Office of the Vice President for the Arts
Showing 51-70 of 70 Results
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Haein Shim
Ida Content Intern, Institute for Diversity in the Arts
Undergraduate, Vice Provost for Undergraduate EducationBioHaein Shim is an activist, documentary producer, journalist, and photojournalist, dedicated to women’s rights and to pursuing truth and social justice through the power of visual storytelling.
Her over 50 published bylines have appeared in numerous international media outlets including TIME, The Economist, NPR, and Vice. Shim has also appeared to provide expert commentary on women’s rights issues in South Korea on global news platforms such as CNN, The Guardian, and Al Jazeera English. Her story as a feminist activist challenging beauty standards can be found in journalist Elise Hu’s book Flawless: Lessons in Looks and Culture from the K-Beauty Capital. Her feminist artwork “I’m Not a Doll, I’m a Person” was selected for the Hallyu! The Korean Wave exhibition, and has been displayed at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, and in its current display at the National Museum of Australia.
In 2023, she was a guest lecturer in a webinar at GADIP (Gender and Development in Practice) in Sweden titled “Gender in South Korea: Antifeminist Backlash and the Recent Rise of Feminist Politics of Refusal.” In 2024, she was invited to speak at Guerrilla in South Korea, where her lecture centered on the importance of women’s higher education. She was an Executive Board Member of Communications for the National Women’s Political Caucus San Gabriel Valley from 2023 to 2024, and was honored with the Women’s March Foundation’s Woman of the Year Award in 2024.
As a photojournalist, she has covered the largest women’s strike in Austria, an anti-femicide conference with DACH Vernetzungswochenende, the Feminist Perspectives Film Forum, and Pride Parade in Vienna. She has worked as an official photographer for film festivals including the Sarajevo Film Festival, International Cinematographers’ Film Festival Manaki Brothers, Drim Short Film Festival, and Ohrid Beach Film Festival, photographing actors Stellan Skarsgård and Willem Dafoe, and cinematographers Darius Khondji and Wally Pfister. At Stanford, she has photographed high-profile events featuring comedian Hasan Minhaj, author Melissa Febos, poets Joy Harjo, Aracelis Girmay, and Hanif Abdurraqib, U.S. Representative Ro Khanna, and U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders.
Currently, Shim is working as a documentary producer with an award-winning Austrian production team, focusing on global femicide across 12 countries. She has worked as an Undergraduate Researcher at the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University and as a researcher for the upcoming book Herlands: Lessons From Societies Where Women Make the Rules by Megha Mohan, the BBC’s first Gender and Identity Correspondent.
Shim graduated summa cum laude from Pasadena City College in 2023 and is currently pursuing her undergraduate degree at Stanford University, where she was awarded the 2024–2025 Institute for Diversity in the Arts fellowship as a filmmaker and photographer.
Shim is a proud first-generation immigrant from Gwangju, South Korea, deeply connected to the survivors of the Gwangju Uprising. She is the first woman in her family to pursue higher education. -
Leeth Singhage
Ida Fellow, Institute for Diversity in the Arts
Undergraduate, Management Science and Engineering
Student Wardrobe Supervisor, Theater and Performance Studies
Undergraduate, Theater and Performance StudiesBioLeeth Singhage is an actor, writer, and producer from Sri Lanka, pursuing dual degrees in Management Science & Engineering (B.S.) and Theater & Performance Studies (B.A.) at Stanford. His creative work often investigates pressing current events and explores themes of identity, resilience, and cross-cultural storytelling. His writing credits include QUARANteen (2021), a verbatim-theater production on the teen experience of the COVID19 lockdowns, GROWTHesque (2022-23), a meta exploration of Sri Lanka's political and economic crisis hosted at the Edinburgh Fringe and NYC's United Solo festivals and filmed by Kehelmala Studios, Lab-Grown Meat (2023) a solo play on the incipient alt-meat industry produced at Stanford, and Yakada Yaka (2026), a full-length play on suicide currently in development in Sri Lanka and in the U.S.
Beyond appearances in his original work produced under SarongHoodie, Leeth has played lead roles across theater and screen internationally for over 10-years. Select acting credits include: "Shaan Murthy" in British TV series The Good Karma Hospital - Season 4 (2022) by Tiger Aspects Productions, "Friedrich" in the Broadway touring production of The Sound of Music (2018) by Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Really Useful Group, "Kalana" in multiple award-winning Grease Yaka Returns (2019-20) by AnandaDrama, "Ariel" in The Workshop Players' Shakespeare in the Park production of The Tempest (2017) by AnandaDrama, and "Peter Pan" in Peter Pan the Musical (2016) by COLD Theatre 7.
