2018 Visionaries Luncheon

Zoë Buckman (b. 1985 Hackney, East London) is a multi-disciplinary artist working in sculpture, installation, and photography, exploring themes of Feminism, mortality, and equality. Buckman’s work has been shown in solo exhibitions including Heavy Rag, at Albertz Benda, New York, Let Her Rave at Gavlak Gallery Los Angeles, Imprison Her Soft Hand at Project for Empty Space, Newark; Every Curve at PAPILLION ART, Los Angeles; and Present Life at Garis & Hahn Gallery, New York. Buckman has shown in group exhibitions internationally including the Camden Arts Centre, London, The Studio Museum in Harlem, The Children’s Museum of the Arts, Paul Kasmin Gallery NY, Goodman Gallery South Africa, Jack Shainman Gallery NY, Monique Meloche Chicago, NYU Florence Italy, Grunwald Art Gallery, Indiana University, and the Democratic National Convention, Philadelphia, the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, Atlanta, GA and The National Museum of African-American History & Culture, Washington, DC, The Tarble Arts Center, Illinois, The Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, and The Centre Regional D’Art Contemporain, Sete France. Buckman was a featured artist at Pulse Projects New York 2014 and Miami 2016, and was included in the curated Soundscape Park at Art Basel Miami Beach 2016. The artist completed an artist residency at Mana Contemporary. Public works include a mural, We Hold These Truths To Be Self-Evident, in collaboration with Natalie Frank at the Ford Foundation Gallery of New York Live Arts in Chelsea. In February 2018 Buckman unveiled her first Public Sculpture presented by Art Production Fund on Sunset Blv, Los Angeles, a large scale outdoor version of her neon sculpture Champ, which will rotate on the strip for a year. Buckman studied at the International Center of Photography (ICP), was awarded an Art Matters Grant in 2017, and lives and works in Brooklyn.    

Jayma Cardoso is a Brazilian-born entrepreneur, hospitality visionary, and creative director known for creating some of the most influential lifestyle destinations of the past two decades. After moving to New York at age 17, she built her career from the ground up, eventually co-founding the iconic nightlife venue Cain and becoming a partner in several celebrated hospitality concepts. In 2008, she founded The Surf Lodge in Montauk, transforming a modest motel into a globally recognized destination for music, art, wellness, and culture. She later expanded her vision with The Snow Lodge in Aspen. Widely recognized for anticipating cultural trends and creating immersive experiences, Jayma has become one of hospitality’s most influential innovators, bringing together artists, entrepreneurs, and tastemakers from around the world.

Photo: Ben Watts

Marcela Sapone is the co-founder and CEO of Hello Alfred. Through Alfred, she has redefined urban living and become a staunch advocate for pro-human, pro-labor policies. She is among the first founders in the sharing economy to write on the importance of meaningful work and a meaningful income for employees. As a thought leader, she worked with the Brookings Institute and the Secretary of Labor. She also worked at the White House under the Obama Administration to make this a reality. Named one of Goldman Sachs’ “most intriguing entrepreneurs” and a winner of TechCrunch Disrupt SF, Marcela's work has not gone unrecognized. She was also nominated for the Financial Times’ ArcelorMittal Boldness in Business Award, as well as Fast Company’s Most Creative People list. She was the face of Consumer Tech for Forbes 30 Under 30. Marcela holds an MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School. Prior to founding Hello Alfred, she began her career as a consultant at McKinsey & Company. She then moved to working in private equity. Marcela co-created WHITESPACE, a seed-stage venture fund.

Andrea Grover is a curator, writer, and nonprofit arts leader with 25+ years of experience with socially engaged and interdisciplinary artistic practices. She is the Executive Director of Guild Hall, a historic civic arts institution in East Hampton, NY, founded during the Great Depression with a mission to build a better society through the arts. From 2022–25, she led a transformative renovation of the Guild Hall campus, modernizing its 1930s-era infrastructure to support contemporary performance, exhibition, and education. She simultaneously created an interdisciplinary program team that provides thought partners for new works like the recently developed First Literature Project (Shinnecock language revitalization in VR) by Wunetu Wequai Tarrant and Christian Scheider.

Grover began her career in community-centered art by founding Aurora Picture Show, Houston, in 1998, a nonprofit moving image art center originally located in her home, a converted church in the Sunset Heights. Her curatorial focus has long included artist-led experiments in public space, alternative infrastructures, and cross-disciplinary inquiry. While Curator of Special Projects at the Parrish Art Museum, she launched initiatives such as Parrish Road Show, Platform and PechaKucha Night Hamptons, and received a Tremaine Foundation grant and ADAA Curatorial Award for Radical Seafaring, a landmark exhibition of artists creating works on the water. At Carnegie Mellon University, she curated 29 Chains to the Moon and Intimate Science, exhibitions about artists’ solutions for global problems.

Through her writing and curating, she frequently engages themes of art, science, and social change. She has served on panels for the Pew, Rauschenberg, and Pulitzer Foundations, and taught at the University of Houston and Texas Southern University. She is a past fellow of the Warhol Foundation, Center for Curatorial Leadership, and Core Program at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. She holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BFA from Syracuse University.

http://www.andreagrover.com/

Photo: Sean Zanni/PMc