Our Team

Founders

Creation Nation by the Barat Foundation promotes diversity, critical thinking and empathy through cross cultural dialogue and creative collaboration. We are a community of artists and educators dedicated to promoting peace, fostering compassion and nurturing lives built on wisdom. Led by mother daughter team, Chandri and Athena Barat, Creation Nation programs are based in the pedagogy of “Exposure Experience Expression”, a hands on educational model that empowers the unique creative potential of each student.

To travel with Creation Nation is to delve deeply into a culture and to meet its gatekeepers and storytellers. It is to see the world in her beauty and to recognize the self as part of an intricate miraculous web of interdependent creation.

Staff

Athena Barat – Creative Director

Athena has a BA in American Studies from Rutgers University and an MA in Media Studies from the New School in Manhattan. With a focus on youth media, and a passion for creating safe spaces for creative expression, Athena has worked with thousands of youth from inner city to abroad.

Rhys Valmonte – Filmmaking Program Director

Rhys Valmonte is an award winning cinematographer and graphic designer, working both in commercial and documentary films.