Organization Description

The Legacy Arts Project (LAP) is a community arts organization that celebrates and preserves arts of the African diaspora in order to center individual and collective health and well-being. This is accomplished through weekly classes for youth and adults, robust summer arts programming, youth artist apprenticeship, artist residencies, and annual events. Since 2004, the LAP has consistently hosted programming, engaging community members of all ages in order to ‘edu-tain’, sharing cultural exploration that builds skills, strengthens identity, and fosters a healthy and inclusive environment. Additionally, the LAP serves as a fiscal sponsor to a number of Pittsburgh-based groups, providing financial management and program/project support.

Founded by Linda ‘Imani’ Barrett, a Hill District native, the LAP has long-standing roots in Pittsburgh. With formidable experiences in the arts from the time of her youth, Imani brought forward her training, exposure, and inspiration from the Pittsburgh Black Theater Dance Ensemble (PBTDE) from the University of Pittsburgh. Her time as a student following the Civil Rights Movement emboldened Imani with a commitment to share the incomparable work of the African diaspora, encouraging people to learn more about themselves and the world around them through exploring the arts.

In 2010, the LAP leadership transitioned from Imani to Erin Perry who received the mantle and continued to build upon the foundation laid by those before. With a focus on the healing power of arts and culture, Erin has focused on building healthy relationships within the community by, first and foremost, beginning with herself. By centering well-being, the LAP is committed to interrogating historical ways of being and doing things, acknowledging the presence of self-determination to create a work- ethic that revolutionizes the workplace, empowering people of all ages to understand their capacity for imagining the world as they’d like to see and participate in it.

The LAP presently hosts weekly community dance classes, a Saturday program for youth, a youth artist apprenticeship, and partnerships with local schools. Additionally, the LAP is an anchor organization in the newly formed initiative of the Heinz Endowments, the Creative Learning Network (CLN), and is responsible for strengthening the arts ecosystem for out-of-school time programming. Likewise, the LAP has recently been granted the distinction of ‘Cultural Treasure’, an initiative of the Ford Foundation and Heinz Endowments that is supporting the work of 16 Black-led/ serving organizations in Pittsburgh.

Immersive Fellowship Description

The Fellow will work with the LAP staff to locate, identify, and archive LAP materials. As it stands, LAP materials are scattered between multiple sites including google drive, dropbox, YouTube, and social media platforms. The Fellow will create an archive that organizes LAP info and is accessible to staff. Additionally, parts of the archive will exist on the LAP website and will be accessible to community members. As the LAP serves an integral function as a conveyor of Africana diasporic arts and culture, this project enables the organization to develop an organized structure for documenting and logging the work and history.

Responsibilities

• Work with Erin Perry, Executive Director, Lori Rue, Director of Development, and Patricia Ford, Director of Programs to coordinate and organize all content for the deliverables
• Research archival formats and make recommendations for the LAP archive
• Create archive format and input information accordingly

Deliverables

• Completed framework for a digital archive
• Archiving of existent materials within a platform that is accessible to LAP staff
• Creation of accessible public-facing archives that are accessible to community members via LAP website

Qualifications

• A commitment to cultural arts, health, and well-being
• An interest in community arts and history
• A keen attention to detail and strong organizational skills
• Ability to work well with others as well as independently

Application

See here for eligibility criteria, terms, and application instructions.