The Network
Our graduates join a network of trickster activists. The network is for members and graduates only, and will remain secret to you too, until you pass through the program. The secret portal is made available to those who pass through the program.
Trickster Trainers
Andy Bichlbaum
Andy Bichlbaum (AKA Jacques Servin) is a co-founder of the culture-jamming activist group known as The Yes Men. Their exploits in “identity correction” are documented in the films The Yes Men, The Yes Men Fix the World and The Yes Men Are Revolting. As Ray Thomas, he is also a co-founder of anti-corporate corporation RTmark. He has held numerous corporate jobs from which he was fired for altering the company products and doing too much activism from the office. He has taught at Calarts, The New School, NYU, and CUNY, and has conducted hundreds of workshops in creative activism around the world.
Mike Bonanno
Mike Bonanno (AKA Igor Vamos) is a co-founder of the notorious group of trickster-activists known as The Yes Men. For over three decades Bonanno has been pulling off outrageous, attention-getting actions for a variety of causes. He is also a professor with over three decades of teaching experience, and currently serves as Director of Graduate Programs in Art at RPI in Troy, NY.
Gitz Crazyboy
Gitz Crazyboy is a Dene and Blackfoot activist and youth worker who is part of a movement that is decolonizing indigenous studies. Gitz is also a mischief-maker who has co-created several Yes Men media spectacles, including an infiltration of a US Homeland Security conference that became the final scene in the award-winning film The Yes Men Are Revolting. Gitz is completing his Master’s degree in Education, in Calgary.
Jeff Walburn
Jeff Walburn (AKA Keil Troisi) has collaborated with the Yes Men since 2011, leading workshops and creating media-hacking actions that use humor, surprise, and trickery to amplify partner campaigns. He worked for a decade as a screenplay editor and story analyst, and in 2019 won a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship for Screenwriting-Playwriting. Jeff is the lone founder of The Fixers, an international conspiracy to disrupt systems of power and fix kinks in the universe (or make them kinkier).
Natalie Whiteman
Natalie Whiteman (AKA Molly Gore) has collaborated with the Yes Men since 2019, co-producing creative interventions to support progressive movements. A former journalist, she covered the campaign of Jon Gnarr, Iceland’s comedian-turned-mayor, co-authored two cookbooks, and directed a dadaist street theater project, The Salted Codpiece. Despite absurd claims to the contrary, Natalie is the actual founder of The Fixers, a world-renowned scheme to fix the bad, the broken, and the boring.
Megan Paradis-Hanley
Megan has been scheming with the Yes Men since 2012, training activists and managing projects in support of immigrants’ rights and gender justice. She is also the Co-Artistic Director of The Syndicate, an ensemble theater company that produces plays by women, queer, and trans+ artists. She has collaborated with activists and artists in Peru, Mexico, Brazil, Galicia, and Tanzania. Megan teaches theater at the New School, with SITI Company, and in NYC public schools.
Cristian Fleming
Cristian is an activist, designer, illustrator and the founder of two companies. One, called The Public Society, works with partners all over the world to design systems, campaigns, experiences, and brands centered around climate action, social equity, and the environment. The second, called SuperCollider, partners with early stage investment firms focused on funding world-positive innovation to help them integrate design thinking into their own processes. In addition to his professional pursuits, Cristian also throws a considerable amount of himself into activist design for the same causes that drive his work, and has collaborated with the Yes Men since 2009.