This Land Contributors

Donnell Alexander is a Portland-based creator of cultural content whose writing and commentary has been featured in Time, Al Jazeera's Inside Story, and Narrative Global Politics (Routledge, 2016). He authored the 2003 memoir Ghetto Celebrity and co-produced the 2009 animated short “Dock Ellis & the LSD No-No.”

Tojo Andrianarivo is a freelance photographer and graphic designer who has worked in a variety of industries including retail, entertainment, software, and nonprofit organizations. He specializes in portraiture and also does live music coverage for local and national media outlets. 

Ezra Marcos Ayala is a commercial and editorial photographer whose clients have included PlayStation, Southern Oregon University, the New York Times, and Travel Medford. He is a husband and father of three who drives a twenty-four-year-old Mercedes, likes hot weather year round, and lives in Ashland, Oregon.

Ifanyi Bell is a storyteller and artist whose Emmy-nominated work as a producer for various NPR and PBS stations spans subject matter ranging from education to science to arts and culture. Currently, Ifanyi serves as the director of video content for Narrative.ly, a nonfiction storytelling platform based in New York City. He is also the cofounder of Brushfire Creative Partners based in Portland.

Kelly Bosworth is a folk Americana singer-songwriter raised on family jam sessions and classical music. Kelly has toured nationally, and her single "Waters" from her self-titled debut album hit number seven on the folk DJ charts in 2014. She is currently pursuing a master's in ethnomusicology from Indiana University. She contributed the music in the audio pieces for “Earth on Fire.”

Nisha Burton is a creative filmmaker with thirteen years of experience in film production, editing, and graphic design. She blends animation, digital effects, and cinematography to incorporate an element of magical realism into all of her projects. She screens her films in both international film festivals and educational environments.

Jessy Damon, creator and leader of MidSun Productions, is a freelance audio engineer. She works in both live sound and in-studio sessions and across many musical genres. Currently, Jessy works with KBOO Community Radio and can be found engineering live music at various bars and pubs around the Portland area.

Christine Dupres is a writer, teacher, and citizen of the Cowlitz Tribe. She is the author of the recently published Being Cowlitz: How One Tribe Renewed and Sustained Its Identity (University of Washington Press), and is working on an upcoming book entitled Land and Being. Dupres has a PhD in folklore and folklife from the University of Pennsylvania.

Zahir Janmohamed is the cohost of the Racist Sandwich, a podcast about food, race, gender and class. He is also a fellow at Kundiman, which supports Asian American writers, and is the recipient of this year’s Katherine Bakeless Award in Fiction at the Bread Loaf Writers Conference in Vermont. From 2015 to 2017, he lived in Portland. He is now based in Columbus, Ohio. 

Melissa Lewis is the data editor of the Oregonian and a Portland organizer of PyLadies, an international organization dedicated to teaching women the Python programming language. Previously, she was a data engineer at Simple and a data scientist at Periscopic.

Ivy C. Lin is originally from Taipei, Taiwan. She became a Portlander in 2002 and has been telling Portland’s lesser-known stories through video since 2007. Ivy’s films have been screened at festivals throughout the Northwest, including “Beauty & the Sea,” which won Best Documentary Short at the Northwest Filmmakers’ Festival in 2015.

Putsata Reang is an award-winning Cambodian American journalist and author, and a graduate of University of Oregon's School of Journalism. Her work has appeared in publications including the New York Times, the Guardian, and Mother Jones. She is currently at work on a memoir about her family's experience fleeing the genocide in Cambodia.

Luis Rodriguez is a native Oregonian, born and raised in the Rogue Valley. He owns LUI-G Films, which specializes in commercial video and narrative films. As a passionate filmmaker, he strives to deliver captivating stories through all media platforms.

Donovan Smith is a journalist, creator, and owner of the clothing line Ignorant/Reflections.

Sika Stanton is an award-winning photographer and digital content producer based in Portland. She primarily works on short films and photography projects. She grew up in rural Maine and is a graduate of Stanford University.

Ryan Sullivan is a graphic designer at Paste in Place—an information design studio focusing on thoughtful, creative design for data visualizations, illustrations, maps, and pictograms. He primarily works on projects concerning transportation, urban planning, and the built environment.