HT student leader, Khadijah Taylor and Raasin in the Sun Board Chair Alexandria Anderson, facilitated a conversation about women as leaders in the arts featuring HT Dr. Rosalee Martin, HT Professor Jennine Krueger, muralist Candy Kuo, and Raasin in the Sun founder Raasin Macintosh.
The event included a gallery display of mural projects as well as the unveiling of the design for HT's mural by Candy!
About the speakers:
Raasin McIntosh is the Founder and Executive Director of Raasin in the Sun, an Olympic athlete, as well as the Vice President of Downtown Austin Alliance.
Candy Kuo is a visual artist and muralist with an extensive portfolio of publicly and privately commissioned art projects across the country.
Dr. Rosalee Martin is a Professor of Sociology at HT, an equity scholar, an artist, and their most senior faculty member with 50 years of service at the institution.
Professor Jennine Krueger is an HT alum, English faculty, award-winning slam poet, and inaugural fellow in the University's transformation initiative.
The event included a gallery display of mural projects as well as the unveiling of the design for HT's mural by Candy!
About the speakers:
Raasin McIntosh is the Founder and Executive Director of Raasin in the Sun, an Olympic athlete, as well as the Vice President of Downtown Austin Alliance.
Candy Kuo is a visual artist and muralist with an extensive portfolio of publicly and privately commissioned art projects across the country.
Dr. Rosalee Martin is a Professor of Sociology at HT, an equity scholar, an artist, and their most senior faculty member with 50 years of service at the institution.
Professor Jennine Krueger is an HT alum, English faculty, award-winning slam poet, and inaugural fellow in the University's transformation initiative.
The Art & Environment Capacity Building Initiative
Mural Arts Philadelphia and Mural Arts Institute Present Arts + Environment Justice Symposium
The two-week, multi-city series of virtual, hybrid, and in-person events explores transformative work at the intersection of community-based cultural practice and environmental justice.
From September 12 through September 23, Mural Arts Philadelphia is hosting the Arts + Environmental Justice Symposium. Led by the Mural Arts Institute, the two-week series of events invites artists, activists, cultural workers, environmental justice advocates, organizers, scientists, scholars, and government officials to discuss how creative people and practices are helping explore the intersection of racial, environmental, and economic justice, and meeting the specific calls of the moment.
While most events are virtual and free, September 14 will bring people together for a full day of in-person and hybrid programming at the Free Library of Philadelphia. Pre-registration is required and sliding scale admission (Solidarity through Redistribution) ensures access to the full symposium, lunch, rooftop beer garden, and networking event.
Building upon the efforts of artists and activists stewarding this work across the country through the Arts and Environmental Justice Capacity Building Initiative, Mural Arts Philadelphia is bringing together conversations, workshops, film screenings, and events that highlight transformative cultural practices and participatory public art that shift ecological, political, and social experiences of front-line communities. In times like these, the essential roles that artists and cultural workers play in communities become clear, including helping us heal, stay connected, make meaning out of pain, imagine our better future together, and take collective action.
Speakers include but are not limited to: Jane Golden (Mural Arts Philadelphia), Helen Gym (Philadelphia City Council), Denise Bright Dove Ashton-Dunkley (Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Nation), Members of The Climate Justice Initiative, Adrienne Mackey (Swim Pony Performing Arts), Tina Plokarz (Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education), Chloe Wang (Bartram’s Garden), and Priscilla Bell Lamberty (Artist and Educator).
To learn more and register, visit muralarts.org.
From September 12 through September 23, Mural Arts Philadelphia is hosting the Arts + Environmental Justice Symposium. Led by the Mural Arts Institute, the two-week series of events invites artists, activists, cultural workers, environmental justice advocates, organizers, scientists, scholars, and government officials to discuss how creative people and practices are helping explore the intersection of racial, environmental, and economic justice, and meeting the specific calls of the moment.
While most events are virtual and free, September 14 will bring people together for a full day of in-person and hybrid programming at the Free Library of Philadelphia. Pre-registration is required and sliding scale admission (Solidarity through Redistribution) ensures access to the full symposium, lunch, rooftop beer garden, and networking event.
