbs

graduated from Hampshire College where she received her BA in literary journalism and cultural studies. She also holds a degree in non-fiction writing from the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies in Portland, Maine. Her passion for stories and abandonment for personal safety has taken her inside Israeli ambulances, on dogsleds in Maine and through Floridian Indian reservations. While she enjoys working in a variety of mediums and spaces, Lila currently dedicates her time to learning the ropes of audio documentary. Previous projects have included documentary work for Western Massachusetts’ Local Foods Initiative, WFCR Public Radio in Amherst, Massachusetts and Soft Skull Press in Brooklyn. Her favorite Mimo’s icees flavor is coconut.

Alan Hui-Bon-Hoa

is a graduate of the University of Washington, where he pursued an interdisciplinary background in cultural studies, critical theory, and mass media, earning a BA in Communication and a minor in Comparative History of Ideas. Alan is native of San Francisco, a characteristic often said to describe him. Prior to moving to New York, Alan lived abroad in Reykjavik, squatting in classrooms at the University of Iceland and reading sagas. While at UW, he served as Program Director for the University of Washington’s radio station. He does not like musicals.

Lindsay Napolitano

Lindsay Napolitano is a Brooklyn based media artist whose video works have been featured at Galapagos Art Space, the Jersey City Museum, and in “The Women’s Caucus for Art International New Media Showcase” 2007 (Barnard College), among others. She has worked on the award winning documentary Crossing Arizona(Rainlake Productions); Follow My Voice: With the Music of Hedwig (Sundance); and Sex: The Revolution, a four part documentary series currently airing on VH1 & the Sundance channel. Lindsay is the Founder/President of the media services company, Right Brain Media, LLC. Most recently she has been working with acclaimed Producer/Director Dana Heinz Perry on the feature documentary, Boy Interrupted, a Perry Films, HBO co-production premiering at the Sundance Film Festival 2009. This summer Lindsay will be beginning her residency with Union Docs, and completing her first children’s book for adults.

Sarah Lawson

graduated from the University of Virginia with a degree in Media Studies. She went on to co-found a film series dedicated to experimental and classic film in Charlottesville, Virginia. She traveled to Spain, Hong Kong, Italy, and Canada before finally settling in New York. Now she’s indulging one of other interests - books - by doing design work for a publishing house.

Lily Henderson

has been doing film and photography for the past eight years, working predominately as a Cinematographer. In still and moving image, she is constantly intrigued by the intricate stillnesses and vulnerabilities of people in their surroundings. It is because of this interest that Lily shapes her work. Her films include: Associate, an experimental short that looks into memory and personal associations with everyday objects (winner of Best Hampshire College Film in the 2004 Five College Film Festival); March for Women’s Lives, a 16 mm short that focuses on the crowd ambience in the 2004 March for Women’s Lives held in Washington, D.C; and most recently, Elderhood: Reports From an Unknown Country, a bittersweet feature-length documentary film that presents and explores the question: how do people of all ages view their own old self? Aside from working on her own films, Lily worked as a cinematographer for Director Joan Braderman on her newest film The Heretics. The Heretics is a feature length documentary about women who worked on The Heresies publication– a magazine published by feminists during the 1970’s – and how these women feminists live and think in today’s world. Lily has also worked for East Hampton’s Public Television and Plum TV producing topical news segments and was floor manager for Plum TV, then in its start-up phase, New York (also located in Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket and Vale, Colorado). Lily received her Bachelor of Arts Degree in Documentary Film from Hampshire College.

PREVIOUS INTERNS & ASSOCIATES

Travis Johnston

is a visual artist pursuing a degree in Cinema and Photography at Ithaca College. His work, although varied in ideological and theoretical content, primarily explores concepts surrounding that of spectatorship.

Gabriela Duran

was born in Mexico and raised in Bolivia. After graduating form high school, she moved to the US to get a bachelor’s degree in Anthropology from the University of Maryland. It hasn’t been too long since she moved to New York, where she is pursuing a master’s degree in Media and Film Studies at the New School. She will be graduating soon and plans to move back to South America to work on several of her documentary ideas.

Stephanie Morales

is an educator, media maker, and activist with an interest in documentary film and education. After graduating from Middlebury College with a degree in women’s studies and film she travelled for a year on a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship in Latin America compiling footage for a documentary about women in positions of leadership. She has taught classes to youth on community organizing, film and activism, feminism, and leadership.

Alex Marvar

is a writer and photographer. She graduated from Vassar College and the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. You can see some of Alex’s work at www.alexmarvar.com

Ryan Quigley

studies graphic design at Parsons School of Design.

