Arts & Social Justice Fellowship 2024 Highlights

This project explores the transformative power of hope in social activism and advocacy with the intention to break our free fall into despair. The poems will transport the audience across diverse eras and locations, journeying through varied trials and tribulations. Yet, they all converge on one theme: the universality of hope in humanity through history to now. Allison’s performance includes two poems that revolve around struggles, growth, and triumph of the human spirit. Through an interactive portion, her project encourages audience members to share their own hopes, creating a community reinvigorated by collective strength, perseverance, and courage.

Bio: Allison Xu (she/her), a senior at Walter Johnson High School, is Montgomery County’s 2023 Youth Poet Laureate. She has also won the 2022-23 Fran Abrams Creative Writing Award from the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County and received a National Society of High School Scholars Speak Up! Award. Her creative work has been published in outlets like Blue Marble Review and The Daphne Review, in addition to several anthologies. She is president of Walter Johnson’s Creative Writing Club and an editor of Polyphony Lit and Misty Mint Magazine. Allison has performed her poems at Busboys and Poets and The Kennedy Center, among other local venues, hoping to raise awareness about societal issues like gun violence and racial discrimination through spoken word. 

Combining music and video content, Arjan sheds light on the disproportionate impact of climate change of Latino communities in Maryland. Images of flooding mixed with sounds of heavy rain in an ambient reflective movement. Electronic music creates an erratic, yet melodic, soundscape with emotionally contrasting segments. Performance on the cajón, a traditional Peruvian drum,
is incorporated to add a percussive element to this score. This project serves to raise awareness of the unequal exposure to environmental education as well as existing alongside the meaningful work done by organizations such as Clean Water Action, EcoLatinos, and EcoMadres.

Seeking Venus in a World of Alluring Disaster is a dark comedy staring four girls—Andi, Charlie, Violet, and Venus—all missing from their homes and lives. They were all seemingly kidnapped and now controlled by The Voice. Each girl left a life filled with both bliss and sorrow from their loved ones. Now, in order to escape and get back to their lives, they are forced within these shared, confined walls to craft a new sense of friendship, family, and belonging. Andi, the adventurous heroine of this tale, leads the audience through the challenges of escape with the ups and downs of holding on to hope.

Hanging by a Thread is a solo one-act play examining the exploitation of lower-income, immigrant Latina women working in sweatshops within the garment industry. The biographical drama pieces together information from interviews with Daniela’s grandmother, Abuela Blanca Julia, and tells her story through narration and set pieces. The play delves into the psychological and physical impact of being a seamstress from Ecuador who immigrated to work in Brooklyn, New York during the 1970s. By creating space to honor and share her grandmother’s perspective through her journey, Daniela advocates to improve low- income working conditions and amplify the voices of Latina women, allowing workers with similar stories to not feel alone in the injustices they face.

Blood Red Waters: Clarity Within Expulsion is a series of three constructional fiber pieces accompanied by three bodies of writing. Eric delves into the interpersonal relationships, unique troubles, and complexities throughout the AIDS epidemic. Through delicate laces, industrial wood creating directional lines, and intentional active color, he challenges audience members to look at their place within their communities and their efforts to exist beyond themselves.

Through Beauty and Destruction, Juliana wants to remind people to focus on the positive in the world rather than the negative. She wants to educate people about the beauty of humanity and remind them that our cultural and physical differences make us unique and special. Juliana’s work also emphasizes the difference between women and the cultural beauty standards they are held against, which are quite different worldwide. She hopes that people walk away from her project with an appreciation of how we are beautiful because of our differences.

Bio: Juliana Dinarte (she/her) is a freshman at The Madeira School in Mclean, Virginia, with a passion for visual and musical arts. She enjoys drawing, painting, digital art, sculpture, mixed media, and vocal art. Juliana is driven by a desire to address issues of gender equality, diversity, and belonging; she is eager to learn how to use art as a tool for social change. As a member of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee at Madeira, Juliana hopes to use her unique artistic voice to teach her peers and school community about DEI, with the greater goal of fostering a deeper understanding of how to promote social equity. Beyond her artistic pursuits, Juliana also is interested in exploring medicine as a potential career path.

