A letter from ACI’s founder, Marian Taylor Brown:
Also available via Vlog, here.
Greetings, beloved ACI community,
I want to take a moment to thank each of you for our many moons of deep and transformational collaboration, working to build cultural equity and creative justice.
ACI was founded with the belief that artists come up with innovative solutions to pressing human rights issues. This core belief - in artists - and in arts and culture, remains true today, now ten years into our work. I’m proud of the many humans that have, currently are, or one day will, be a part of the ACI collective and wider community. You have and will continue to progress us towards shared liberation.
Together, we have built leadership nurturing programs including artist residencies, and multiple fellowship programs like our Youth United Artists, and Creative Justice Fellows. We’ve also met community need with emergency and solidarity creative grants.
Together, we have bloomed the Transformative Research Collective, publishing multiple articles, community findings reports, and an upcoming book focused on collective action and creative justice. Through each, we continue to center community and equity as we shape storytelling and meaningmaking.
Together, we dreamed widely and vastly to create the Cultural Equity Learning Community, training 3K ppl since 2020, we opened the Cultural Equity Incubator in 2021, supporting countless community partners while building home and meaning - alongside journeying with numerous partners through Consult With ACI.
It’s often challenging to know when it’s time to transition, especially as a founder. It’s an incredible thing to see what was once seeded truly bloom, and I am confident in our current season of change and evolution.
Three years ago we transitioned our leadership structure to a lateral co-director model. Although far from perfect, we have made great progress in learning and unlearning as we move towards deeper alignment. With this new model in place, and with T’Ajmal, mica, Andrea, and River co-leading as employee co-directors, alongside Jess, Mama Erdene, and Jazzmin as neutral co-directors, I am both confident in and deeply excited for the next steps and evolution in our collective work.
During this transition season I welcome you to support these co-leaders in any capacity that you can. Reach out to them for a coffee, come visit at the CEI, join future programming, and help sustain this essential work through making a one-time or recurring donation.
I am ever cognizant of the many, many guides who have poured into me, and my learning, along this path. I commit to passing their wisdom forward, with gratitude for the many gifts.
With love, thank you, thank you.
In solidarity,
ACI Founder & former Co-Director of Collective Abundance
P.S. In case you’re wondering - up next on my path is a health, spiritual, and artistic sabbatical for the fall 2024 semester. I will also continue my work as a visiting researcher and lecturer at UMass Boston and as an adjunct lecturer at Harvard University. I welcome continued connection via mariantaylorbrown@gmail.com, with updates upcoming on my personal platforms: Website, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram.