Artists

Lauren Tillman

Lauren C. Tillman is a Savannah, GA native who has also called DC, Harlem, Boston, and Oklahoma City her home at some point.  Currently, she lives in Nashville after graduating from Vanderbilt Divinity School with a Master of Divinity, focusing on Spirituality and Social Activism and Black Religion and Culture Studies.  Lauren completed the Religion in the Arts and Contemporary Culture certificate program while at VDS, concentrating on how the arts and culture determine how we see, define, and interact with the divine and ourselves.  She believes that all art is political and that there is no religion without culture.

Stachelle Bussey

Stachelle Bussey was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. Equipped with a heart for service through worship at a young age, Stachelle began serving in the church when she was just 7 years old. A self-taught musician, she started out as a drummer and then began playing keys before becoming a Minister of Music at the age of 22. 

While obtaining her bachelor’s in criminal justice from Kentucky State University, she was an active participant in the music department, and a member of the Thoroughbred Marching Band and Gospel Ensemble. Stachelle became a member of Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority in November 2007. Recognizing music could be used as a tool to reach underprivileged youth, Stachelle returned to her alma mater, Central High School, as Assistant Band Director where she currently arranges music and assists in all aspects of the band, including choreography. 

In 2015, Stachelle was named Worship Director for One Church Louisville where she currently serves today leading worship, arranging music, and overseeing programming and sound. In 2017, Stachelle answered the call to minister from the pulpit and preached her initial sermon titled "Accident Forgiveness" on August 20, 2017. Concerned with the surge in food insecurity in Louisville, Stachelle coordinated an effort to provide free rides to the grocery store on a monthly basis in 2019 utilizing churches for pick-up and drop-off locations. This coincided with the launch of the Hope Buss, a nonprofit organization that intersects the church with the community in various forms such as providing rides to the polls on election day, hosting conversations on mental health and the church, and providing free food and gospel music in the community after the murders of Breonna Taylor and David McAtee in West Louisville. 

In 2019, Stachelle was named to the Vanderbilt University Divinity School Public Theology and Racial Justice Collaborative Cohort, which is a national body of persons committed to consistent dialogue around issues pertaining to racial justice that impact them locally, but have national import. By consistent collaboration, Cohort participation will serve as a think tank for ideas, collective witness, and support for the journey. Stachelle earned her Master of Divinity from Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary as part of the "Agents of Change" cohort and received her chaplaincy certification through Norton Healthcare in May 2020. Stachelle was accepted to the Certificate of Advanced Studies in Ecumenical Studies program at the Ecumenical Institute at Chateau de Bossey in Geneva, Switzerland. She is tentatively expected to begin her studies in September 2020.

Olivia Kamil Smarr

Olivia Kamil Smarr (she/her) is a Black, queer, emerging public theologian and movement artist. She combines traditional West African dance movements with contemporary Black American dance styles, using music spanning the African diaspora to show how ancestral rhythms survive in our bodies and are embedded within our spirits. Olivia explores, challenges, and creates innovative ways of spiritual engagement in this unique societal moment, conjuring revolution, power, magic, and passion through movement. She engages with a theology that transcends faith and views the body itself as divine and holy, embracing the connection of sensuality and spirituality. Olivia centers those with disabilities, chronic illnesses, and survivors of trauma, including religious trauma, in her work. She has an undergraduate degree from Stanford University and is currently enrolled in a Master’s program at Chicago Theological Seminary, exploring the arts as spiritual resistance to oppression. 

KASHIF ANDREW GRAHAM

Kashif Andrew Graham is Outreach Librarian for Religion & Theology at Vanderbilt Divinity Library. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Spanish from CUNY Lehman College, a Master of Arts in Church Ministry from the Pentecostal Theological Seminary, and a Master of Science in Information Sciences from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.

Kashif has been featured on podcasts such as Queerology, Love City Arts, Queervotion, Misfits & Mystics, and OutLoud; on public radio (WPLN); and he appeared on C-SPAN’s Book TV in 2019.

Kashif is a queer Jamaican-American who writes on everything from the queer to the quotidian. An avid typewriter collector, he regularly writes typewriter poetry on vintage library catalog cards. You can follow his work on Instagram @kagwrites.