Mentor: Ellen Xu, multi-disciplinary artist 

Mekdelawit’s project centers on the barcodes or numbers
on a woman’s wrist to symbolize the dehumanization that can occur in a healthcare system treating individuals as statistics. Each barcode on the wristband will represent a black woman who has lost their life due to negligence from doctors. These wristbands will include the patient’s name, date of birth, the identifying barcode, and something about the patient left out and forgotten by healthcare providers: their identity. One arm will symbolize death, while the other will represent malpractice or traumatic experiences at the OBGYN. The trauma and psychological effects on the mother and the entire family are often overlooked. These aspects will be explored and represented in the written component accompanying Mekdelawit’s visual arts project. This effort aims to spread information and emphasize that there is a way to address and resolve the issue.

Bias is inherently dangerous when held by those in a position of power. No institution is more powerful than that of the medical industry where life hangs in the balance. Dr. White Gaze is a mixed-media installation that highlights the willful ignorance of medical text illustrations and the danger of not exploring the effects of illness as it shows up on skin that is other than white. Dr. White Gaze utilizes sculptural and textile elements, acrylic, and oil pastels.

Salincya offers a song with lyrics that illuminate the
pain from the ones that suffer in agony and the ones
with survivors’ remorse. The song highlights the racial injustice that past generations have endured and how they have set up the current generation for more success as they continue to advocate for racial justice. The song emphasizes that change will never happen unless we disconnect ourselves from the internalized racism and biases we have within ourselves. If we did this, there would be resolution, and change would finally be achieved.

Found/ing is an offering to the start of a conversation that is overdue. This conversation is on the prevalence of eating disorders in the trans community, as well as the deadly effects of the removal of access to gender affirming care. Wallace’s project brings awareness to the importance of gender affirming care access, emphasizing the lesser known and considered effects of the removal of GAC, and the relatability of the trans experience. His call to action is an effort from the viewer in being open to listening and understanding, as well as deep self-reflection. How and when do you experience discomfort in your own body? We are human, just like you.

Bio: Wallace Hewchuck (he/him) is a homeschooled high school senior with a multifaceted artistic repertoire. He is a classical and alternative musician, a dancer, a visual artist, a poet, and a tattoo artist. In 2023, Wallace was selected to perform violin at the London Suzuki Gala in the prestigious Royal Albert Hall, a distinction reserved for the top Suzuki students in the world. With 15 years of violin experience under his belt, Wallace has developed the ability to teach himself other instruments and is also a self-taught visual and tattoo artist. His goals include opening a tattoo studio, continuing his art education at Montgomery College, and ultimately earning a degree in experiential art and music therapy. 

Harlem’s Very Own Boy Icarus is a one-act play exploring one multidimensional night for two Malian American siblings living in Harlem, New York. Written, directed, and performed by Yahney-Marie Sangaré, this work draws upon recent and faraway history, Africana aesthetics, and interpolations of Black magical folklore. The play ultimately aims to elevate and integrate the Black body and soul through navigating seen and unseen worlds for two Black teenagers desperate to live.

To An Ancient Future is set in a post-apocalyptic, post- revolution Tulsa, Oklahoma. The city has been reduced
to rubble and is devoid of life. The story follows retired revolutionary, Kokeb, a dancer crippled during the revolution, and grapples with the ethos of Afro-pessimism and Afro-Futurism, how the Black diaspora exists in a social death, and how the resurrection can be catalyzed through the joy of art and creation.

Bio: YISHAK YOHANNES YEBIO (he/him), a recent graduate of Jackson-Reed High School, is a journalist, poet, and performer whose diverse array of work ranges from critical essays to plays. His talent has been recognized by the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards and National High School Poets. As an officer for the Dialect of Prince George’s County, he helped to create a space for youth to develop their writing skills. He served as editor for his high school newspaper and founded the school’s writing center. Yishak wants to explore writing and poetry as a vehicle for social change, particularly in advocating for environmental justice and racial equity. He is interested in pursuing a career as a journalist, poet, or writer and aspires to publish a novel; however, he is also interested in being a biologist or environmental engineer.

Mentor: Lucas Ashby, multi-instrumentalist and composer