Creative Capital Announces New Board Members
Creative Capital is pleased to announce the election of new Directors of the Board and National Advisory Council members. At its summer 2023 Board meeting, the following director appointments were made: Raven Chacon (2012 Creative Capital Awardee), Kristina Wong (2006 Creative Capital Awardee), Grace Oh, and Corey Robinson, in addition to Sekka Scher as new National Advisory Council member.
“I was immediately drawn to Creative Capital artists—the range of innovative ideas as well as their multidisciplinary practices. To me, what is interesting is learning about the new projects, meeting the alumni artists, and connecting with this vibrant and growing community,” said Grace Oh, Creative Capital Board Member
“As Creative Capital approaches the 25th Anniversary of our founding, it is essential that our Board reflect diverse views and skills that add depth to the governance of Creative Capital,” said Reginald M. Browne, Chair of Creative Capital. “I am honored to welcome Raven, Kristina, Grace, and Corey to the Board of Directors. I am also pleased Sekka Scher will be joining our National Advisory Council. It is essential that our Board of Directors and National Advisory Council mirrors the national community of artists we serve, as we support transformational work across artistic disciplines and serve artists in their careers.”
“We are delighted to welcome the wise counsel, deep knowledge, and generous support of Corey, Grace, Kristina, Raven, and Sekka as we enhance the services and infrastructure of our organization for trailblazing artists across the country,” said Christine Kuan, President & Executive Director, Creative Capital.
Since 1999, Creative Capital has been dedicated to funding underserved, marginalized, risk-taking artists through a democratic, national, open-call grantmaking process. The diverse backgrounds of the governing body reflects Creative Capital’s commitment to supporting artists in the visual arts, performing arts, technology, film, literature, socially engaged and multidisciplinary forms. The organization is also known for its commitment to providing professional advisory support and long-term scaffolding for artists, including financial guidance, legal counsel, and strategic planning services. The new members of the Board and National Advisory Council bring expertise in business, theater, music, visual arts, and enhanced representation of Asian, Indigenous, and Black communities from the West Coast, Southwest, and East Coast.
Creative Capital continues to spearhead innovative ways to realize groundbreaking projects by boundary-pushing artists across the country. The organization continues to invest in experimentation, community-building, and responsive artist services that adapt to the changing needs of artists today.
About Raven Chacon (Awardee Board Member)
Raven Chacon is a 2012 Creative Capital Awardee and the first Indigenous composer to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2021. Born in Fort Defiance, Navajo Nation, AZ, he has recorded and performed works for classical and electronic instruments with ensembles nationally and abroad. Chacon received an MFA in music composition from the California Institute of the Arts. He has taught in the music and Native American studies departments at the University of New Mexico and has been a visiting artist in the New Media Art & Performance program at Long Island University. He is composer-in-residence for the Native American Composers Apprenticeship Project and is a founding member of the First Nations Composers Initiative. In fall of 2023 Chacon will be joining Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation as Visiting Faculty.
About Kristina Wong (Awardee Board Member)
Kristina Wong is a 2006 Creative Capital Awardee and Doris Duke Artist Award winner, Guggenheim Fellow, and a Pulitzer Prize finalist in Drama. She’s a performance artist, comedian, actor and writer who has been presented internationally across North America, the UK, Hong Kong and Africa. She’s been a guest on late night shows on NBC, Comedy Central, and FX. Her commentaries have appeared on American Public Media’s Marketplace, PBS, VICE, Jezebel, Playgirl Magazine, Huffington Post and CNN. She’s been awarded artist residencies from MacDowell, San Diego Airport and Ojai Playwrights Festival. She is concurrently the Artist-in-Residence at ASU Gammage and the Kennedy Center Social Practice Resident until 2026. Her work has been awarded with support from Creative Capital, The MAP Fund, Center for Cultural Innovation, National Performance Network, a COLA Master Artist Fellowship from the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, nine Los Angeles Artist-in-Residence awards, Center Theatre Group’s Sherwood Award, the Art Matters Foundation, and the Joan D. Firestone Commissioning Fund from En Garde Arts. Her recent “Kristina Wong for Public Office” was simultaneously a real life stint as the elected Sub-district 5 representative of Wilshire Center Koreatown Neighborhood Council and rally campaign show. That show was filmed for Center Theater Group’s Digital Stage. She’s created and directed original theater works with residents of LA’s Skid Row, the Bus Riders Union, undocumented immigrants, and most recently the formerly incarcerated Asian Pacific Islanders members of API Rise. Kristina founded Auntie Sewing Squad, a national mutual aid network of volunteers that sewed cloth masks for vulnerable communities during the Covid pandemic. Their book The Auntie Sewing Squad Guide to Mask Making, Radical Care and Racial Justice is published by the University of California Press. Her role in the Auntie Sewing Squad is the subject of “Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord”— a “New York Times Critics Pick” that premiered off-Broadway at New York Theater Workshop. The show won the Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Lucille Lortel Awards for “Outstanding Solo Performance.”
About Grace Oh (Board Member)
Grace Oh is the Managing Director of Formation Association, an award-winning LA based firm practicing architecture as an expansive cultural project, and an advocate for intersectional contemporary art across various cultural organizations in Los Angeles. She is the Chair of the board of directors for Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), the longest running artist created non-profit in Los Angeles, and a co-founder of AAPI Arts Network, a growing art collective working to bring visibility and engagement for the Asian American Pacific Islander community in arts. She also serves on the board of GYOPO, a collective of diasporic Korean Cultural producers and arts professionals and the Indonesian Dance Festival, a biennial festival showcasing Indonesia’s contemporary dance ecosystem. If you’re looking for Grace, she can usually be found at various openings, talks, and happenings across the cultural landscape of Los Angeles.
About Corey Robinson (Board Member)
Corey Robinson works for NBC Sports as a host and reporter on a variety of properties ranging from the Olympics and Paralympics to college basketball and football. He rows for the New York Athletic Club and is a member of the Artists Council at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Prior to joining NBCUniversal, he interned at Gagosian and worked at Sotheby’s.
About Sekka Scher (National Advisory Council Member)
Sekka Scher is a talent manager and the co-founder of Ellipsis Entertainment. She has launched and cultivated the careers of multiple Oscar and Emmy winners/nominees. Prior to becoming a manager, Sekka worked for celebrated filmmakers Merchant/Ivory. In 1995 Sekka was part of the first group of women permitted to fight in the New York Daily News Golden Gloves, where she won silver gloves in a nationally televised fight against a Rikers Island prison guard at Madison Square Garden. Sekka is also on the board of trustees at Bennington College where she launched the Spencer Cox ’90 Field Work Term Fellowship for Public Action. A fourth generation New Yorker, Sekka lives in NYC with her husband, lawyer Steven Williams, and daughter Sydney.
About Creative Capital
Founded in 1999 in response to the NEA discontinuing its grants to individual artists, Creative Capital’s mission is to advance artistic freedom of expression by funding underserved, risk-taking artists in the creation of new work. Known as the “gold standard in artist support,” Creative Capital awards grants via a democratic, national open call process, and provides grantees with professional development, peer mentorship, and community building resources. To date, $55 million in grants and services have been awarded to over 900 artists to create radical new work in the visual arts, performing arts, film, technology, literature, and multidisciplinary and socially engaged forms. More than 75 percent of Creative Capital awardees in recent years identify as artists of color, LGBTQIA+, women, and artists with disabilities, and its education programs have served more than 80,000 artists globally.