The Art of Community: Equity, Creative Justice and PechaKucha

What does cultural equity look like at the community level? How can artists and civic leaders foster creative justice for the people they serve? What the heck is a PechaKucha*? Find answers to these questions and more at The Art of Community, a night of short presentations and discussions on cultural equity in communities. Join a group of fellow artists, arts administrators and arts advocates as you listen to (and discuss) ideas from an arts educator, a museum curator, an artist and a civic hacker in a night of PechaKucha.

Featuring PechaKuchas by:

• Mariana Astorga-Almanza, Ed.D. is the Visual and Performing Arts Coordinator in the Lynwood Unified School District. Dr. Astorga-Almanza is a National Board Certificated music educator with nine years of band and orchestra experience at the middle school level (primarily within the Los Angeles Unified School District). Dr. Astorga-Almanza earned her Bachelor of Music degree in Music Education from USC in 2006, where she marched in the USC Trojan Marching Band; a Master of Arts in Education from CSULA in 2013; and a Doctor of Education degree (Ed.D.) in the Educational Leadership Program at UCLA in 2016, where she studied the impact of California’s Local Control Funding Formula on arts education programs in two Los Angeles County school districts. Dr. Astorga-Almanza is a member of the California Practitioners Advisory Group, which provides input to the California State Board of Education related to LCFF and ESSA. She is passionate about providing all students with the equitable access to quality arts education.
• Robert Benitez began working with the Lancaster Museum of Art & History in 2010. While on the museum’s education team, Benitez led the museum’s renowned Discovery Trunks program. In 2014, along with the acquisition of the Museum of Art & History’s community engagement space, MOAH:CEDAR, Benitez became the MOAH:CEDAR liaison. Curating exhibitions and developing programming that is accessible to both local artists and the community at large, Benitez’s vision for MOAH:CEDAR is to create a space that fosters emerging artists and reflects the community in which it serves.
• Maceo Keeling. Maceo Paisley Keeling is a multi-disciplinary artist, designer and cultural producer who explores themes in society and identity through movement, language and imagery. After serving in the US Army and climbing the ladders of corporate America, Maceo made his way into the world of arts, entertainment and entrepreneurship. For the past decade he has danced professionally, and performed on national stages as a spoken word and performance artist. As Executive Director of Citizens of Culture, he uses the arts as a vehicle to develop critical thinking and emotional intelligence in businesses and communities. Their programs cultivate individual agency and strengthen communities. Maceo is a bronze star awardee for his service in Iraq. In 2015 he was a participant of the Millennial Trains Project. He was a NBCUniversal Challenge Grant recipient. And in 2016, he was a member of the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs exhibition SKiN. That same year, he opened Nous Tous Gallery and retail space in Chinatown, Los Angeles. He continues to work as a dancer/choreographer for the likes of indie rock sensation Beirut, Justin Timberlake and others.
• Omar Ureta. Urban designer by day, civic hacker by night. Omar Ureta is a design technologist revealing the complexities of land use planning and development. As an urban design consultant, he advocates for architecture in support of the public realm by improving on public outreach and public process. As a civic hacker, Omar experiments with new ways to interactively communicate land-use issues through the use of open source tools and open data. He is part of an emerging community of civic hackers and leads maptimeLA, a volunteer group open to anyone interested in collaborative learning, exploration and map creation.

What the heck is a PechaKucha?

A PechaKucha is basically the antithesis of the boring Power Point lecture. It’s short, snappy and fabulous.