PREVIOUS RESIDENTS

Christy Wiles

graduated from Reed College, in Portland, Oregon, with a degree in Spanish Literature. She wrote her Senior Thesis on Mexican photographer, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, and Mexican author, Octavio Paz. During the summer of 2006, she received the Initiative Grant for Undergraduate Research, which allowed her to travel to Mexico City and examine primary source materials relating to her Thesis. Christy recently moved to New York and is beginning to find her way around the city.

Hillevi Loven

is pursuing an MFA in Integrated Media Arts at Hunter College.

Nate Fisher

is pursuing an MA in Media Studies with a specialization in documentary film at the New School University.

Serdar Paktin

is a Fulbright scholar who will do his master’s degree on Liberal Studies in The New School for Social Research.

Matthew Amonson

attended San Francisco State University where he majored in Cinema Production. As a Filmmaker/Animator/Editor, his short films have screened at numerous festivals around the country, including the Tribeca Film Festival. Check out his website www.nosnoma.com.

Kerstin Braetsch

is a painter. She was born in Hamburg, and studied Fine Arts at the University of the Arts in Berlin. She traveled to New York on a Fulbright Scholarship and she recently received an MFA from Columbia University’s School of the Arts.

Whitney Duncan

is currently pursuing a PhD in Anthropology at UC San Diego. She also has a degree in English from Columbia University. See some of her writing at tierrasagrada37.

Matt Earp

is a rising second year master’s student at Berkeley’s School of Information. He received his undergraduate degree from Wesleyan University in Direction and Sound Design for Theater, with further concentrations in Electronic Music and Photography. He is interested in how communication technology is (and isn’t) changing the social practices that surround musicians and the spread of music and musical cultures, as well as law and policy that are effected by current changes. Matt is also a music journalist for XLR8R magazine, a blogger, a event promoter, and DJs as Kid Kameleon, and he pushes Jamaican-influenced music at the extreme ends of the dance and electronic spectrums.

Stine Exler

is part of the New School University’s graduate certificate in Documentary Media Studies program on a Dean’s Scholarship.

Katrina Grigg-Saito

is currently pursuing a master’s degree in anthropology at Boston University. As a writer and actress she performed regionally and throughout New York, off- and off-off Broadway.

Paul Kiel

is reporter/editor for the nationally-recognized and widely-cited political blog TPM Muckraker. He also writes essays and poetry and has worked for numerous print publications including Harper’s Magazine. He graduated from Columbia University.

Vanessa Liberati

is a photographer, curator and designer. She currently runs the Brooklyn gallery Gitana Rosa.

Justin Lin

is a photographer and curator of the Adolescent Sessions. He has been creating singular images for the better part of six years, focusing on the absurd and sublime moments in our lives’ daily fiction. His photographs are a penetrating sutdy of light and geometry, deftly exploring a wide range of subjects with a provocative eye. An East Coast native, Justin was raised in D.C. and studied at the Glasgow School of Art before launching his own Brooklyn-based studio. Check out his photography at www.justinwilliamlin.com.

Pejk Malinovski

went to a Marxist kindergarten in his hometown of Copenhagen. He is a poet, translator and radio producer. He has made radio drama, conceptual documentaries and sound art pieces for the National Danish radio, BBC’s Radio 4 and WNYC. For more info, visit Pejk’s Notes.

Timothy Phillips

studied architecture at Yale University. He is currently involved with creative and business projects in Brooklyn and Manhattan.

Hilke Schellmann

while working towards a master’s degree in Cultural Theory/ Aesthetics in her native Germany, received a Fulbright grant to study at NYU’s Graduate School of Arts & Science. In New York, Hilke took lead roles on several film projects, including commissioned films for Planned Parenthood documenting the March for Women’s Lives in Washington D.C. and in New York City. Hilke also freelanced for WNYC’s nationally syndicated arts and culture magazine, Studio 360. Now back in Berlin, Hilke is pursuing her own documentary projects and has a position at the German-American documentary production company Story House Productions, producing 45-minute films for a national German cable channel.

Wendy Sharbutt

lived for 9 years in Japan, and returned to New York City, where she is a DJ.

Stephanie Skaff

develops performance projects that are often influenced by her interest in proletariat stories, her teenage years as a performer in musicals in Ohio, and her curiosity about the diverse possibilities for live art. Check out her website www.stephanieskaff.com.

Brian Wengrofsky

studied film at SUNY Purchase is a documentary filmmaker and cameraman. He has worked in New York for over a decade and was recently cinematographer for the Emmy-award winning feature The Lion Sleeps Tonight.