Building upon the efforts of artists and activists stewarding this work across the country through the Arts and Environmental Justice Capacity Building Initiative, Mural Arts Philadelphia is bringing together conversations, workshops, film screenings, and events that highlight transformative cultural practices and participatory public art that shift ecological, political, and social experiences of front-line communities. In times like these, the essential roles that artists and cultural workers play in communities become clear, including helping us heal, stay connected, make meaning out of pain, imagine our better future together, and take collective action.
Speakers include but are not limited to: Jane Golden (Mural Arts Philadelphia), Helen Gym (Philadelphia City Council), Denise Bright Dove Ashton-Dunkley (Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Nation), Members of The Climate Justice Initiative, Adrienne Mackey (Swim Pony Performing Arts), Tina Plokarz (Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education), Chloe Wang (Bartram’s Garden), and Priscilla Bell Lamberty (Artist and Educator).
To learn more and register, visit muralarts.org.
Introducing the Austin Cohort
More about the two year Grant …
Mural Arts aims to support other communities interested in using collaborative, participatory arts-based processes to address local environmental issues. Beginning in 2018 with partners in three cities, Akron, Ohio, Detroit, Michigan, and Memphis, Tennessee, the Mural Arts Institute began sharing the Mural Arts model nationally to support cities’ own public art initiatives with the “Art & Environment Capacity Building Initiative.” This application-based program focuses on working with organizations in cities to help them create a sustaining model of their own, one that will allow artists and communities to work together and create well-beyond our involvement.
Our approach is highly collaborative: we seek to share our own knowledge, experiences, and resources while also enabling internal self-discovery for each city and exchange among the cohort as a whole.
Click to learn about the work created through this initiative in Akron , Memphis, or Detroit.
After a successful pilot of this initiative, we are excited to announce three new United States cities for the second round of the program, another two-year initiative (2020-2022). Each city will have its own unique set of conditions and assets with which to work, and we hope to be able to inform work we support elsewhere through documenting the diverse set of approaches that emerge from this initiative.
This work would not be possible without the strategy and program design support we receive in collaboration with Alexis Frasz and Helicon Collaborative.
Our approach is highly collaborative: we seek to share our own knowledge, experiences, and resources while also enabling internal self-discovery for each city and exchange among the cohort as a whole.
Click to learn about the work created through this initiative in Akron , Memphis, or Detroit.
After a successful pilot of this initiative, we are excited to announce three new United States cities for the second round of the program, another two-year initiative (2020-2022). Each city will have its own unique set of conditions and assets with which to work, and we hope to be able to inform work we support elsewhere through documenting the diverse set of approaches that emerge from this initiative.
This work would not be possible without the strategy and program design support we receive in collaboration with Alexis Frasz and Helicon Collaborative.
The Austin, TX Team
In Austin, Texas the collaborative team is headed by Raasin in the Sun , The Mosaic Workshop, and the Austin Creative Alliance , among others. Raasin in the Sun was founded by former Olympian Raasin McIntosh as a placemaking and restorative initiative aimed at inspiring, uniting and uplifting communities within East Austin. The Mosaic Workshop, co-founded by artist/educator J Muzacz, and hosted at Something Cool Studios, is a creative community hub providing access and opportunities for artists to work together and thrive together in East Austin. The Austin Creative Alliance advances and advocates for artists and cultural workers in and around Austin. The focus of their collective work for the Art and Environment Initiative will take place in East Austin, a community historically red-lined and which has seen the disproportionate impact of oil tank farms, power plants, and other toxic industries in a city otherwise praised for its access to nature and clean living. The team will be working with the East Austin Environmental Initiative , which draws upon community activism and citizen involvement to address environmental concern in the area.
In Austin, Texas the collaborative team is headed by Raasin in the Sun , The Mosaic Workshop, and the Austin Creative Alliance , among others. Raasin in the Sun was founded by former Olympian Raasin McIntosh as a placemaking and restorative initiative aimed at inspiring, uniting and uplifting communities within East Austin. The Mosaic Workshop, co-founded by artist/educator J Muzacz, and hosted at Something Cool Studios, is a creative community hub providing access and opportunities for artists to work together and thrive together in East Austin. The Austin Creative Alliance advances and advocates for artists and cultural workers in and around Austin. The focus of their collective work for the Art and Environment Initiative will take place in East Austin, a community historically red-lined and which has seen the disproportionate impact of oil tank farms, power plants, and other toxic industries in a city otherwise praised for its access to nature and clean living. The team will be working with the East Austin Environmental Initiative , which draws upon community activism and citizen involvement to address environmental concern in the area.
