MEET THE ACI CO-DIRECTORS

A circular model for collective leadership

Launched July 1st, 2021

ACI is currently in a large leadership inflection and experimentation period. Recognizing that non-profit boards and leadership structures are predicated on antiquated capitalist, patriarchal, and white supremacist principles valuing charity over self-determination and equity, ACI continues to ideate around an innovative, decentralized, community-oriented leadership model. 

ACI’s co-director model aims to share and redistribute power equitably among team members that belong to the communities our programming targets and champions a board and staff that are the same. Our team members have the same voting responsibility in this lateral leadership structure, and we do not prioritize our co-directors based on their positions. The inflection point catalyzed by our shared leadership model is also reflected in our programming and strategic vision.

Present co-directors are listed below, and we want to thank our former co-directors who we continue to learn alongside, including: Deidra Montgomery (2021-2023), Zakiyyah Sutton (2021-2023), Alyssa Liles-Amponsah (2021-2023), Karthik Subramanian (2021-2023), Meena Malik (2021-2023), Joseph Quisol (2021-2023).

CO-DIRECTOR | EMPLOYEE

mica rose (they/them) | Co-Director of Emergence

mica is a gemini child of wonder. They love to play with cousins & elders & kasamas, strengthening our power to tend to each other. From childhood, the contradictions in their Northern Virginia hometown and its stark contrasts with their ancestral home in Laguna, Philippines magnetized them toward changemaking. Upon moving to Shawmut for undergrad at Boston University, mica began aligning with revolutionaries and their lineages who guide mica’s practice of oral history, art, and right relations. Márquez Rhyne mentored them in John O’Neal’s story circle method, through support from The Theater Offensive. With sensei Karen Young and kohai Mel Taing, mica is a Massachusetts Traditional Arts Apprentice in North American Taiko. At Company One Theater, mica developed We & other queer goddexxes, a gathering series, with co-creators Alison Qu and Afrikah Smith. And as a cultural organizer with Liyang Network’s West Mass Chapter, they support direct actions here and abroad. Additional major collaborators include: Pao Arts Center, American Repertory Theater, and the Design Studio for Social Intervention. After performing at the Arts Equity Summit and ACI’s fifth birthday celebration in 2019, mica served as a 2020-21 Artist in Community Fellow, and helped launch the Co-Director model 21-present. Find them glitching @ micaxrose

Resides on waterlands of Wampanoag peoples, colonially known as Roslindale, MA.

Andrea Gordillo (they/THEM) | Co-Director of Community Weaving

Andrea is an ACI Artist Leader Alumni, from the 2016 - 2017 Artist-in-Residence cohort, and former ACI Board Member 2019 - 2021 before becoming an ACI co-director 2021 - present. Andrea's residency took place in Mexico and focused on trans-national migration through participatory mixed-media arts. Andrea is an audiovisual artist and co-founder of Selva Records, a transnational feminist audiovisual production house that intentionally disrupts the music industry with intersectional feminist culture. Andrea is also a doctoral candidate at UCLA's Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, having previously earned their EdM from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and their BA from Emerson College. At UCLA Andrea's work focuses on cultural studies and informal public pedagogy through the arts.

Resides on Mexica land, the landwaters colonially known as “México City”

Marian Taylor Brown (she/her) | Co-Director of Collective Abundance

Marian is a Boston-based artist, arts and culture, and higher ed nurturer. Her work utilizes art as a mechanism to build and support inclusive and equitable communities, investigating art as a means for healing, collective action, and creative justice. Her discontent with oppressive systems, alongside her eternal optimism and belief in what we can collectively create, heal, and nurture, keep her on the path. Marian founded ACI in 2014, having also worked in arts leadership at Open Door Arts, the Art & Global Health Center Africa, ARTZ: Artists for Alzheimer’s, the Institute for Community Inclusion, Harvard University’s Project Zero, and Hearthstone Alzheimer Care. Marian also teaches and innovates in higher ed, playing in the sandbox with Harvard University, UMass Boston, and Hochschule Heilbronn University most directly. Marian earned her PhD in Global Inclusion & Social Development from the University of Massachusetts Boston, her EdM in Arts in Education from The Harvard Graduate School of Education, and her BA in Studio Art from Colorado College. 

