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Event Description

Arts and media are deeply intertwined with personal and political expression. The ability to express and see one’s self through art and media parallels the desire for democratic representation, equity, and freedom. Today, with the ease of globally shareable content and the ability to collaborate across regions and platforms, creative expression has tremendous power to create and inspire change. Join us for an enlightening conversation that delves into the pivotal role of art and media in sustaining and enhancing democratic societies. Our speakers will explore the reciprocal dynamic between arts and policy, and how relationship-building is crucial to both democracy and creative outlets. This session will also elevate how philanthropy can provide support for artists, local media outlets, and communities to encourage critical thinking, diverse voices, and an engaged public.

Speakers

Saa'un Bell headshot

Saa'un Bell

Sr. Associate Director, Power California

Saa’un Bell is Sr. Associate Director at Power California. She leads political, policy, and narrative strategy to build the political power of young voters of color. Her work includes expanding the vote to 16, building a bench of underrepresented gen z and millennial leaders to run for local and statewide political office, and redefining democracy and civic engagement in California. Previously, Saa’un organized Black and Brown youth and community college students to transform California’s education system at Californians for Justice for 11 years. Her organizing, strategy, and writing are deeply rooted in Eastside Long Beach, her Working Class, Black Southern, and rural Filipino Immigrant roots.
A black woman with short brown hair wearing glasses and a black shirt.

Paulette Brown-Hinds SCG Member

Founder, Inland Empire Journalism Innovation Hub + Fund

Dr. Paulette Brown-Hinds is founder of Voice Media Ventures, publisher of Black Voice News, a two-time JSK Journalism Fellow at Stanford University, and founder of the IE Journalism Innovation Hub + Fund.

As second generation publisher, Paulette is transforming her family’s half century old newspaper into a solutions-oriented data journalism and justice-focused community news organization. She is leading the transformation to data reporting through the initiative Mapping Black California.

As a member of the California Press Foundation she works to strengthen the state’s information ecosystem as an essential part of its civic and community infrastructure. In 2023 she produced the first community philanthropy summit in California dedicated to local journalism and published a guidebook for California-based community foundations, community media, and philanthropy to financially support local journalism.

Since 2000 she has led Footsteps to Freedom, summer cultural tours retracing the steps of freedom seekers on the Underground Railroad, the first successful interracial freedom movement in the US. She is currently working on a research project that maps secret societies of the Underground Railroad.

Paulette has been awarded Google News Initiative Innovation Challenge funding, was a Salzburg Seminar in American Studies Fellow, a 2022 JSK Community Impact Fellow, and a 2023 JSK Sr. Fellow at Stanford University. She is also a member of the Rebuild Local News, American Press Institute, James Irvine Foundation, and Inland Empire Community Foundation boards of directors. She has been identified as a news Ecosystem Leader by Democracy Fund.
A smiling man with short hair and a dark and light beard, wearing a blue plaid shirt.

John Lightfoot SCG Member

Director of Media and Journalism Programs, California Humanities

John manages the California Documentary Project (CDP) grant program and the Emerging Journalist Fellowship at California Humanities. As part of the CA2020: Youth Perspective and the Future of California initiative, he managed a suite of programs designed to engage young Californians in the humanities, including a statewide speaking tour of community colleges with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Sonia Nazario, and commissioning a series of short film collaborations between young storytellers and experienced mediamakers. In 2018, he helped launch CDP NextGen, a funding opportunity in support of media literacy and civic engagement among youth ages 18 and under. Previously, he produced, directed, and taught documentary film in the San Francisco Bay Area and in Minneapolis, MN. John holds an MA in American Studies from Brown University and an MFA in Cinema from San Francisco State University.
This photo shows Lena Wolff, a light skinned woman in her early 50's with dark brown eyes and gray streaked hair.

Lena Wolff

Artist, Art for Democracy

Lena Wolff an artist, craftswoman, and activist for civic engagement who has been based in the San Francisco Bay Area since the early 1990's. Her work extends out of American folk-art traditions while at the same time being rooted in minimalism, geometric abstraction, Op art, social practice, feminist and political art. Lena's broad interconnected artistic output includes drawing, collage, sculpture, text-based works, frequent collaboration, and public projects. In 2017, she formed Art for Democracy, beginning with an anti-hate poster in the Bay Area, followed by the widespread national public art campaign to boost voter participation. Over the last two decades, her work has been presented in galleries and museums across the country and collected by ONE National Lesbian and Gay Archives, Berkeley Art Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Oakland Museum of California, San Francisco Arts Commission, Alameda County Arts Commission, Cleveland Clinic, University of Iowa Museum, and the Zuckerman Museum of Art, among others. She lives with her wife, artist, teacher, and illustrator, Miriam Klein Stahl and their daughter in Berkeley, California. November 12th was named Miriam Klein Stahl and Lena Wolff Day by Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin in 2019 for their work that merges art and social practice. Her work can be found at Sarah Shepard Gallery in Larkspur and Haines Gallery in San Francisco.

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