Babes Fest NYC
Were you able to join us for #babesfestNYC on June 9th?
Our panelists for the evening were incredible. Since the response to attend was overwhelming, the original location was not able to accommodate all of our guests and thus we moved to a different (and bigger!) venue at Enjoy (324 Lafayette St. 7th FL in SoHo)!
The night featured 2 panel discussions, followed by an hour of networking and conversations ft. DJ Chanté Linwood.
There was also be a photo booth, courtesy of OM Digital, to snap some shots throughout the night.
PANEL 1: Sustainable Collaboration Models in Business (watch Facebook Live video here):
- Lindsay Eyth | Designer, eythink
- Rachel Nelson | Owner of Art Space, Secret Project Robot Art Experiment
- Katja Blichfeld | Film Writer / Director, High Maintenance: The Web Series
- Chanté Linwood | DJ & Founder, Cliché Collective
PANEL 2: Ways to Overcome Stereotypes / Barriers in the Workplace (watch Facebook Live video here):
- Megan King | Creative at BuzzFeed
- Driely Schwartz-Carter | High Fashion Photographer
- Mindy Abovitz | Owner & Founder, Tom Tom Magazine
- Erika Ramirez | Founder + Editor, ILY & Freelance Writer
- Jessica Williams | Correspondent, The Daily Show & Co-Host, 2 Dope Queens
Get familiar with our panelists below:
Jessica Williams is a writer/performer out of Los Angeles’s Upright Citizens Brigade. While she was studying film and English at California State University, Long Beach, and performing with UCB, she landed the role of correspondent on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.” In 2012, she was featured as one of Variety’s Top 10 Comics to Watch, and she recurred in the third season of HBO’s “Girls.” Williams can be seen in the Sundance comedy “People Places Things” (2015) and will continue as a correspondent on “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah.” She is also co-host of the new WNYC hit podcast 2 Dope Queens, with Phoebe Robinson.
Driely S. is a freelance fashion, lifestyle + concept photographer based in NYC. Her distinct shooting style and undeniable hustle have led her to gigs with Vogue, The Met Gala and Kanye West.
Erika Ramirez is the founder/editor of ILY and a freelance writer for many major publications. She has recently held editorial positions at both Billboard and ROOKIE.
Katja Blichfeld is a Brooklyn-based writer, director, producer and casting director. She, along with her husband Ben Sinclair, are the creative team behind the critically acclaimed series, High Maintenance, which will make its transition from the web to HBO this fall. Prior to creating High Maintenance, Blichfeld won an Emmy Award for her casting work on 30 Rock. In addition, she has cast several major motion pictures, the latest being Sebastian Silva’s Nasty Baby, and spent many years in NBC’s East Coast casting department, casting series regulars for numerous pilots. In 2015, she received the Writers’ Guild of America Award for Best Original Short-Form New Media, along with Sinclair, for their work on the High Maintenance episode “Rachel.“
Meet Lindsay Eyth of eythink. For the last three years, Eyth has been utilizing her knack for design, calligraphy and realness to create relatable apparel and goods. As a feminist, her pieces also bring light to important issues, namely gender equality, reproductive rights and sexual assault. (Photo by Celeste Laster)
Mindy Abovitz is a self taught drummer and drum machine programmer with a Masters in Media Studies from The New School for Social Research. She started Tom Tom Magazine in 2009. She hopes to impact the music industry through print media, new media, showcases, panels and community interactions and see a 50% increase of female drummers in the next ten years. The magazine has a feminist mission and seeks to raise awareness about female percussionists from all over the world and hopes to inspire women and girls of all ages to drum, while strengthening and building the community of otherwise fragmented female musicians.
Coming from Chi-Town, Chante will be both our DJ for the evening and a panelist. As one of the founders at Cliche Collective, she’ll speak on collaboration and creative career planning.
Rachel Nelson is an artist, curator, political economist and business owner who resides in Bushwick, Brooklyn. She founded Secret Project Robot, an artist run art space, with her husband in 2004. In 2013 they built, designed and opened Happyfun Hideaway a bar that thrives by creating a true work family with strong support of the artist community. Their newest project Flowers for All Occasions is a cafe/gallery/bar that is about having a public space for discourse and art while providing jobs to young artists. For her "free” time, Rachel went to graduate schools studying international political economy and wrote her thesis on the relationship between the rise of regulatory capture within tax systems and the rise of oligarchs. She is interested in the ways in which human relationships can slow the effects of unbridled capitalism on a community. She also likes to paint large really big flower paintings on found pieces of cardboard…
Megan King started her career building the voice and managing social for your favorite period underwear company, THINX. Currently she works as a Creative at BuzzFeed, writing original content and telling authentic stories for brands. Her love for normalizing taboo topics has allowed her to work on projects that range from reproductive education to feminine hygiene to body positivity. Let’s talk about sex, baby.
