Moderator: Susan L. Power, PhD, Independent Scholar and Curator, Los Angeles and Co-Chair, Southern California Chapter, ArtTable.
Donna Stein, art historian, curator and recently retired Deputy Director of the Wende Museum of the Cold War in Culver City.
Debra J.T. Padilla, Executive Director of the Social and Public Resource Center (SPARC) in Venice, CA.
MonaLisa Whitaker, administrator with Watts Labor Community Action Committee (WLCAC) and recently retired Executive Director of Inglewood Cultural Arts.
Endia Beal, Director of the Diggs Gallery, Winston-Salem State University, North Carolina.
Jenay Meraz, Registration Administrator, Exhibitions, Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Tiffany E. Barber, PhD, Predoctoral Residential Research Fellow at the Carter G. Woodson
Institute for African-American and African Studies at the University of Virginia.
Loriann Hernandez, Founder, Urban Canvas arts organization, Native American activist, curator, artist and professional roller skater.
Erika Hirugami, Founder and CEO, CuratorLove global enterprise (currently in Los Angeles, London, Mexico City and London).
At the core of ArtTable’s mission since its founding in 1980, promoting diversity for women professionals in the arts has gained widespread and unprecedented prominence, becoming a top priority in the nationwide agenda. Today, nearly four decades later, arts organizations have closed ranks in stepping up to adopt measures and implement initiatives designed to dismantle the systemic biases of institutional practices that have maintained deep-rooted gender, race, class imbalances. With the turn of the 21st century, ArtTable raised the stakes in redressing the endemic lack of diversity in the field by establishing its pioneering Fellowship for Diversity in the Visual Arts Program with a view to facilitating opportunities for the next generation of women as they embark on careers in the arts. Now in it’s 18th year, ArtTable’s diversity fellowship has supported over 75 female graduate students from underrepresented backgrounds. Through internship placement in arts institutions nationally along with a substantial stipend and mentoring relationships with leaders in the field, the fellowship aims to bolster the fellows’ exposure to enriching professional experiences as they transition from educational to employment settings. Comprised of ArtTable mentors and former diversity fellows ranging across specializations and at different stages in their careers, the panel will offer firsthand testimonials, including a special video by former fellow Endia Beal, and a forum for discussion of the most pressing issues we face today in striving to diversify the workplace.
