Isa Rivera
EmergeNYC Flagship (2025)
isa rivera (ismenia, she/they) is a Colombian-American gender-fluid dyke. Originally raised in Wisconsin, they’ve spent their early twenties between Iceland and Colombia. During their time in Iceland, they were an active member of Andrými, a radical social center, as well as No Borders Iceland, working closely with Refugees in Iceland. isa is a trained ceramicist, as well as a poet, an actor, a screenwriter, director of photography, and editor. Art, for isa, is an explorative experience that can be engaged through many different aspects of daily play; through makeup, clothes, and hair. They were part of the ensemble cast of LaGuardia Community College’s play Big Love (2023) directed by James Ryan Caldwell and written by Charles L Mee, as well as played a supporting role in Shifting Space (2024) directed and written by Sophia Abrams. Their poetry is often described as abstract and surrealist; moving from emotions to images and frequently bouncing between sensations. isa is a fellow at Brooklyn Poets (2025) for Alexis Aceves Garcia’s “Dreaming Against the Colonial Imaginary” and did a residency program at Shantigar summer of 2023. isa finds a lot of freedom and flexibility in film and performance projects; films are a space that enables us to explore our multifaceted nature as humans, not just as an expression of a story or body, but as a labour of art in its full capacity.