Resides on the land of the Massachusett peoples, in Dorchester, MA.

t’Ajmal Hogue (they/them) | Co-Director of Systems Support

T’Ajmal is a creative who grew up in Detroit, MI, and currently resides in Boston, MA. They enjoy making space for friends and loved ones to be themselves, create, and feel safe. In college, they refound their love for the arts through multimedia practices and are grateful to the ancestors who passed down the freedom to create as a continuous act of resistance. A lot of T’Ajmal’s creative work is inspired by their own life as a Black, queer, and non-binary person seeking to build safe spaces for their community. They started their journey on the East Coast at Harvard and found roots in Boston by teaching youth and strengthening programmatic systems with Girls LEAP. Additionally, they worked at BAGLY to create a housing and support program for LGBTQ+ youth experiencing homelessness. They are a co-founder of the Pomegranate Art Collective, a QTBIPOC+ space to make art in collaboration with others focused on healing, love, mental health, and collective care. At the end of 2023, T’Ajmal decided to combine their passion for supporting spaces and the arts and joined ACI’s team as Co-Director of Systems Support.

Resides on lands of Pawtucket & Massachusett peoples, colonially known as Brighton, MA.

CO-DIRECTOR | NEUTRAL

Dawn Meredith Simmons (she/her) | Co-Director of Internal Diagnostics

Dawn is a holder of multiple hats and spinner of many plates as a freelance director, playwright, educator, and as the Co-Founder and Co-Producing Artistic Director of the Front Porch Arts Collective, a Black theater company committed to advancing racial equity in Boston through theatre. In 2008 Dawn co-founded her first theatre company, New Exhibition Room, whose mission was to produce provocative, political, and affordable theater events. Over the years Dawn has used her own artistic practice and the resources to push the New England theatre community to examine and address the problems of systemic racism, sexism, sexual violence and homophobia that has been internalized in our work environments. She has authored/co-authored think pieces on anti-racist practice, accountability and reducing sexual harm in the workplace, has been interviewed by The Boston Globe, WBUR and other news outlets to speak on racial equity in the performing arts and has been a featured speaker for The Globe, Multicultural Bridge, The City of Boston, Boston College, Northeastern University, UMass Boston, Berkley Boston Conservatory, Philanthropy Massachusetts, Mass General Hospital and more.

Resides on the land of the Pawtucket and Massachusett peoples, in Malden, MA.

Jessica Doonan (she/her) | Co-Director of Integrity

Jessica is is a queer woman born and raised in New England. She earned her bachelor's in Theater and American Sign Language at Northeastern University and a master's in Global Inclusion and Social Development with a concentration on International Disability Policy from UMass Boston. Over the last decade, she has worked professionally in disability access, first at the National Braille Press and then at the City of Boston Mayor's Commission for Persons with Disabilities under Mayor Martin J. Walsh. Currently, she is the Manager of Accessibility at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. In her professional free time, Jessica has consulted on disability access for theater companies and supports the Center for Atypical Langauge Interpreting, a federally funded project dedicated to addressing the growing demand for sign language interpreters with specialized skills to serve Deaf and DeafBlind persons with atypical language. When she is not working, Jessica can be found out in nature, traveling, or enjoying a good book.

Resides on the land of the Wampanoag and Massachusett peoples, in Jamaica Plain, MA.

Erdene Clark (she/her ) | Co-Director of Wisdom

Erdene (fondly known as Mama) was born in South Carolina, then grew up in Pittsburgh, PA, and has been in Boston, MA, since 1977. Mama worked at Tufts Medical Center as an administrative assistant for 25 years, retiring in July 2015, the same year Marian became her neighbor. Soon into her retirement chapter Erdene became an integral part of Boston’s artist world. She has been fascinated with the dedication and compassion of all different art forms and is now excited to learn more deeply with ACI, and as a Taiko player with Older and Bolder. In her free time you can find Mama cuddling with her dog King, reading, listening to music, dancing at Zumba, and at community events. Some of her favorite community spots are the Cultural Equity Incubator, the Roxbury Library (or any library, really!), the Design Studio for Social Intervention’s Design Gym, and the Kroc Center. 

Resides on the land of Massachusetts people, in Dorchester, MA.