Leeth has worked in development for Academy® Award-winning filmmakers Jimmy Chin and Chai Vasarhelyi at Little Monster Films, for the multiple Emmy® Award-winning team at Baboon Animation, and for Sri Lankan production company, Kehelmala. Through his cross-cultural storytelling company, SarongHoodie, he aims to increase international representation of underprivileged communities in film and television. -
Benny Starr
U.S. Cultural Policy Fellow
BioBlack music and Southern culture find a unique voice in Benny Starr, an artist and cultural strategist who fuses Southern musical traditions with storytelling to explore identity, history, and social change. His deep affection for hip-hop, gospel, jazz, blues, and rock has created a fusion steeped in memory, creativity, and the lived experiences of the South. His creations offer a captivating journey that invites you to explore these roots, offering a fresh perspective on a familiar narrative.
Benny Starr's most recent solo project, A Water Album, was not just a milestone in his career but a significant historical moment. Recorded live with his bandmates, The Four20s, at Charleston Music Hall and released on Juneteenth 2019, it marked Benny Starr as the first Hip-Hop artist to perform at Spoleto Festival USA. The album itself was a triumph and a testament to his talent, earning the "South Carolina's Best Album" 2019 title by the Free Times, solidifying Benny Starr's place as a visionary independent artist in the South.
In 2020, Native Son, a duo of Benny Starr and harmonious singer, songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Rodrick Cliche, was formed. Together, they are redefining what it means to be dynamic while remaining highly respected. Their music, which combines the comforting allure of Southern breakfast at Grandma's house with the triumphant command of a revolutionary's chant, is a sonic resonance that is both decadent and nourishing. This unique blend of their musical influences sets them apart from other artists and makes their sound a must-listen for any music lover.
Native Son's most recent release, "The Land," is a rallying cry that echoes the injustices of Black Legacy Farmers at the hands of the USDA and is part of an ongoing partnership with The Acres of Ancestry Initiative/Black Agrarian Fund and The Black Farmers Appeal: Cancel Pigford Debt Campaign. As a part of the ongoing collaboration, Native Son screened "Restoration: A Concert Film" on Juneteenth 2020. In the fall, "Restoration" was also released for a limited-time viewing to coincide with the Justice for Black Farmers Act of 2020, introduced by U.S. Senators Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, and Kirsten Gillibrand on November 30th. To date, "Restoration" has been screened at the Pan African Film Festival, WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival, Seattle Black Film Festival, Reel Sisters of the Diaspora Film Festival & Lecture Series, Nevada City Film Festival, Rhode Island Black Film Festival, Las Vegas Black Film Festival, Nice International Film Festival, and more.
The U.S. Water Alliance recognized Benny Starr's commitment to the creative and artistic process by naming him their inaugural One Water Artist-in-Residence in October 2020. During his 18-month residency and subsequent tenure as Senior Fellow of Arts & Culture, Benny infused arts and cultural strategies into innovative thinking, problem-solving, and programming. In 2021, Grist named him one of their 50 Fixers, highlighting his leadership in climate, sustainability, and equity. In 2023, Benny launched Watercolor Creative, an umbrella for artistic projects, creative strategy, and social practice work with creators, communities, and equity-centered partners, furthering his mission to use creativity for justice and kinship.
Benny later served as a creative strategist with Communities First Fund, embedding arts and culture into their initiatives and programming. He is currently a U.S. Cultural Policy Fellow at Stanford University, examining the intersections of arts, culture, and civic infrastructure. -
Marcus Young
U.S. Cultural Policy Fellow
BioMarcus Young 楊墨 makes art in the unexpected, to show that art can be everything and anywhere. He is a behavioral artist making work within mindfulness and learning communities, as well as for the stage, museums, government agencies, and the public realm. His work expands the range of everyday human awareness and expressive behavior. His teaching focuses on individual and collective well-being, learning through participatory artistic experiences, and awakening to an artful life through questioning basic assumptions that no longer serve our society.
Marcus makes art from slow walking, exuberant public dance, living in museums, meditation retreats, fortune cookies, flying kites on Earth Day, and a department of transportation conference room, to name a few. From 2006 to 2015, he was City Artist in St. Paul. His project Everyday Poems for City Sidewalk transformed the city’s sidewalk maintenance program into a publishing entity for poetry, a work that inspired dozens of other cities to do the same. From 2020 to 2022 he was Artist in Residence for the Minnesota Department of Transportation, one of two programs in the nation placing artists in statewide agencies. There, he created the Land Acknowledgment Confluence Room, re-making a top-floor conference room in the State Transportation Building into a space for broadening awareness around land, body, and place. He is the founding artist for Don’t You Feel It Too?—a participatory street dance practice of social and inner-life liberation. Born in Hong Kong, Young graduated from Carleton College in music and the University of Minnesota in theater. He is a recipient of awards from the McKnight, Bush, and Jerome Foundations, and he received the Forecast Public Art Mid-Career Grant, given to one artist a year. He is stage director for Ananya Dance Theatre. He teaches “Art + Life” at the University of Minnesota and Creative Leadership at Minneapolis College of Art & Design.
