Michael B. Wolfe is an American poet, author, and the President and Co-Executive Producer of Unity Productions Foundation. A secular American born in Cincinnati, Ohio to a Christian mother and a Jewish father, Wolfe converted to Islam at 40 and has been a frequent lecturer on Islamic issues at universities across the United States including Harvard, Georgetown, Stanford, SUNY Buffalo, and Princeton. He holds a degree in Classics from Wesleyan University.
Shirin Neshat is an Iranian visual artist who lives in New York City, known primarily for her work in film, video and photography. Her artwork centers on the contrasts between Islam and the West, femininity and masculinity, public life and private life, antiquity and modernity, and bridging the spaces between these subjects.
Roger Arthur Graef OBE was an American-born British documentary filmmaker and theatre director. Born in New York City, he moved to Britain in 1962, where he began a career producing documentary films investigating previously closed institutions, including Government ministries and court buildings.
Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet is a PBS documentary film about the life of the Islamic prophet Muhammad based on historical records and on the stories of living American Muslims who call Muhammad the Messenger of God. It was produced in 2002 by Alex Kronemer and Michael Wolfe of Unity Productions Foundation and Kikim Media.
Alexander Kronemer is a writer, lecturer, and documentary filmmaker whose work focuses on religious diversity, Islam, and cross-cultural understanding. He is the co-founder and executive producer of Unity Productions Foundation. Alex Kronemer is the co-founder of Unity Productions Foundation (UPF), its Executive Director, and Executive Producer for all UPF Films. He is an internationally known speaker and has published numerous articles newspapers and journals in the US and abroad, including The Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, the Huffington Post and in syndication in international publications as widespread as the UK, Indonesia, Egypt, and Pakistan. He frequently presents at 20,000 Dialogue events, and has appeared as a CNN commentator on several occasions. Mr. Kronemer has won numerous awards for his work in promoting peace and interfaith understanding. A graduate of Harvard Divinity School, he previously served in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Human Rights and was one of the founding staff members who helped establish the U.S. Institute of Peace.
Ali Omar Ermes was a Libyan artist and author. His paintings make use of Arabic calligraphy, often superimposed on a rich-textured ground, and may incorporate fragments of Arabic or other poetry or prose. He had lived in the United Kingdom since 1981, and was the chairman of the Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre in Kensington in west London; he was also active in other intellectual and cultural institutions in that city.
Renee Tajima-Peña is an American filmmaker whose work focuses on immigrant communities, race, gender and social justice. Her directing and producing credits include the documentaries Who Killed Vincent Chin?, No Más Bebés, My America...or Honk if You Love Buddha, Calavera Highway, Skate Manzanar, Labor Women and the 5-part docuseries Asian Americans.
Nada M. Shabout is an American art historian specializing in modern Iraqi art. She has been a professor of art history at the University of North Texas since 2002. She is the president and co-founding board member of the Association for Modern and Contemporary Art (AMCA) of the Arab World, Iran, and Turkey.
Omar al-Qattan is a Palestinian Kuwaiti British film director and film producer and a cultural development expert.
Sheila S. Blair is a Canadian-born American art historian and educator. Blair has served as the dual Norma Jean Calderwood University Professor of Islamic and Asian Art at Boston College, along with her husband, Jonathan M. Bloom.
Parine Jaddo is an Iraqi Arab Americanfilm director.
Hisham Zreiq, also spelled Zrake, is a Palestinian Christian-Israeli Independent filmmaker, poet, animator and visual artist. He began working in computer art in 1994, and in 1996 started exhibiting his work in galleries and museums. In 2007 he filmed his first documentary, The Sons of Eilaboun, and in 2008 he created the short film Just Another Day, dealing with the life of Arabs living in western world after September 11 terror attacks. He uses his poetry and visual art in his films, as in Just Another Day, and was a member of the Culture Unplugged film festival panel. In 2018 Zreiq contributed to the book An Oral History of the Palestinian Nakba by writing a chapter based on the interviews from his documentary The Sons of Eilaboun.
Thomas Allen Harris is a critically acclaimed, interdisciplinary artist who explores family, identity, and spirituality in a participatory practice. Since 1990, Harris has remixed archives from multiple origins throughout his work, challenging hierarchy within historical narratives through the use of pioneering documentary and research methodologies that center vernacular image and collaboration. He is currently working on a new television show, Family Pictures USA, which takes a radical look at neighborhoods and cities of the United States through the lens of family photographs, collaborative performances, and personal testimony sourced from their communities..
Robert H. Gardner is an American documentary filmmaker, producer and director of the Academy Award-nominated Courage to Care, Emmy Award-winning Egypt: Quest for Immortality, Dupont Columbia Award-winning Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in the Promised Land, National Geographic Explorer series; Search for the Lost Ark, Tiwanaku, and Desert Warriors; The History Channel series Barbarians, Barbarians II, and Rome: Rise and Fall of an Empire. In 2001 his groundbreaking series Islam: Empire of Faith aired on PBS, as well as Islamic Art: Mirror of the Invisible World in 2012.
Suhel Nafar is currently the Vice President of Strategy & Market Development- WANA at Empire Distribution, the leading independent label, distributor, and publisher in the US and the first label to open a division in the US to help grow the local scene in West Asia & North Africa and its diaspora.
The Islamic Museum of Australia (IMA) is a community museum in Thornbury, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It began as a not-for-profit foundation founded in May 2010 with the purpose of establishing the first Islamic museum in Australia. It aims to showcase the artistic heritage and historical contributions of Muslims in Australia and abroad through the display of artworks and historical artefacts.
D. (Dede) Fairchild Ruggles is a historian of Islamic art and architecture, and a professor in the University of Illinois Department of Landscape Architecture. She is known for her books on Islamic gardens and landscapes, her series of edited volumes on cultural heritage, and her award-winning work in gender history.
Jonathan Max Bloom is an American art historian and educator. Bloom has served as the dual Norma Jean Calderwood University Professor of Islamic and Asian Art at Boston College, along with his wife, Sheila Blair.
Najjar Abdul-Musawwir is an African-American artist and professor of studio art and art history. His work has been exhibited around the world, including in the United States, Europe, Africa, and Asia. He teaches in Southern Illinois University Carbondale's School of Art and Design.
