Board of Directors

Nani Ratnawati — Chair

Nani grew up in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia, and moved to San Francisco in 1998. She is currently Lead Localization Program Manager at Airbnb, enabling non-American, non-English speaking communities to enjoy and take advantage of products in their local languages and cultural environments. Also a writer, her work entails translation and transcreation, but most importantly, education and evangelization - linguistically, culturally, creatively - for individuals in different parts of the world to live their lives, including how they express their thoughts in verbal and written forms.

Brian Butterfield — Treasurer

Brian joined the interdisciplinary architecture firm WHY in 2019 as the Director of the then newly formed Museums Workshop, rethinking the relationship between the hardware of the museum’s physical form, and the software of its operations, programming, and visitor experience on-site and online. Institutional clients include The Met, The Louvre, The Getty, The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, The Harvard Libraries, The Walker Art Center and many more. Brian was previously Senior Design Manager for Exhibitions and Capital Projects at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and has held faculty positions at the Yale School of Architecture.

Nida Alvi

Nida Alvi is a writer, a lawyer, and a policy advocate with over a decade of experience in a variety of issue areas including education, gun violence, climate change, and labor rights. She is currently the Senior Manager for Policy and Legal Compliance at Madison Square Garden Entertainment Corporation where she advises on employment law matters, advocating for fair labor practices. Prior to this, she was counsel at Everytown for Gun Safety, an attorney in the New York State Governor’s Office, an advisor for the Hillary for America campaign, and policy counsel for a network of schools throughout New York City.

Rachel Cypher

Rachel is an environmental anthropologist, researcher, and teacher specializing in human-induced environmental change and climate adaptation in the Americas. She is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Universidad Nacional de La Pampa in Argentina, a position supported by the Fulbright Commission, as well as a research scholar with the Center for Latin American and Latinx Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.

Nara Hernandez

Originally from Mexico City, Nara Hernandez is the Senior Director of Visual Art at Heart of Los Angeles (HOLA) Visual Arts Department (VAD), leading special initiatives related to arts, humanities, and culture including Visual Arts curriculum development and implementation across all of HOLA’s age groups and sites. Nara’s previous experience in museum education, curatorial work, and public programs includes roles at the Autry National Center, Museo del Barrio in NYC, The Museum of Man, the Siquieros Mural Center with the Getty and City of LA, the Smithsonian, and the Museo Nacional de Antropología.

Leslie Koch

Leslie is a national leader in public-private partnership. She has created two internationally recognized civic landmarks in New York City, leading the transformation of Governors Island from 2006 to 2016, and the development of the Perelman Performing Arts Center at Ground Zero which opened in September, 2023. She is now spearheading an ambitious public-private partnership in Seattle to connect, restore and revitalize waterfront parks. From her early career at Microsoft in the 1990s, Leslie's career has spanned the public, non profit and private sectors, with an exceptional track record in strategy and marketing; economic development; cultural programming and capital project development.

Re Jin Lee

Re Jin Lee is a sculptor whose work is a unique assembly of individually rolled-out clay slabs and coils created by a 'hand and clay' collaboration. A native of São Paulo, Brazil, and of South Korean heritage, she is also the founder of Naiana Nami is a creative space that bridges traditional and modern artistic expressions, encouraging a return to hands-on artistry.

Leticia Pardo

Leticia is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice lies in the boundaries between architecture, research and art. Originally from Mexico City and currently based in Chicago, her background in exhibition design has largely influenced the way in which she constructs creative expression. Through her work, Leticia explores subjects like migration, place-making, citizenship across borders, identity and belonging, and how these manifest in the city.

Paloma Ramos

Paloma Udovic Ramos has traveled around the world as a violinist with bands such as Spiritualized, The Eels, and Gnarls Barkley and worked for 13 years at Harmony Project, a non-profit music education program in Los Angeles. She studied Cultural Anthropology and Latin American Studies at Northwestern University, and has always worked at the intersection of Art and Social Change. Now living in Oaxaca, she is the Fellowship Manager for AIM, Academy for Impact through Music, an International fellowship program for music educators.

Jodi Sweetbaum

For 26 years, Jodi Sweetbaum was a Partner and the President of Lloyd & Co, delivering groundbreaking advertising, brand, and design work to an extensive client base across the global luxury market. In 2019, Jodi left her role at Llyod & Co & now collaborates with companies, not-for-profits, and start-ups, guiding brand and creative strategy, DEI, sustainability, and “responsible global citizens” programs. A working mother of four, Jodi has also published two graphic novel series for young adults - “Kiss and Make-up” & “Stinky Boys Club”.

Staff

Jessica Chrastil — Co-Director / Founder

Jessica is a mother, writer and cultural manager whose work explores possibilities of convergence and exchange between ideas, practices and experiences. Originally from Minneapolis, she has lived in Oaxaca since 2015 and founded Pocoapoco in 2016. Prior work includes Creative Director at an international nonprofit as well as 15 years of teaching, studying, producing and collaborating across the fields of art, design and creative education in New York and the San Francisco Bay Area. She has a BFA in Visual Arts & Design, an MFA from California College of the Arts and a four-year-old son.

Evelyn Méndez Maldonado — Co-Director / Founder of Casa Abierta

Evelyn is a dancer, performer, cultural manger and producer from Oaxaca City. She has traveled the path of interpretation, creation and collaboration in contemporary dance and performance since 2009. Without institutional training, Oaxaca -- a place that gives and receives -- has been her school. Her first management and curatorial project, Casa Abierta, is a program of performance focused residencies and festivals that she has been developing in Oaxaca since 2018 in collaboration with local, independent and institutional dance and theater spaces.  She has been collaborating with Pocoapoco since it began and started working with the organization formally in 2021.   

Fernanda de la Torre Ricaud — Program Manager

Fernanda is a curator and producer.  Originally from Mexico City, she began her career in gastronomic research and later as an art director at Plato en Blanco, an editorial content production studio for gastronomic projects where she participated in the creation of various digital and printed publications. In 2016, she was part of the Young Talent program of the Ministry of Foreign Relations, which led her to direct the visual and performing arts programs at the Mexican Cultural Institute New York. For three years she actively participated in the cultural agenda of the Consulate General by curating exhibitions and public programs aimed at the dissemination of Mexican art in the Tri-state area. She has been Pocoapoco’s exhibition director, translator, and program manager since 2019.

Aurelia Arroyo Nieto — House Manager

Aurelia is a talented cocinera from the Sierra Norte de Puebla who has lived in Oaxaca for over 20 years. She is the mother of two sons and has been working with Pocoapoco from day one, where she runs the kitchen, meals and house.

Dafne Juliana Díaz de la Vega — Logistics & Administration Manager

Dafne is a cultural manager and social anthropologist by training. She was born In Mexico City where she worked in the production, promotion, research and commercialization of projects related to design, including the Archivo Diseño y Arquitectura y the Studio Orfeo Quagliata. In 2018, as part of CIESAS Pacifico Sur's Master's Program in Anthropology, she began her field studies focused on the revaluation of artisanal mezcal production in Oaxaca and the effects of its increasing commercialization in campesino communities. She has worked as an educator and host at Mezcaloteca and collaborates closely with Neta Spirits. She has managed Pocoapoco’s residency logistics and communications since 2021.