Alumni Gathering 2025 Recap
Alumni Gathering
2025: A Recap
About the Gathering
In 2015, artEquity was launched with some questions: What does it mean to use art in service of liberation? What would the impact be of building a base of artist-activists?
We came back to these questions for our 10th anniversary Alumni Gathering in 2025.
Not for a training. Not for a conference. We came back to remember what we’ve been building together. To see each other fully. To ground in the lineage that carries us forward and to dream into the futures we’re creating.
The Alumni Gathering brought together fellow participants from artEquity’s BIPOC Leadership Circle, National Facilitator Training, National Board Training, BIPOC Surviving Predominantly White Institutions, and community members who have been with us through a decade of transformation. We moved through Los Angeles during four days of connection, ritual, visioning, and discovery.
As we prepare for the work ahead in 2026, we look back at this gathering to remind us that we are rooted, powerful, and ready. Take a look!
Day 1: Tuesday, October 22
WHERE WE GATHER, WE BEGIN
We began with a BIPOC Kickback at Wilfandel Club. Some people hadn’t seen each other in years. Some had never met in person. Laughter was the loudest sound of all.
We lay in the grass like we had all the time in the world. We played games. We ate good food. We told stories. In Carmen’s welcome, we were gifted a phrase we heard throughout our four days together, “In the beginning, there was community.”
That night at St. Elmo Village, where our welcome celebration was held, Jacqueline Alexander Sykes welcomed us into a space that has been holding Black art and joy for 60 years. The floors and walls were covered in murals, vibrant and alive. We danced. Not because we were told to. Because we needed to. Because we could.
We were honored to bear witness to poet Alyesha Wise as she shared two of her poems. Her words are still ringing in our ears: “. . . This here is a whole prayer, for you, the person and the presentation. The hurt and the harm. Dear human who art in my presence, hallowed be thy healing. Glory be thy unlearning. . . .”
On day one, we learned, we were home.
Photos by DVR Productions
Day 2: Wednesday, October 23
WE ARRIVE WITH ALL THAT MADE US
At the start of the day at Annenberg Community Beach House, we walked in musical procession down to the sand and water, and elder Tina Calderon led us in ritual and blessing. Tobacco. Prayer. Acknowledgment of the land and the water and everyone who came before.
And then the dolphins came.
No one planned it. They just appeared, swimming parallel to us, close enough to see. Someone whispered, “That’s a sign.” And maybe it was. Or maybe it was just the ocean reminding us we’re part of something bigger.
We spent the day sharing origin stories. We decorated journals gifted to us and responded to prompts about the evolution of our practices, reflecting on what we had to release to evolve. And throughout the gathering, we created rituals to recognize and celebrate our leaders, emerging and established. We held each other up. We named what people are building.
The room circled up, literally surrounding the people speaking with bodies and presence. “The testimonies of people grieving alone, who discovered they were surrounded by people who care,” one participant wrote later, “it was beautiful and true.”
Mica Cole dropped the mic with, “You don’t always have to wear the armor of activism.” And people exhaled like they’d been holding their breath for years.
To close out, we danced FandangObon with Alison DeLa Cruz from Great Leap, shaking off the weight and moving towards our lighter selves.
On day two, we arrived and were ourselves.
Photos by DVR Productions
Day 3: Thursday, October 24
WE DREAM IN WORLDS WE BUILD TOGETHER
La Plaza de la Raza sits by a lake where we walked, where we ate too many tacos, and where we dreamed new worlds.
The day began with Marissa Herrera honoring Tomàs Benitez, an artEquity 2025 BIPOC Elders + Culture Bearers awardee, for his leadership of La Plaza and the East Los Angeles art-activist community.
We then moved into the day’s main activity: New World Building. We discussed solidarity economies and translated them into solidarity ecologies.
The host team built portals, four different entry points into imagining what this base is building together. Participants chose one. Stepped in. Created something. Then we came back to share the seedlings within a performance circle created by ecosystem jars built by participants wrapped in the names of those who have lit the way for them to step into their leadership, building bridges between the visions.
It wasn’t abstract. It was tactile. Playful. Urgent.
