Amitis Motevalli (she/her) is an artist who explores the cultural resistance and survival of people living in poverty, conflict, catastrophe and/or war. Her experiences as a trans-national migrant and in community organizing are foundational in her work and research. Through many media, digital, analog, static and live, her work juxtaposes and contrasts iconography with iconoclasm, memorials with monuments, archive methodologies with canon. Her work intends to ask questions about archiving, documentation and canonization of histories, in particular related to violence. In this line of questioning she subverts populism by invoking the significance of a secular grassroots struggle. Motevalli is also the Director of The William Grant Still Arts Center. She is primarily based  in Los Angeles, exhibiting art internationally as well as organizing to create an active and critical cultural discourse through information exchange, either in art, pedagogy with cultural producers and educators.