Hannah Hasan and Scott Gardner

Hannah Hasan, 2021 Hermitage Fellow is a highly sought-after spoken word poet and storyteller who believes that our stories can set us free. With themes that center home, social justice, racial justice, women's rights, and more; Hannah is often commissioned to write and perform customized powerful poetry and provide speeches and workshops for events, conferences, and meetings. Hannah has interviewed hundreds of people from throughout the United States, written their stories, and recruited and managed storytellers--who learned these stories and performed them for different storytelling events--that were all created to shed light on some of the most important social issues of our time. In addition to her work as a performance artist, Hannah is a skilled event hostess and facilitator. Hannah graduated from North Carolina A&T State University with a Bachelor of Arts and Full Sail University with a Master of Fine Arts and she lives in Charlotte, NC with her husband Jamaal.

Scott Gardner received his BFA in cinematography from the North Carolina School of the Arts. He has worked on feature films that have screened at the Sundance and Berlin film festivals and shot numerous television documentary series for clients such as the National Geographic Channel, the History Channel, Discovery Channel, ABC, and Red Bull. He received an Emmy Nomination in 2014. He has shot movie posters for films that have screened at the Sundance, Berlin, and Cannes film festivals. His photographs are in both private and corporate collections and he has completed a residency at the McColl Center for Art + Innovation. He recently released his first book, That I May Serve. and is the co-founder of AboutFace CLT, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the elevation of kindness and compassion through storytelling and community art projects.