Meet your Cohort

In order to make space for co-creation, we wanted to keep the process intimate. So we only selected two projects to focus on this year. We chose these from a competitive field of applicants because they each are compelling and have the potential to inform other innovators across the country. We were looking for teams interested in bringing new people, processes, and power relations to the field, and these fit the bill.

Also, we paired them because we can see strong resonances between them. Both aim to work with young, ambitious makers outside of traditional journalism structures. Both have a focus on placemaking—the first in Philadelphia, and the second across the South. We know that there are lessons to be learned by combining or comparing journalistic and artistic storytelling approaches. We hope the two teams can inspire one another, and we look forward to learning from both of them.

The IF Lab Newsroom

GoFA member Tayyib Smith, co-founder of Philadelphia-based entrepreneurship hub IF Lab, will work with his team to develop the concept for a newsroom staffed by a mix of experienced Black and Brown journalists collaborating with youth who aspire to work in media. From IF Lab’s Kensington HQ, this cohort of 10 professionals and 10 up-and-coming makers would work with a managing editor, instructors, and mentors to report on their communities and jointly develop entrepreneurial journalism business models.

HBCUx

GoFA member Erin Michelle Washington—the founder of Atlanta-based creative content space SoulCenter and an assistant professor at Spelman College—will work with her team to incubate a project designed to rewrite the story of arts graduates from historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). The goal of this storytelling hub will be to create space for student and early-career “Blk” artists. Washington explains: “Blk is a queered frame we engage to look at the multiplicity of blkness. Blk as a state of being, as a modality of thought.” Participants from a coalition of 7 HBCUs will connect and share stories, data, and ideas about their intentions around centering a liberatory narrative. In doing so, SoulCenter is reframing and visioning a new blk arts future.