We activated each other’s imaginations. We remembered we’re not just resisting, we’re creating.
What became possible in people’s imaginations?
“To ask ‘what if?’ more.”
“Remembering to play.”
“Ecology, not economy.”
“Rest became possible. For the first time in a while. To be able to lay down during the middle of the day to clear my mind, body, and spirit, it was always impossible. Now I know what it is.”
“To dream of the possibility of becoming an elder.”
“We may be on the floor, but we are not defenseless”.
Later that night, we opened the doors to the public for a panel conversation, Finding Ground in a Shifting World, livestreamed on Howlround. Carmen Morgan facilitated this conversation between artists and organizers Nizhóni Begay, Amal Basharat, Set Hernandez, and Donna Simone Johnson. They shared their truths: Our homes aren’t safe. Our bodies aren’t safe. The places our ancestors blessed are being stolen, bombed, and disappeared. But here we are anyway. Still building. Still finding ground.
The panel didn’t have answers. It had presence. It had questions. It had people willing to say what’s at stake.
On day three, we built, and the room held it all.
Photos by DVR Productions
Day 4: Saturday, October 25
WE PLANT SEEDS + TAKE ROOT /
PRACTICE IN THE PRESENT
The day began back at Wilfandel Club, where we started four days earlier, for a morning of personal and group reflection. We responded to the prompt, “As the ground is shifting, what will not be moved within you?”
Then we went to Leimert Park, the cultural heart of Black Los Angeles for decades. We came to learn. To witness. To connect what we’ve been building and dreaming for new worlds with what’s already here, now.
We rotated through spaces along Degnan Boulevard. The Barbara Morrison Performing Arts Center. The World Stage, The Vision Theater, Art + Practice. Each one teaching us different models of solidarity ecology, mutual aid, and cultural organizing. Each one showing us: this work is possible. It’s already happening.
We drummed with Rene Fisher Mims. We mapped our ancestors with LA Commons. We met organizers who have been doing this work longer than artEquity has existed.
What practices will people take with them?
“Indulging in rest is my birthright.”
“Remembering the past to ground the present and set it down for the future.”
“Honoring mentors and elders. Creating, nurturing, and sharing deep relationships with and in communities.”
What impacted people most?
“I found myself piecing together how this community and practice has helped to put me back in connection with my lineage.”
“The support for each other and solidarity of Black women.”
“That I have a place in this practice and I have gifts I can give, and there are gifts to receive.”
“The reminder of not being alone. Seeing Leimert Park being uplifted to a national group.”
“I feel so nourished. Reconnecting with community is what I needed in this moment.”
And then we celebrated with a toast. Ten years of artEquity. Ten years of base building. Ten years of using art to imagine and create the world we need.
On day four, we planted seeds knowing some of us won’t see the harvest. But we planted them anyway.
Photos by DVR Productions
The ground keeps shifting. People we love are in danger. The work feels impossible some days. And still, we chose each other. Again and again. We stayed in the circle even when it was hard. We built new worlds with our hands and our imaginations. We remembered that containers built in service of humanity look different from containers built in service of industry.
This gathering was about accountability. To each other. To our communities. To the long lineage of movement builders who came before us and the ones who will come after.
This gathering was us saying: We’re not done. We’ve just begun.
Photos by DVR Productions
Thanks to Our Partners...
We are deeply grateful to our Los Angeles-based partners who didn’t just open their doors, they opened their histories, their practices, and their visions: Alyesha Wise, Jacqueline Alexander Sykes, DJ Toks, Tina Calderon, Alison DeLa Cruz, Wilfandel Club, St. Elmo Village, Annenberg Community Beach House, La Plaza de la Raza, Howlround Theatre Commons, and the cultural anchors of Leimert Park Village like The World Stage, The Barbara Morrison Performing Arts Center, WACO Theater Center, Art + Practice, LA Commons, and Plant Chica.
Thank You to Our Supporters
artEquity provides the tools, resources, and training to support the intersection of art and activism. Our work is made possible in part by The Ford Foundation, the Getty Foundation, Barbara and Amos Hostetter, the Howard Gilman Foundation, the JKW Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Shubert Foundation, and a growing community of individuals and organizations across the globe.