Martine Syms is an artist who has earned wide recognition for a practice that combines conceptual grit, humor, and social commentary. Her extensive solo exhibitions include those at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College. She has written and directed three feature films, is in a band called Aunt Sister and hosts Double Penetration, a monthly radio show on NTS. She also runs Dominica Publishing. 

Darby English is an art historian and teacher who joined the faculty of the University of Chicago in 2003. He is author or editor of seven books and numerous essays in modern and contemporary art and cultural studies; Black cultural politics is a consistent, though not constant, theme in his writing.