Humanizing Policy Issues Through Arts Curation
The Brief & Scale
A ten-part exhibition and screening series inside Independent Sector's DC headquarters, reframing policy issues including gentrification, immigration and bodily autonomy as film, photography, poetry and live performance.
Curatorial Scope
Co-curated the full slate and produced each activation: selecting artists and works, authoring the technical run of shows, and designing how a formal office became a working gallery for a night and turned back by morning.
The Audience Problem
Two audiences in one room. Grassroots artists needed to feel protected showing personal work inside a policy institution, and foundation executives needed a reason to stay past the first ten minutes.
Ten Activations in a Policy Headquarters
Translated dense policy briefs into a slate of film, photography, poetry and performance that could hold a room of funders without a data deck.
Built trust with grassroots artists showing personal work, while structuring each evening so foundation leaders left with something they could act on.
Authored technical run of shows and spatial plans that turned a corporate headquarters into a gallery and back inside a working day.
Framed each activation for the members and funders in the room, aligning the series with the organization's policy agenda without flattening the art into illustration.
Policy in a Gallery
- Heavy topics, held attention. Immigration, housing equity and bodily autonomy ran as immersive activations that engaged audiences standard reports had stopped reaching.
- Artists protected, funders moved. Community artists showed personal work inside a policy institution on their own terms, and institutional leaders met the issues as people rather than data.
- The number the organization reports. The organization reported a 20% increase in programmatic funding tied to these programming cycles.