Artists hold a mirror up to our society and institutions.
From the January-March 2026 issue of Critical Times. Print versions are available for free at WSLR+Fogartyville and other community gathering spaces in Sarasota and Manatee counties.
By Staff
Many artists use their creativity to question norms, speak truth to power, and lift up others. Through their artistic practice and/or their activism, these are some of the creatives inspiring and driving change in Sarasota and Manatee counties:
Olivia D’amico
Olivia D’Amico is a multidisciplinary artist and theologian sitting at the heart of Bradenton’s art scene. Her work goes beyond the physical medium and into the realm of social art practice. She is the executive director of Friendly City Foundation, an arts and culture non-profit in Bradenton that provides mentoring, opportunities, resources and education to emerging artists. She also sits on Bradenton’s redevelopment and small business council and on Manatee County’s creative partner alliance.
When communities are healthiest, art and culture are at the center, creating spaces for people to be known and cared for. –Olivia D’Amico, friendlycity.foundation
Osa Atoe
Osa Atoe is a full-time professional studio potter creating decorative pieces that people can use in their daily lives, using both commercial and natural materials that she gathers herself. Atoe’s work is inspired by her Nigerian heritage as well as the Florida climate and landscape. Through free youth programming in Sarasota, she uses clay to teach Black history and impart knowledge about our environment and how clay forms in the landscape. In February, a youth workshop will focus on the history of the African American Southern face jug.
Clay gives me an easy way to connect with the community. –Osa Atoe, potterybyosa.com
Shannon Fortner. Photo by Trey Jones
Musician Shannon Fortner creates immersive experiences that blend live vocals, experimental soundscapes, installation and collaborative performance. Creative expression is their vehicle for queer visibility, healing and collective transformation. The founder of the Fabulous Arts Foundation and Swamp Yell, Fortner builds platforms for LGBTQIA+ artists, advocates for equity in cultural spaces, and creates community-centered programs that use the arts to spark conversation, connection and social change. Whether producing festivals, workshops, performances, or community organizing, their work is rooted in care, empowerment, and making space for those who are often unheard.
I’m drawn to building environments where sound, visuals and movement meet, inviting audiences into a shared emotional and sensory space. –Shannon Fortner, fabaf.org
LaMichael Leonard Jr.
LaMichael Leonard Jr. is a dance practitioner and choreographer. He is often in a dance studio practicing with his own body, or others’ bodies, to create movement. Although he doesn’t wait for the studio, “we can dance anywhere.” Other materials often used are music or sound, literature, film, paintings, other people’s ideas, social dances, conversations, found objects, feelings and technology. For Leonard Jr., dance and movement are sociality. Typically, he is moving in practice with others and refers to these groups as community. His artistic contributions and collaborative aesthetic explorations help engender a community where there wasn’t one before, and he hopes to give people the agency to live boldly, feel, question and act.
The very act of making and sharing art is a form of activism. –LaMichael Leonard Jr., instagram.com/lamichaelish
Allan Mestel
Allan Mestel is a documentary photographer capturing life in Sarasota and the war-torn Donbas region of Ukraine. His field of documentation lies primarily within human rights and social justice, documenting lives in crisis. As a seasoned artist, he uses skills and insights gathered over the years to create what he calls an “encounter experience” that ignites a meaningful human connection between subject and viewer. Mestel’s goal is to create images that induce the kind of empathy and compassion that spur the viewer into positive action.
Whether a portrait or a candid image, I strive to capture the essence of a moment in my subject’s life that’s visceral and authentic. –Allan Mestel, allanmestel.com
Selina Román is a multimedia artist and part of Ringling College of Art & Design’s faculty. Her practice typically involves costumes and props, including wigs, dancewear and exercise gear, to create surreal, alternate realities, often suggesting something transcendent amid the mundane. In creating her work, Román takes a directorial approach, staging scenes, working with models, and being on location. Her most recent series, for which she turned the camera on herself and explores themes of beauty and the politics of size, is on view as a solo exhibition at Sarasota Art Museum; she is also part of Nuestro Vaivén at The Ringling.
It’s been a very soul searching journey, coming to terms with a lot of uncomfortable truths, but also some beautiful revelations. –Selina Román, selinaroman.com
Tihda Vongkoth
Tihda Vongkoth is a percussionist, composer and arranger focused on chamber music for percussion. For Spoken Word theatre, she collaborates with poet Melanie Lavender. Vongkoth’s approach blends more than 15 years of professional experience as an orchestral percussionist with her own aesthetics of depth and humor. As Founding Artistic Director of Modern Marimba and President of the American Federation of Musicians Local 427-721 (our local labor union for musicians), Vongkoth uses music to expand professional access to marginalized artists. Her creative and social efforts center on working in equitable arts ecosystems, advocating for fair labor practices for musicians, and curating performances that unleash the power of imagination.
Much of my work is about reconnecting people to the truths already within us—sometimes in ways we don’t expect. –Tihda Vongkoth, ModernMarimba.org
Bethany Ritz, host of “The Best of Us: Being Human in Sarasota” on WSLR, contributed to this report.