OUTREACH
I like to explore the intersections of culture, conflict, community, and identity. I’m also a strong believer in creative community outreach and dedicate most of my spare time volunteering in the arts and refugee sectors. This is where I visually keep track of most of the non-profit and public-facing projects I’ve been involved in.
VOLUNTEER Cybersecurity teacher
I volunteer with the Microsoft TEALS program to teach high school students fundamental cybersecurity concepts. Cybersecurity affects nearly every part of our daily lives and it's been so fulfilling getting to introduce students to this field. My goal is for each student to finish the course feeling a bit safer and to use their newfound skills to share that knowledge with their friends, family, and future colleagues.
LVA
Board Member, Interim Director of Brand Strategy, & Long-Range Strategic Planning committee co-chair
LVA (Louisville Visual Art) is an incredible arts organization that aims to engage, inspire, and improve the community and city through the arts. After becoming engaged with them as a board member it became clear that a rebrand was inevitable with the advent of a new strategic plan. I volunteered my services as an Interim Director of Brand Strategy to develop a new brand vision, identity, target demographics, playbook, and internal/external toolkit. As the co-chair for the Long-Range Strategic Planning Committee I co-developed sustainable implementation practices to turn what's on paper into a reality.
Seeds of Peace UK
Seeds of Peace is an international NGO dedicated to training exceptional young people in leadership and peace-building. This organization hosts an annual fundraising bridge-walk around the world in which I had the honor to design the 2014 passbook for.
Language&Logic
micro-documentary production house / artist duo / husband & wife team sharing stories about the arts, human rights, and culture.
MICROMENTARIES
From MPs to Artists, we have worked with an array of people, events and organizations from all over the spectrum to share their stories. We specialized in short form and have produced micro-documentaries, crowdfunding campaigns, and music videos. We've never believed in one-size-fits-all formulas; each story is as unique as you. That's why all our post-production, including musical composition, was done in-house.
Counterpoints Arts // Refugee Week
DIRECTOR OF INTERNS, IN-HOUSE PHOTOGRAPHER AND VIDEOGRAPHER
I began working as a volunteer for the Refugee Week Conference and have stuck around since. I do photography, produce short films and press releases, and have helped develop/implement internship programmes.
As a creative hub, they co-create, develop, produce, facilitate, promote, curate, research, publish and disseminate a range of arts and media projects exploring refugee and Migrant experiences.
O.Z. Gallery
The O.Z. Gallery was started by a group of friends and undergraduate classmates in the glass art program at the University of Louisville, Hite Art Institute. The name itself was derived from both of the glass furnaces at the University of Louisville’s Cressman Center: the Z. Furnace and the O. Furnace.
Our aim was to encourage the development of even higher standards of performance and accomplishment in both glass and glassmaking but has extended beyond any one medium into all forms of art. We made no profit; only wanting to promote creative dialogue with our community and positively challenge traditional ways of social engagement.
Top right work created by Mitchell Noah; Middle right work created by Sarah Davis; Bottom left photo credit to Sarah Davis; Bottom right work created by Collin Lloyd.
CIDA
CIDA is a development agency for entry level creatives with no resources or connections. They target marginalised and excluded communities to provide opportunities for expression and growth through subsidising gallery spaces, hosting networking events/workshops, providing web distribution, etc.. I designed for Cr8Net, their annual Creative Industries Conference, and Creative XPO, their annual networking event.
Cyanotype Workshop @ Americana
A Project with the Photographic Alliance and Americana Community Center teaching migrant/refugee children how to make cyanotype prints and how to harness resources around them to create art.
EMPOWER
winner of the Presidential Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll Award with distinction
Empowering the voice of children through the teaching and mentorship of our Collaborative Ideas and Advanced Photography group at the University of Louisville. Through several sessions we taught the children self-confidence through art including photography, light-painting, shadow puppets, and narrative. Following, the EMPOWER exhibit was created as an effort to teach children to believe in their own visions. Each child was asked to design his/herself as a superhero and then we created those costumes, taking portraits of the children as they assumed their superhero alter-egos. To see more photos and learn more about this experience, visit our Collaborative Shelter Webpage.
SHELTER
Using the Louisville public bus shelters through TARC (Transit Authority of River City) to bring poetry and visual art to the community. Collaboration with poet Jak Cardini.
Serkan Ozkaya & The Courier Journal
Redefining the everyday and the boundaries of art in public spaces. Assistant to Turkish artist Serkan Ozkaya, hand- rendering the front page of the newspaper to be published for the Louisville Courier-Journal. Collaboration with the Courier Journal Newspaper in Louisville, Kentucky and Art Without Walls. As written about further in the New York Times and USA Today.