The Santa Fe, NM Team
In Santa Fe, New Mexico, Indigenous and Chicanx artists, activists, scholars, and community members that comprise Alas de la Agua Art Collective and Three Sisters Collective are working towards addressing the complex dynamics of colonial history, cultural erasure and environmental racism in Santa Fe, O ‘gha Po ‘Oghe, Tewa Territory . Alas De Agua Art Collective is an intersectional grass roots space providing resources and opportunities for artists of color, native artists, immigrant, undocumented, and queer artists who have historically and currently been marginalized and not afforded the same resources. They offer opportunities for said artists to provide alternative narratives, and they remove barriers and creatively go around them. Three Sisters Collective utilizes a decolonial, Pueblo rooted, matriarch-led framework to create an extreme social shift to counteract social and environmental injustices in the community. Indigenous and communities of color in and around Santa Fe have borne the burden of environmental disregard including the storage of nuclear waste on Pueblo territory, the overgrazing of land and overharvesting of plant medicines, contamination of waterways, and heightened vulnerability of women and girls towards violence from temporary workers of environmentally extractive industries (MMIWGT2S).
In Santa Fe, New Mexico, Indigenous and Chicanx artists, activists, scholars, and community members that comprise Alas de la Agua Art Collective and Three Sisters Collective are working towards addressing the complex dynamics of colonial history, cultural erasure and environmental racism in Santa Fe, O ‘gha Po ‘Oghe, Tewa Territory . Alas De Agua Art Collective is an intersectional grass roots space providing resources and opportunities for artists of color, native artists, immigrant, undocumented, and queer artists who have historically and currently been marginalized and not afforded the same resources. They offer opportunities for said artists to provide alternative narratives, and they remove barriers and creatively go around them. Three Sisters Collective utilizes a decolonial, Pueblo rooted, matriarch-led framework to create an extreme social shift to counteract social and environmental injustices in the community. Indigenous and communities of color in and around Santa Fe have borne the burden of environmental disregard including the storage of nuclear waste on Pueblo territory, the overgrazing of land and overharvesting of plant medicines, contamination of waterways, and heightened vulnerability of women and girls towards violence from temporary workers of environmentally extractive industries (MMIWGT2S).
The Kern County, CA Team
The Kern County, California collaborative team is headed by Dr. Rosanna Esparza, gerontologist & environmental health researcher, and public art & social practice artist, Michelle Glass, MFA. The team is joined by David Gordon, the Executive Director of the Arts Council of Kern . The team is joined by a strong partnership with environmental experts. The Center on Race, Poverty & The Environment with Executive Director Caroline Farrell, JD, provides legal, organizing, and technical assistance to grassroots groups in low-income communities and communities of color. The Central California Environmental Justice Network , directed by Nayamin Martinez, MPH, works toward eliminating harmful environmental impacts, provides technical assistance and oversees the IVAN Network ( Identifying Violations Affecting Neighborhoods ) in the Central Valley. The Central Valley Air Quality Coalition , directed by Catherine Garoupa White, MSW, PhD, ensures that all communities have the opportunity to be involved in air quality policy development, advocacy and regulatory processes improving regional health. Caught between big-oil, big-ag and big greed, the collaborative partnership of the individuals and organizations approach their work with vigor and passion. Their lives depend on it.
The Kern County, California collaborative team is headed by Dr. Rosanna Esparza, gerontologist & environmental health researcher, and public art & social practice artist, Michelle Glass, MFA. The team is joined by David Gordon, the Executive Director of the Arts Council of Kern . The team is joined by a strong partnership with environmental experts. The Center on Race, Poverty & The Environment with Executive Director Caroline Farrell, JD, provides legal, organizing, and technical assistance to grassroots groups in low-income communities and communities of color. The Central California Environmental Justice Network , directed by Nayamin Martinez, MPH, works toward eliminating harmful environmental impacts, provides technical assistance and oversees the IVAN Network ( Identifying Violations Affecting Neighborhoods ) in the Central Valley. The Central Valley Air Quality Coalition , directed by Catherine Garoupa White, MSW, PhD, ensures that all communities have the opportunity to be involved in air quality policy development, advocacy and regulatory processes improving regional health. Caught between big-oil, big-ag and big greed, the collaborative partnership of the individuals and organizations approach their work with vigor and passion. Their lives depend on it.