Our Collective

Cecilia/Mahal is an entrepreneur, artist, storyteller and a climate activist. She is a 3D artist whose regenerative art was shown at Catharsis during Burning Man Waking Dreams and at the 2023 Burning Man Leadership Week art showcase. In June 2022 she was among 200 artists representing 17 countries selected by NFTnyc for its "Diversity in NFTs" showcase at its Times Square gallery and billboards. At Miami Art Basel, Mahal was one of 17 artists selected by Bit Basel to be part of its "OceanNFTMetaverse" showcase in December 2022, supporting UN SDG goals. "Trapped" from Mahal's cenote series includes plastic found on beaches of Tulum where waste from 52 countries wash up daily on the Caribbean Sea's shores. She collaborated with  Bye Bye Plastic to help eliminate single use plastics at festivals and music venues. She produced an NFT4Good event at the Williamsburg Hotel to raise awareness for climate change-focused artists and DAOs called “Can NFT’s Save the Planet?” In 2020 she worked at Art With Me Festival and volunteered with the renewable energy focused Care With Me Foundation. She was associate producer at TEDxTulum "Congruencia" where solutions to climate change were the focus of speakers. Mahal has a documentary in the works "Kajiado Girls" featuring girls rescued from child marriage in Kenya whose ages have become increasingly younger in recent years due to drought as families are forced to marry off girls earlier to help replenish crops and cattle lost to climate change as dowry. In 1997 Cecilia co-founded MOUSEorg (Making Opportunities for Upgrading Schools and Education) and spearheaded the installation of computers and internet connectivity at NYC Public Schools with a volunteer group of over 100 parents and tech volunteers. She has founded 3 venture-backed startups boutiqueY3k, StyleTrek and appLOUD. Born in the Philippines, Mahal emigrated to the United States as a child with her parents and 4 siblings.

Michael Hidary founded Samba Energy in 2008 to address the burgeoning U.S. market for residential and commercial scale solar. Samba implements a holistic approach to effectively optimizing results by first conducting a full ASHRAE Level 3 audit of a customer’s facility to diagnose its current energy and water consumption and propose conservation and efficiency solutions. Samba’s nationwide marketing, distribution, and certified installation capabilities has facilitated the successful implementation of thousands of solar, LED, electric vehicle charger, energy storage, Nest Thermostats, and BMS installations, and enrolled its customers in demand response programs. 

Samba is uniquely positioned in the market bringing over a decade and half of experience successfully engineering, permitting, installing, and managing projects in cities with strict laws and regulations as well as other constraints inherent in busy commercial zones. Samba’s team consists of master and certified electricians, legal, operations, sales and marketing, and financial experts. https://www.sambaenergy.com

Laura Douciere is a Brooklyn based multi-disciplinary artist and designer with a focus in lighting and spatial design. With curiosity at its core, her work explores the human experience and seeks to link people together by finding and communicating common narratives. What are the threads of experience that weave together the most quintessential aspects of being human? Over the last twelve years, her work has spanned across fashion, music, theatre, fine arts, architecture, and experiential design– creating evocative spaces and experiences with a borderless approach. Balanced and asymmetric, foreign and familiar, she boldly reimagines traditional approaches to design. Laura is the founder of Nothing Studios (an international spatial, lighting, and experiential design firm) and holds an MFA in lighting design from Parsons School of Design. www.nothingstudios.co

Jose Roberto Paredes

is the founder of Cincopatasalgato, an internationally recognized architecture, interior and furniture design studio. He co-founded Regional, an international architecture collaborative with bases in New York, Valencia, Guatemala and San Salvador and The Carrot Concept, a gallery, workspace, shop, and a café which encourages and supports innovative Salvadoran design. Jose Roberto’s work has been featured in international publications including Dwell Magazine, Architectural Digest Mexico and Spain, Madame Figaro in France, and Avivre. In 2015, Alexa Magazine of the New York Post named Cincopatasalgato one of “the 4 edgiest architects designing around the world.” In 2014 and 2016, he was nominated for the Mies Crown Hall American Prize, and has been part of several exhibitions including Arquitectura Irreverente in Mexico City, POST POST POST Nueva Arquitectura Iberoamericana in Buenos Aires, New Territories in The Museum of Art and Design in New York City, and in África / América Latina: Rising Design – Diseño Emergente, Salone Satellite Milan. He received his architecture degree from Universidad Albert Einstein in El Salvador and post-graduate degree in interior design from Universidad Politécnica de Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain. José Roberto is a Fellow of the 13th class of the Central America Leadership Initiative and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.

Mateo is a junior studying arhchitecture at Temple University in Philadelphia. He has been fascinated by buildings and architecture since he was 10 drawing architectural landmarks in his free time. In 5th grade he won an art competition with his rendering of the NY Skyline and represented his school in a citywide competition competing with middle school students. At Xavier HS in NYC, Mateo was given an "Block X Award" for his photography as a freshman, traditionally given to senior students. In 2016 he studied "3D Printing and 3D Design" during the summer at NYU. Mateo studied landscape architecture at Penn State in 2020 and is specializing in sustainable architecture at Temple University. Mateo has not yet been to Burning Man but looks forward to going to this magical place where his mom Cecilia returns from each year physically, mentally and spiritually transformed.

Lead Artist Cecilia welcomes your questions and inquiries. Email at ceciliany@gmail.com