Pro Arts Leadership

Natalia Ivanova Mount, Director (2015 - 2024)

Natalia served as the Executive Director of Pro Arts from 2015 until 2024. In this role, Natalia also curated, produced, and hosted numerous exhibitions and site-specific public art projects, performance and experimental music series, film and interdisciplinary public programs, and events. In 2018, Natalia found the first art commons in Oakland - Pro Arts Gallery & COMMONS, operating out of the space of Pro Arts. In the beginning of her career, Natalia worked at MoMA PS1 and the Clocktower, both located in NYC. Mount is the recipient of numerous prestigious grants and awards, in recognition of her leadership, writing, and cultural management practice. Mount holds a BA in Criminal Justice, MA in Art Market, and an MBA in Media Management.

Board of Directors:

Lordy Rodriguez 

Lordy Rodriguez was born in 1976, the Philippines, raised in Louisiana and Texas, and currently lives and works in Benicia, CA. He obtained his B.F.A. degree from School of Visual Arts, New York and his MFA at Stanford University. For several years he has been working on a series of ink drawings that critically look at the effect visual languages have on culture and identity through the use of mapping and cartography. His recent exhibitions include, “Tahoe: a Visual History”, Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, NV (2015),  “The Map at Art”, Kemper Museum, St. Louis, MO (2012), “Code Switch” and “The Map is Not the Territory”, Hosfelt Gallery New York, New York (2013 and 2011 respectively), “Surface Depths”, Nevada Art Museum (2009), “States of America”, Austin Museum of Art (2009), “Optimism in the Age of Global War”, 10th Annual Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul, Turkey, (2007), “The California Biennial”, Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, California (2006), as well as public art projects with the San Francisco Arts Commission at San Francisco International Airport and the Federal General Services Administration.

MARIKO CARANDANG 

Mariko Carandang is an artist-entrepreneur residing in San Francisco. Mariko founded the home decor company ILUXO in 2012 and launched the skincare line Sundays With You in 2018. Her work sits at the intersection of arts, technology, and politics; she uses laser cutting and 3D printing to create art in a variety of materials such as wood, metal, and acrylic.

SCOTT ORTEGA-NANOS

Scott Ortega-Nanos is a bookseller and community organizer in Oakland. His work explores the numerous ways in which books can be used as tools for resistance and liberation. In 2014, he started a yearlong project operating a community bookstore inside a building scheduled to be demolished for new condominiums. In early 2018, he (alongside founder Akande X,) helped start Maji Press, a community Afrofuturist newspaper. From 2018 until 2020, Scott was a resident at Pro Arts Project Kalahati Press & Risograph Studio at Pro Arts in downtown Oakland, at Oscar Grant Plaza. Currently, he is at East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative.

HAILEY MARIA ZALAZAR

Hailey Maria Salazar (Yoeme/Apache) is an Indigenous Education Scholar & Medicine Keeper. Hailey is a founder and board of directors of Copyleft Cultivars, a nonprofit organization working to preserve and protect plant medicine genetics, breeders, and cultivators with copyleft creative commons. Hailey envisions a future of a balanced and integrated ecosystem that supports the many generations of Earthbeings to come. She is currently an Adjunct Faculty at The Evergreen State College, Olympia Washington.

SHREYA SHANKAR

Shreay Shankar is a Worldbuilder living on unceded Ohlone land in Huichin, Oakland, CA. Raised on stories spanning continents and cosmologies, Shreya has been a chimera for as long as she can remember. She graduated from UC Berkeley with a B.S. in Environmental Policy & Urbanism in 2014 and has been active across city planning, art, tech, and organizing in the Bay Area since 2011. 

Shreya has served as the Executive Director of a climate action nonprofit, Project Manager of Oakland’s first resident-led neighborhood planning effort, and has emerged an alchemist of the built environment.

Shreya Shankar is also the founder of Sacred Rivers Institute (SRI): A cultural strategy cooperative for BIQTPOC artists. Weaving new economies and creative ecosystems from the solidarity economy to the blockchain, SRI centers critical visionaries in the just transition toward liberatory futures. SRI activates ancestral practices from cooperative organizing to spiritual ecology, to address emerging futures. 

Through SRI Shreya Shankar seeks to bridge creative communities into movement-building, and bring BIQTPOC Artists forward as leaders in movements for liberation.

SARAH LOCKHART

Sarah Lockhart has been involved in organizing and financial management for multi-use arts and community spaces in the Bay Area for over 20 years. Beginning as a volunteer Program Coordinator at the cooperatively run media arts non-profit, Artists’ Television Access (San Francisco) in 1998, Sarah went on to co-found and be the financial manager for 21 Grand (Oakland), a non-profit arts venue that housed live performances, a visual art gallery, artist studios, and a retail store. 21 Grand was volunteer-run, and lasted for 10 years and three locations. Sarah then went on to co-found LCM, a cooperatively run music venue, rehearsal space, and print studio in West Oakland with 8 colleagues. Sarah also worked in financial management and administration for other arts spaces, American Steel Studios and the Paul Dresher Ensemble Studios (both in West Oakland). Sarah is currently the Administrative Director of Safer DIY Spaces, an Oakland-based non-profit that assists low-income artists and community groups in making life safety improvements to “non-code compliant” buildings and consulting on strategies and methods for long-term stability of these spaces. 

Sarah Lockhart is a licensed tax professional, and has been providing affordable tax preparation and consulting services to artists, craftspeople, and grassroots groups for over 15 years.