Kholoud Sawaf is a theatre artist and cultural investigator from Damascus, Syria. She has worked in theatre and television in Syria, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States. Inspired by COVID, Kholoud co-created Curbside Theatre to investigate theatre as a service. Supported by the Doris Duke Foundation, she created and directed 10,000 Balconies, an original play inspired by Romeo and Juliet and set in Damascus, at TheatreSquared. Kholoud presently leads a collaboration between Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and Arkansas Coalition of Marshallese. Kholoud’s work has appeared in New York; Connecticut; Oregon; Massachusetts; Washington, DC; Nairobi, Kenya; and Dubai, UAE.
Sharon Killian, artist, advocate, educator, and arts leader, has been selected as the first recipient of the new Creative Impact Award from Artists 360, a program of Mid-America Arts Alliance (M-AAA).
Killian has been actively engaged in the Northwest Arkansas community since moving to the region in 2005. She is the President of the Board of Art Ventures and President of the Board of the Northwest Arkansas African American Heritage Association.
Killian’s artwork has been shown at the Corcoran Gallery of Art and Edison Place Gallery, Washington, DC, and the Bentonville Fine Art Show, presented by Black Art in America, Bentonville, AR. In Arkansas, she also had solo exhibits at Carnall Hall at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Fort Smith Trolley Museum, Fayetteville Public Library, Arts Center of the Ozarks in Springdale, and is included in the Tyson Collection, UA Chancellor’s Collection of Arkansas Artists, the NWA Community College collection, and others.