Projecting all voices

Promoting equity and inclusion in design, arts

ASU and Herberger Institute are leading the country in ensuring everyone gets a chance to share their story, including training more Latinx and indigenous designers and artists than any other place in the nation. But designers and artists from underrepresented groups remain underrepresented in the arts, design and in higher education institutions. To help change that, Herberger Institute launched Projecting All Voices. The Projecting All Voices initiative supports equity and inclusion in design and the arts so that, in Dean Steven J. Tepper’s words, “cultural life in the United States honors and represents the full creative diversity of the country’s population.”

Projecting All Voices, which includes scholarships, mentoring, fellowships, internships and guest artist residencies, helps address the lack of diversity in arts, design and entertainment, said Jake Pinholster, Herberger Institute associate dean for policy and initiatives.

“There’s a breath between graduation and first opportunity,” Pinholster said, explaining that in the time it takes to land a decent job, graduates from underrepresented communities often leave the their field to secure a more immediate steady paycheck.

“We need to give them that first opportunity,” Pinholster said. He added, “Our goal is to create a pipeline — and an expansive and deep reservoir at the end of that pipeline.”

Supported by ASU Gammage, Projecting All Voices seeks transformation in educational and cultural institutions to enable the full expression of all creative voices and calls for the Herberger Institute to research, design, prototype, implement and disseminate a new system of programs for confronting field-level issues of equity and inclusion in both higher education and the arts.

ASU’s Herberger Institute announced Liz Cohen (pictured here), associate professor of photography, will lead the institute’s Projecting All Voices initiative.

A Colombian-American photographer and performance artist who previously taught at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, Cohen makes interdisciplinary work that examines topics including immigration, nonconformity and resistance.

“Projecting All Voices aims to use the academic setting to support, promote and generate solidarity for artists of color at different stages of their careers,” Cohen said. “As we work to accelerate the careers of artists of color within ASU and nationwide, we continue to examine issues of equity and inclusion within the Herberger Institute. And as the largest school of design and the arts in the country, the institute is well positioned to host a national network of arts professionals to discuss how we can transform the arts and culture industries into more equitable, inclusive and just economies.”

In addition to being included in numerous exhibitions, from the El Paso Museum of Art to the Venice Biennale, Cohen’s work has been written about in The New York Times, Art in America and Lowrider Magazine. She received her MFA degree in photography from the California College of the Arts, and holds a BFA in studio art from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and a BA in philosophy from Tufts University.

Projecting All Voices welcomed its first cohort of post-graduate fellows this academic year. The Projecting All Voices fellowship program supports underrepresented artists from diverse communities. Fellows gain access to mentorship, opportunities to develop new work, exposure to key methodologies for expanding their capacities as artists, and opportunities to inform conversations about how educational and cultural institutions must change to prepare, support and advance the creative voices of a changing America through an equitable lens and framework of practice.

The first fellows were Yvonne Montoya, founding director of Safos Dance Theatre based in Tucson, Arizona; Alejandro Tey, a Chicago-based actor, director, writer and teaching artist; and Joel Thompson, a composer, pianist, conductor and educator from Atlanta.

“For an artist in the program, the gift of Projecting All Voices is one of time and space to focus on pushing your craft and the application of your craft to the next level,” Tey said.

Erika Moore (pictured on the left), who earned both a bachelor’s degree in nonprofit leadership and management and a master’s degree in dance from ASU, was hired to help run the fellowship program, which is funded by a $500,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

“As an artist of color, I recognize the lack of diversity in executive levels of leadership in art organizations across the nation and in higher education institutions,” she said. “We’re looking at institutional change — to be a place where all people, all artists, are included.”

Visiting artist Ysaÿe M. Barnwell

Musician, educator and author Ysaÿe M. Barnwell, longtime member of African-American female a cappella group Sweet Honey in the Rock, visited ASU for a weeklong residency in the fall with the ASU School of Music as the first Projecting All Voices visiting artist.

During her time on campus, Barnwell presented public sing sessions and lectures on her research and creative work and community building through music, as well as engaged in conversations with students in ASU courses.

“We are delighted to welcome an artist of Dr. Barnwell’s caliber for a residency in the ASU School of Music, as our students explore the multiple avenues through which they can engage with the community,” said Heather Landes, director of the ASU School of Music. “Dr. Barnwell’s visit highlights the ways in which they can utilize their own creative capacities to benefit society.”

For almost 30 years and on three continents, Barnwell has led the workshop “Building a Vocal Community – Singing in the African American Tradition,” which uses oral tradition and African American history, values, cultural and vocal traditions to build communities of song among singers and non-singers alike.

Ysaye M Barnwell speaking in front of a crowd

“Artists are tapped into that center of creativity, which I think is essential to transformation. It’s essential to us shifting today into the future that we want it to be.”

Carlton Turner, Policy fellow + Founder, Mississippi Center for Cultural Production