Mandy Harris Williams is a theorist, multimedia conceptual artist, writer, educator, radio host and internet/community academic. Harlem-born, LA-based, Williams graduated from Harvard, having studied the History of the African Diaspora, as well as the mass incarceration crisis, and other contemporary black issues. She received her MA in Urban Education and worked as a classroom teacher for 7 years in low income communities. She is the founder of #BrownUpYourFeed, a campaign for digital diversity. In her multi-medium art practice (shown online, through film, and in gallery shows), Williams interrogates power imbalances on the internet and in media culture. She wants us to think more critically about how we use social media: “How can we make our feeds reflect and augment the sort of world that we, especially now, need to be working hard to create?” Find her online at @idealblackfemale
The Civic Media Fellowship at AnnLab aims to strengthen and expand the field of civic media — the use of today’s technologies to create and harness media that connects with communities, inspires action, builds civic capacity and helps sustain social change effort — by pushing the boundaries of what it can be.
As part of the Civic Media field-building activities this spring, AnnLab is holding public chats featuring practitioners — artists, creators, storytellers, organizers and others working at the intersections of media, technology and culture — presenting and sharing their civic media work to inspire and build community with other practitioners. These public chats provide a platform to share and reflect on civic media practice, highlight the work being done and the way folks are working and encourage conversation amongst a growing network.