Artist / Editor-at-Large, Don’t Delete Art

Emma Shapiro is an American artist, writer, and activist dedicated to advocating for artists and marginalized communities facing censorship online. As an artist, Emma has regularly encountered censorship both online and AFK due to her use of nudity in her work; the resulting hindrance to her professional practice, and witnessing the same happen to others, led her to become an outspoken voice against censorship of the female-presenting body and art online. In 2021, Emma became the Editor-At-Large for Don’t Delete Art (DDA).

Passionate about building community and sharing information, Emma founded the international art project and body equality movement Exposure Therapy, and is a regular contributor to arts publications such as Hyperallergic and The Art Newspaper on the topics of art censorship, digital rights, and feminist issues. She is an avid contributor to panels and events where the message of artists who struggle for visibility can be spread, and where communities can be linked to fight for our common interests.
Emma has received multiple recognitions for her artistic and activist work, has exhibited internationally, and holds a degree from the Rhode Island School of Design.

Artist / Co-founding curator, Don’t Delete Art

Spencer Tunick has been documenting the live nude figure in public, with photography and video, since 1992. Since 1994, he has organized over 100 temporary site-related installations that encompass dozens, hundreds or thousands of volunteers, and his photographs are records of these events. In his early group works, the individuals en masse, without their clothing, grouped together, metamorphose into a new shape. The bodies extend into and upon the landscape like a substance. These group masses, which do not underscore sexuality, often become abstractions that challenge or reconfigure one's views of nudity and privacy. The work also refers to the complex issue of presenting art in permanent or temporary public spaces.

Spencer Tunick stages scenes in which the battle of nature against culture is played out against various backdrops, from civic center to desert sandstorm. In 2002 he started to work with standing positions for his group formations referencing traditional group portraiture. Now, for some installations, he adds objects that the participants are often holding or wearing and has included body paint. Spencer has and continues to make group installations & photographs elevating awareness of HIV/AIDS, LGBTQ rights, equality and climate change, among other issues.

Spencer Tunick's temporary site-specific photographic installations have been commissioned by the XXV Biennial de Sao Paulo, Brazil (2002); Institut Cultura, Barcelona (2003); The Saatchi Gallery (2003); MOCA Cleveland (2004); Vienna Kunsthalle (2008) and MAMBO Museum of Modern Art, Bogota (2016), among others.

Artist / Co-founding curator, Don’t Delete Art

Savannah is the co-founder of DDA and a Brooklyn-based visual artist, curator, and activist whose work explores the layered relationships between identity and memory. Moving fluidly across portraiture, landscapes, street photography, and activism, her images offer observations on the human experience and the diverse narratives of identity, power, and resistance. In her series I Am My Own Muse, Savannah subverts the traditional structures of the male gaze, positioning the female body not only as an object but as an author. The work reclaims self-representation as an act of defiance, where looking becomes a tool of agency. Assertive and unapologetic. This series draws inspiration from feminist artists such as Carolee Schneeman and Francesca Woodman, and meshes it with the formalism of Richard Avedon and Irving Penn.  Her photographs have been acquired by private collectors worldwide and are permanently installed at Tom Ford’s flagship store in Houston.

From 2011 to 2017, she created and curated Hotter Than July, a New York–based erotic art series, featuring Betty Tompkins and Alexandra Rubinstein. The series became a space of reclamation and resistance, where women reasserted control over their bodies, desires, and sexuality, expressing themselves with power, autonomy, and no fear.

Savannah’s work has been featured in The Nation, Hyperallergic, The Art Newspaper, W, Dazed, Vice, and others. In 2023, she published I Am My Own Muse, a limited-edition monograph with Quiet Lunch. She is currently pursuing her MFA in Photography, Video, and Related Media at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.

Director, Arts & Culture Advocacy Program, NCAC

As Director of the National Coalition Against Censorship’s Arts & Culture Advocacy Program, Elizabeth Larison leads initiatives in advising and educating artists, writers, playwrights, as well as curators, institutions, and other cultural intermediaries, in how to address the presentation of controversial works. Elizabeth is also an active member of Don’t Delete Art, supporting its administration, projects, and with curating the online gallery.

With academic degrees in Human Rights (BA) and Curatorial Studies (MA), and over fourteen years of working with and in support of artists and curators, Elizabeth brings a depth of understanding to the fundamental importance of defending artistic expression. Prior to joining NCAC, Elizabeth worked in curatorial, programmatic, and directorial capacities for arts organizations and venues such as Flux Factory, the Park Avenue Armory, the Vera List Center for Art and Politics, the 5th Moscow Curatorial Summer School, and apexart.

Independent Consultant / Co-Founding Curator, Don’t Delete Art

Svetlana Mintcheva is a strategy consultant working on issues related to artistic freedom and cultural expression in the United States and internationally. She assists with program activities at the National Coalition Against Censorship (ncac.org), where she was formerly Director of Programs. Dr. Mintcheva writes on emerging trends in censorship, organizes and participates in public discussions and helps mobilize support for individual artists, curators, authors, teachers and librarians. She is the co-editor of Censoring Culture: Contemporary Threats to Free Expression (The New Press, 2006) and of Curating Under Pressure: International Perspectives on Negotiating Conflict and Upholding Integrity (Routledge, 2020). An academic as well as an activist, Dr. Mintcheva has taught literature and critical theory at the University of Sofia, Bulgaria and at Duke University, NC from which she received her Ph.D. in critical theory in 1999, as well as at New York University. Current projects include an interactive visualization of needs and resources in the field of artistic freedom globally and research on the challenges to the concept of free speech posed by rapidly developing technologies, geopolitical conflicts and political polarization.

Director, Artists at Risk Connection (ARC)

Julie Trébault is the director of the Artists at Risk Connection (ARC). ARC safeguards the right to artistic freedom by connecting threatened artists to support, building a global network of resources for artists at risk, and forging ties between arts and human rights organizations. She has nearly two decades of experience in international arts programming and network-building, including at the Museum of the City of New York, the Center for Architecture, the National Museum of Ethnology in The Netherlands, and the Musée du quai Branly in Paris. Trébault holds a Master’s Degree in Arts Management from Sorbonne University, a Master’s Degree in Archeology and Cultural Heritage from the University of Strasbourg, and taught at Fordham University. She is co-author of Freedom of Artistic Expression Through the Lens of the Sustainable Development Goals (Springer, 2021) and A Safety Guide for Artists (ARC, 2021), and has been instrumental in the creation of numerous reports on the state of artistic freedom of expression. These include but are not limited to Arresting Art: Repression, Censorship, and Artistic Freedom in Asia and Art under Pressure: Decree 349 Restricts Creative Freedom in Cuba. Julie and ARC have also been featured in numerous media outlets such as Hyperallergic, The Art Newspaper, Artnet, BBC News, The Financial Times, Al Jazeera, Diario de Cuba, NPR, among others.