BOARD

Kirsha Kaechele
Founder
Kirsha Kaechele’s projects are based at MONA in Tasmania and New Orleans. In addition to art curation, her projects include: feasts as living art installations – temporal exhibitions in which every element of a feast is sculpture or performance; 24 Carrot – a project that creates kitchen gardens in low income areas of Tasmania and New Orleans; Heavy Metal – an art-science project focused on the mercury contamination of Tasmania’s River Derwent; Trascism – Mona’s zero-waste initiative, now implemented across their festivals and events; and Material Institute.

Laura Stein
Interim Executive Director

Jaohn Orgon
Sites & Campus Director
As Sites Director, Jaohn oversees sites and construction at Material Institute. His innovative developments combine art, architecture, community, and sacred space. Jaohn’s properties include The New Orleans Tree House, home to the most climbed tree in America; The Safe House with Mel Chin; The Fire House with Banksy; James Beard nominated Best New Restaurant in America, Cochon; Life Is Art West; High Cloud; and Material Institute. His spaces have appeared in Vice, NY Times, Arte, Art Forum, Atlas Obscura, Artnet, and The Guardian.

Aimée Toledano
Strategy & Communications Director
Aimée is an artist from New Orleans. As Program Director of The Embassy, she co-designs recording arts programming, leads department development, and produces live performances and music videos. As a filmmaker and photographer her work has shown at The New Museum, Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, and Serpentine Galleries and has been published in the New York Times, Art Forum, and Rolling Stone.

François Boudreaux
Fashion & Textiles Program Director
François Boudreaux is a multidisciplinary designer. As a Fashion Instructor at Material Institute, he focuses on helping students shape their aesthetics, instilling the process of design, and expanding students’ professionalism. François has studied both women’s and men’s wear design, recently obtaining an MA in Womenswear Design from Central Saint Martins. Outside of teaching, he also has his own contemporary brand FLYSÓN, which focuses on sporty and elegant products.

Angel Chung Cutno
Community Programs Director
Angel aka magikfox is a youth mentor, multidisciplinary artist, community organizer, and outdoor enthusiast whose family is rooted five generations deep along the Mississippi River. Angel is a certified Louisiana Master Naturalist and has gardened with youth since she was in college at LSU and throughout her teaching career. She rejoined the 24 Carrot team in 2023 to support the expansion of programming and mentoring opportunities for the youth. She connects to her community through Outdoor Afro meetups, masking as Queen of the Black Seminoles, and hosting the nomadic pop-up library RE(ad) TREAT. In 2021, Angel was named as one of Gambit’s 40 Under 40 for her community work. When not in work-mode, Angel is a rock-climbing, wheel-riding, reptile caretaker and dreams of opening the world’s first Afro-Asian led climbing facility!

Andy Gross
Lead Studio Engineer & Manager
Andy is an audio engineer and artist. As Lead Recording Artist Residency Engineer he records, mixes, and masters artists’ projects. He graduated from Tulane University with a degree in Political Science and Philosophy and worked in client services at the Orleans Public Defenders office before pursuing music full time. As a performing artist, he’s released and toured multiple self-produced projects performing with acts such as YG, Freddie Gibbs, and Lil Uzi Vert. Andy has engineered music since 2015, working on indie rock, rap, pop, jazz, and everything in between. Outside of music and work, he enjoys writing poetry, painting, and baseball (Go Mets!).

Delise Hampton
Garden & Culinary Manager
Delise is a mother, doula, multimedia creative, educator, healer, and poet born and raised in New Orleans. As Garden Educator, Delise cultivates youth and adult educational opportunities that are culturally relevant, community-centered, and connected to the restoration of relationship between the land and human nature. After graduating from Howard University in 2015, Delise returned home to affect change in her community. She’s hosted sacred women’s circles, curated live performances, writing workshops, and gatherings to activate healing through various modalities. She was a 2022–23 recording artist resident where she made 4GIVE, a 4-song EP available only on vinyl. She is known as High Heal Doula or The High Healer. In her spare time, you can find her producing music at Studio Foreva, cooking with High Heal Meals, or catching a baby.

Lucia Honey
Communications & Brand Manager
Lucia is a video artist, musician, and writer. They curate Material Institute’s public presence and manage our brand assets. They were an artist in residence at Joan Mitchell Center and studied interdisciplinary art at School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University. They’re an SMFA Traveling Fellow and have participated in Offshore, ACRE, and MI’s Recording Artist Residency. In their free time they enjoy cooking, learning languages, and travel.

Amani McCutchen
Operations Manager
Amani is a fashion entrepreneur, content creator, and the owner of Saint Miraj. Saint Miraj is an online apparel store and brand that mixes vintage and modern trends. Amani works closely with program directors and instructors to plan, coordinate, and execute all aspects of the program’s administrative needs. She also assists with marketing, events, and content creation.

Ilse Nina
Fashion & Textiles Program Manager
Ilse began working with Fashion & Textiles at the beginning of 2021, when she introduced knitting machines to the facility. She continues to grow the department introducing donation-based resources that provide accessibility to textile education offered here. Her classes explore sustainable design practices, digital garment illustration, and material experimentation using analog knitting machines.