KAITLIN PREST
Founder & Queen of Mermaid Palace

You might know Kaitlin Prest as the creator of two critically acclaimed podcasts The Heart, and The Shadows. You might know her from the uncritically acclaimed fuck-you-in-the-face radio show and podcast Audio Smut. You might know her from falling asleep to a dreamscape in an opera house in Amsterdam, or a shadow puppet play at the AGO in Toronto, or a bath you took in Copenhagen. You might not know Kaitlin at all. Kaitlin is an artist who decided to start a company.

Mermaid Palace gets its namesake from Kaitlin Prest’s bedroom in the 4 story hippie house where she and Sharon Mashihi lived from 2012 to 2018. Where Audio Smut and The Heart were predominantly produced. It is where dreams of this company were born, and where a creative practice amongst friends was developed.

︎ @kaitlinprest

︎ @kaitlinprest

SHA / KA
Collaborators & Best Friends

The framework of the company was inspired by a framework for artmaking invented by Sha and Ka.

SHARON MASHIHI
Artist & Vice Queen of Mermaid Palace

We call her the director of people and culture. Sharon Mashihi is known for being an editor on The Heart (Radiotopia) and Bodies (KCRW), for being a founding member of an artist residency in upstate New York called SMT, and many wonderful artistic interventions. Sharon is creating a new fictional show called APPEARANCES, based on her award-winning documentary: Man Choubam (I am Good).

︎ Sharon Mashihi

PHOEBE UNTER
Artist

Phoebe makes audio and visual art interrogating things people avoid talking about. She is co-host & co-producer of bitchface, an experimental audio project. Phoebe sometimes holds the mic while Kaitlin Prest pretends to have sex, and did a stint as producer & office eccentric at the public radio show Marketplace. She records and archives oral histories with tenants for the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project.

︎ @theheartradio

︎ @bitchfacepodcast

NICOLE KELLY
Artist

Nicole is an artist who uses sound, situation and prose to make revolution irresistible. She is co-host & producer of bitchface, an independent, experimental audio project. She served as the first Programming Director at the Women’s Center for Creative Work in Los Angeles, where she curated programs at the intersections of art, social justice, and living a feminist life, and edited Decolonizing Nonviolent Communication by Meenadchi for Co-Conspirator Press. Her own work has appeared in print, digital, and audio in various outlets, including The Heart, Afropunk’s Solutions Sessions, the CBC’s Podcast Playlist, ZYZZYVA, Fiction Southeast, and elsewhere. In a past life she received an MFA from the Programs In Writing at UC Irvine and was a Kimbilio Fiction Fellow.

︎ @theheartradio

︎ @bitchfacepodcast

JEN NG
Art Director & Designer

Jen is a user experience and visual designer for digital products and experiences. 

In between her work, Jen focuses on social justice projects rooted in LGBTQ topics, youth empowerment and women’s advocacy, including the non-profit The Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls and The Heart from 2012-2019. Her ongoing work explores listeners' relationships with audio content to help her design intuitive and branded touchpoints for sound mediums — making audio brands look and feel the way they sound.

︎ @funfetti_party

︎ Jen Ng

ALLIE PINEL
Assistant Producer & Event Producer

Allie (Alexandra) Pinel is a choreographer and performance and radio producer originally from Paris, France, currently residing in Brooklyn, New York. In addition to supporting Kaitlin and Mermaid Palace, Allie has worked for New York Public Radio for the last 5 years both in development and in production specifically at The Greene Space and supporting most teams at WNYC and WNYC Studios. As an artist her work has been shown in New York at the House of Sweden, through the Dance Film Association at Triskelion Arts, BabyCastles, The Living Gallery, Brooklyn Arts Exchange and Dixon Place among others as well as in Santiago Chile and at the Capitol Hill Arts Blackbox in Washington, DC.

Allie is a leo just like Kaitlin (but virgo rising) and enjoys being a part of the mermaid support system and getting shit done, no matter what the ocean brings our way.

︎ @alexandrapinel

︎ Allie Pinel

MO LABORDE
Digital Producer

Mo LaBorde is an audio producer and essayist from Asheville, North Carolina. She’s worked with WNYC’s On the Media, Transmitter Media and The Oxford American. She’s interested in unsentimental stories about identity in the American South. She works on digital production for Mermaid Palace.

︎ Mo LaBorde

︎ Cuckoo Clock