Creative Capital

PDP Staff

Alyson Pou, Program Director
Alyson Pou has been making installation and performance work for more than 20 years. With a background in visual art, dance and writing, her work combines movement, text and objects. She has performed, exhibited and lectured at museums, galleries, art centers and colleges around the country. Pou's work has been presented by Danspace Project at St. Mark's Church, Performance Space 122, Franklin Furnace, The New Museum, Artists Space, Threadwaxing Space, Snug Harbor Cultural Center, Creative Time, Dixon Place, HERE and The Downtown Performance Festival. She is the recipient of a New York Dance and Performance "Bessie" Award as a Choreographer/Creator. She has received fellowships from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the American Antiquarian Society and has served on both organizations' artist advisory and selection committees. In 2006, Voice and Vision Theatre awarded Pou one of five ENVISION professional artist residencies at Bard College to develop her play A Slight Headache. She has received grants from Art Matters, Inc. and The Franklin Furnace Fund, a fellowship from the NEA Inter-arts Program and the Henderson Award for Poetry.

Pou has taught classes on the history of performance art and has led workshops and classes for multimedia performance production at NYU, Cooper Union and The New School for Social Research in New York City, and at Williams College and Smith College in Massachusetts. She was the Director of Programming and Public Relations at Creative Time, Inc. from 1985 to 1997. Pou has lectured extensively on temporary public art and the innovative projects that Creative Time presented. She has many years of experience as a grantmaking panelist for agencies including the New York State Council on the Arts and the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs.

Pou has been passionately committed to capacity- and community-building for individual artists throughout her career. For more than 20 years, she has been an advocate for artists' rights and has led support and focus groups for artists of all disciplines. An interview with her about fundraising for individual artists appears in Margaret Lazzari's The Practical Handbook for the Emerging Artist. You can visit Pou's website at alysonpou.com to find out more about her work.

Krista Fabian DeCastro, Senior Workshop Manager
Krista Fabian DeCastro is an arts manager and producer specializing in international cultural exchange and festival and event production. Before joining Creative Capital in 2007, she served as Program Director of Robert Wilson's Watermill Center, a summer retreat program for more than 100 artists from more than 30 countries in Southampton, New York. From 2001 to 2004, she managed the International Programming department at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC, where she co-curated the annual AmericArts festival of Latin American performing, visual and film arts. From 1997 to 2001, she worked at 651ARTS in Brooklyn, where she managed Africa Exchange, a program that supported collaborative exchanges between contemporary performing artists in the United States and Africa. She has worked to provide increased opportunities for artists from Africa and Latin America in the U.S., increase Americans' understanding of the cultures of these areas and support international cultural development initiatives. DeCastro holds a BA from The New School and an MA in arts administration from Columbia University. She has studied at the University of Ghana, Legon, and at the Central European University in Budapest. She has guest lectured in international cultural exchange and international presenting at Duke University, Brooklyn College and the Marché des Arts du Spectacle Africain. DeCastro is co-author of African Artists in the United States: A Handbook for Presenting and Exchange.

Amanda Berlin Knapp, Manager of Program Administration
Amanda Berlin Knapp has a background in program management, fundraising and communications as well as studio art and art history. Prior to joining Creative Capital, Amanda worked at MIT's Sloan School of Business as a manager for executive education programs, offering continuing education opportunities to business professionals, and at MIT's School of Science, where she managed development communications and events. Previously, she worked at Tina Kim Gallery, which specializes in contemporary art and emerging Korean artists, and Vintage20, a mid-century furniture and design dealer. Amanda holds a BA in studio art and art history from the University of Virginia and an MA in contemporary art from the Sotheby’s Institute in London. She is currently pursuing her MA in management at the Harvard University Extension School.

Michele Kong, Workshop & Special Projects Manager
Michele Kong is a visual artist whose artwork spans several disciplines including video, sculpture, installation and drawing. Michele is currently working on a feature-length artistic documentary Keeping A Balance: The Legacy of Shigemori Mirei, which was conceived while she was in Japan from 2009-10 as a JUSFC Creative Artist Exchange Fellow. Michele has exhibited at a variety of art venues, including PS1 Contemporary Art Center (NY), Arlington Arts Center (VA), Maryland Art Place and Numark Gallery (DC), and presented solo exhibitions at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts and Bucknell University’s Samek Art Gallery. Michele received a 2006 Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant, and several residency programs have supported her work, including the Fine Arts Work Center, The MacDowell Colony, Sculpture Space, Ucross Foundation and Yaddo. Michele has also worked on independent and commercial productions; gained experience in government funding, arts non-profits and galleries; and taught at several universities in the mid-Atlantic region.

Marty Snyder, Program Assistant
Martin Snyder is a playwright and screenwriter, currently working on his feature film debut, Missed Connections. Past works include: The Approval, Manifest, You've Reached The White House, Styrofoam Soul (starring Norman Reedus, Jocelin Donahue and Brady Corbet), The Game of Kings, Switch Hitter and Gordo Roy. A special reading of his play Goose at the Atlantic Theater was produced by Tony Award winner Duncan Sheik (Spring Awakening) and starred Tony Award winner Ron Holgate (1776). Before joining Creative Capital and the Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts part-time, he worked as a media and entertainment investment banker for Merrill Lynch, and founded the independent record label Gables Records. Martin holds a bachelors in economics from Columbia University. He is represented by International Creative Management.