The Collective
A porous and evolving group! Get in touch if you’d like to get involved :)
Noa Mori Machover
Lead Coordinator
Noa Mori Machover is an artist and researcher whose work examines how landscapes and materials register extraction, displacement, and repair.
As Lead Coordinator, they guide the evolving vision of Upstream through meeting facilitation, weaving together editorial, design, and programming efforts, and overseeing grants and long-term planning. They are currently a candidate in the dual Master’s of Fine Arts and Master’s of Landscape Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania.
Maya Björnson
Co-Coordinator & Events Organizer
Maya Björnson is a sculptor, poet, and amateur medievalist based in Philadelphia who makes immersive installations and specialty, multi-media objects.She enjoys collecting, curating, and teaching. Maya also collaborates with the Institute for Queer Ecology (IQECO) and has contributed to the Organism for Poetic Research. At Upstream she organizes and facilitates events, workshops, and community gatherings, oversees the production of both physical and digital projects, and supports creative collaboration across streams. Her home in Mt. Airy hosts regular gatherings, often on the full moon.
Austin Miles
Managing Editor
Austin Miles is from southeast Ohio and currently lives in Philadelphia where he’s a PhD student in Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania.He has essays published in the Cleveland Review of Books, Annulet, Spam, and elsewhere.
Teri Ke
Designer & Web Developer
Teri Ke is an artist and writer living in Philadelphia.They are the digital caretaker of Upstream, designing, building, and maintaining Upstream’s experimental publishing platform as both a technical and curatorial space.
Eddy Wang
Operations Support & Editor
Eddy Wang is an interdisciplinary artist and academic working in film, music, and writing.His work eclectically explores theoretically-informed experimental cinema alongside passionate songs for human connection. Eddy is half of the indie band Ira Dot and part of the Toronto Experimental Translation Collective. At Upstream he serves as editor and supports operations, occupying his fins with tasks such as workshop planning, grant review, and digital communications. He is also pursuing a PhD in English at the University of Pennsylvania.
Aliyah Dominique Jeffries
Assistant Editorial Coordinator & Editor
Aliyah Dominique Jefferies is a narrative and documentary filmmaker, photographer, and writer.Aliyah’s work explores Black urban life, and negotiates identity, childhood, and survival within the context of Blackness. At Upstream, she provides editorial feedback to contributors and assists in maintaining communication between the editorial and publishing teams. Aliyah is also currently a candidate in the Master’s of Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania.
Melissa Lynne Bleecker
Design Coordinator & Editor
Melissa Lynne Bleecker is an artist and designer currently pursuing a dual master’s degree in landscape architecture and fine Art. In her creative work Melissa engages with material investigations that trace the continua of subject and material, component and assembly, organic and synthetic. Stemming from a curiosity to explore the reciprocal dynamics at play in our inhabitation of the environment, their research seeks to make legible the contingent processes that unfold through the everyday navigation of our built worlds. With Upstream, Melissa collaborates on guiding written submissions through the editorial process and oversees design production for print and exhibition formats.
Victoria A. Megens
Operations Support & Editor
Victoria A. Megens is an artist, sculptor, and interdisciplinary artist whose work engages material research, architectural histories, and allegorical readings of landscape.At Upstream, she contributes across roles by supporting coordination, design, and editing, offering insight into the collective’s evolving vision, and stepping in wherever needed to sustain editorial and organizational momentum. Currently residing in British Columbia, Victoria remains an active fish on the Upstream team, staying closely involved from afar.
Adam Fertig
Editor
Adam Fertig is an Upstream editor, lapsed artist, and Ph.D. student.
Vivian Bi
Editor
Vivian has been involved with the publication’s editorial and operational work since its early days. Currently “on sabbatical” from Upstream, Vivian is tending to her relations in Hainan, China and conducting fieldwork for her doctoral research on how the corporate form is figuring the island’s ecological & economic futures.
Past Members
We are grateful to those who have swum with us. Keep swimming <3
Brittany Clottey, Eissa Attar, Maria Staack, Dagny Elise Carlsson, Mary Zhou
Additional Initial Workshop Attendees
Ilya Blender, Amirio Freeman, Yidan Zeng, Sol Kim