Jean Melesaine is a Director, Photographer, and Storyteller who was mentored as a formerly incarcerated teenager from community members at Silicon Valley De-Bug-a story-telling, community organizing, and advocacy organization based in her hometown of San José, California. She owes a lot to Raj Jayadev and Charisse Domingo for putting a camera in her hand that saved her life. Her photography was first shown at Galeria de La Raza, with an exhibition on the lives of Queer Pacific Islanders, “Navigating Queer Pacific Waves”. She was the photographer and cultural strategist with the community trust at the Oakland Museum for the award winning exhibition “Pacific Worlds”. She was chosen as the first U.S International Tautai Artist in Residence in Auckland, Aotearoa (NZ) and awarded the Open Society Documentary Photography award. She is one of KQED’s Women To Watch and “Yerba Buena Center for Arts 100 List”. She is a recent graduate of the Film and Production program at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts.
