Mims is the founder of Marooning Bodies, and is behind the curation and creative direction of the project’s many expansions. She is an artist, abolitionist, and facilitator based in Los Angeles. Her work moves across performance art, advocacy, public art, social practice, and fine art objects. She experiences the body as a site of liberation and approaches it as her first place of inquiry. Through an ongoing exploration of relationship between self, others, land, and more than human life, Mims grounds her practice in embodied knowing. She is deeply interested in questioning as a tool for collective understanding, the role of interpersonal relationships in building healthy communities, and the sacred wisdom held in cultures and ecosystems around the world.

Mười is behind the creative direction, research, and design for Marooning Bodies. They begin with the practice of research as a declaration of love. Their body of work is born from this process. Each project comes as a search for new ways to hold community; in search of new ways to write love letters. By their hands— research not only provides a home for historic context, but generates new paths towards wonder, and imbues projects with meaningful action on the issues of our present. From film, to the written word, to painting, to spatial and graphic design, their interdisciplinary practice is sharpened by the call to bring collective dreams into our waking lives. With a background in architecture, law, and public policy, they navigate multiple mediums to manifest budding ideas into living, breathing projects.

ABOUT THE COLLABORATORS

Matthew Coopilton (PhD, MAT, MTS) is an educator, game designer, and researcher; their work explores how play, design, and unpoliced imagination can prototype sustainable futures. They worked on game design for Marooning Bodies and studied how people learned with the game as part of their doctoral dissertation in  Education Psychology at USC.  After completing a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Sustainability and Game Design at USC, they are now an Assistant Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at California State University Northridge. Their games such as Kai UnEarthed (kaiunearthed.com) have been exhibited in refereed venues, their scholarship has appeared in peer-reviewed journals, and their public speaking has ranged from demonstrations to conferences; you can find more at mcoopilton.com.

Star Feliz is an interdisciplinary artist originally from New York and currently based in Los Angeles. Their practice engages the intersections of spirit, ecology, and technology through sculpture, performance, installation, sound, and plant-spirit medicine. Drawing from Afro-Taíno ancestral lineages of multidimensional healing, Feliz explores themes of hybridity, knowledge systems, extraction, and regeneration. After nearly fifteen years of study and community-based practice in ancestral healing arts, Feliz founded Botánica Cimarrón, a platform dedicated to re-enchanting relationships with the natural world. What began as a line of plant medicines has evolved into a multidisciplinary practice encompassing publishing, education, and select cultural collaborations.

Feliz has performed and exhibited nationally and internationally at venues including The Hammer (Los Angeles), The Kitchen (New York), The Oregon Contemporary (Portland), and The Horse Hospital (London), among others. They are a recipient of numerous fellowships, residencies, and grants, including the Foundation for Contemporary Art Emergency Grant, ACRE Residency, Mohn LAND Grant, and the Printed Matter Emerging Artist Publication Grant. Their book When Eye Land was published by Printed Matter in 2023. The third edition of The Green Gold Oracle Deck is forthcoming in 2026 from Weiser Books. Their work has been featured in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Architectural Digest. Feliz holds an MFA in Interdisciplinary Studio from UCLA.

Kia McCormick is an industrial designer focused on experimenting with sustainable materials and prototyping techniques. She takes inspiration from unconventional applications of recycling, and the ever imaginative solutions that childhood wonder produces. Her work spans experience-driven installations, furniture, and children’s toys, blending play, function, and material exploration. Her work has been supported by the Getty and the Kid-space Museum Pasadena, Nike and the Fashion Scholarship Fund, among others. McCormick is currently a maker-in-residence and part-time lecturer at USC Iovine and Young Academy.

When Annahstasia writes a song, it embodies a world of its own. The self-taught singer-songwriter says her artistic practice is steeped in fantasy and romanticism, and Annahstasia’s rose-colored perspective is elucidated by her enchantingly sumptuous and acrobatic voice—one she developed through a lasting appreciation for complex vocalists like Bill Withers, Nina Simone, and Janis Joplin. “Those were the first musicians that I felt lended their voice to their music and not the music to their voice,” she explains. She rarely, if ever, writes her lyrics down, instead preferring to imagine the spirits that live in her songs—how they might look, move, talk or dance—and speak to their identities in real time through her music. Her first solo release, 2019’s Sacred Bull was an honest, no-frills experiment that opened doors to collaborations with the likes of singer Raveena, who features on her new record, and Lenny Kravitz, who invited her to support him as an opener on his “Raise Vibrations” European tour. Now, Annahstasia’s own stunning voice is the powerline that weaves together her forthcoming folk-rooted record, Revival, a delicately produced project that both renewed her love of music after a period of uncertainty, and facilitated a potent resurgence of self.

Misa Chaan is an artist and natural dyer who lives and works in Los Angeles. They work across natural dyes, textiles, printmaking, kites, and artists books. Their background in book arts, printmaking, papermaking, led them to explore natural dyes as a medium to stay engaged with and learn from the natural world. The mindset of domination over nature creates a scenario where we feel detached from nature as opposed to understanding that we are fundamentally dependent on it. Their goal is to bring pure joy through making work with nature, their surroundings, and work as close as possible to what the world is made of. They spend their time gardening, practicing how to coax color from plants, composting, and researching natural dyes and minerals and how to integrate them in their daily life

Jerekre Okoriogha is a first-generation Nigerian-American born and raised in Los Angeles, California and has a background/Degree in Fashion Design (Associate of Arts, Certificate) from Los Angeles Trade Technical College. 

The aesthetic of most of his works lean toward the complex nature of simplicity, minimalism and the interaction/juxtaposition of an object’s nature throughout the changes it undergoes from raw material to a more refined form. His goal is to strive for understanding through the trial and error process and to allow the purity of experimentation/play to take center stage throughout the duration of any project. 

The love that he has for fashion design and its intricacies have stimulated a newfound appreciation for designing fragrances that drape the air with comfort, pleasure and nostalgia. The fine art of fragrancing is teaching him the interconnection that his worlds of process have come together to do the same job; provide beauty in all its forms. 

Based in Downtown Los Angeles, Fashion District.

James Flemons founded PHLEMUNS as an extension of his personal creative language, shaped by early exposure to art, music, and visual culture and refined through years of hands-on experimentation. As a Black, queer designer, James has played a key role in expanding conversations around identity, inclusivity, and representation within contemporary fashion.

His work moves fluidly between fashion, fine art, and costume, treating clothing as a medium for storytelling and sensory experience. With an emphasis on how garments feel on the body—through texture, color, and form—James’ approach balances the practical with the expressive. Over the past decade, his vision has helped position PHLEMUNS as a culturally resonant brand, celebrated for its originality, integrity, and lasting impact on modern creative expression.