COMMUNITY
OUR STORIES
Erika Houle,
New York City NY
TELL US YOUR STORY:
I am a 2016 graduate from the Art, Education, & Community Practice program in Steinhardt at New York University. Currently, I teach Camera 1: Practices and Principles of Cinematography at Tisch School of the Arts' undergraduate film program.
Beginning in 2010, I shot two short documentaries, A Part of the World and Across All Borders. APOW tells the story of a U.S. doctor returning to Haiti after the earthquake as she explores the complicated nature of international volunteerism. AAB follows three NYC high school students on a transformative leadership trip to Dharamsala, India. Since then I have worked as a camera operator and director of photography based in New York City. In 2014 I joined the ERA Education Project’s documentary film Equal Means Equal filming an interview with Gloria Steinem and additional footage. Always eager to train camera interns on shoots, I have remained close to my own mentors and returned to graduate school to deepen my pedagogical practice and develop an alignment between filmmaking and education. Continuing to work collaboratively and based in a critical pedagogy, I am devising a hybrid form of documentary filmmaking and community-based education workshops.
OR WRITE TO US:
Emily Caruso,
Sacramento CA
I am a recent graduate from New York University's Art, Education, and Community Practice MA program. I spent my undergraduate studies in California split between San Francisco State University and Sacramento State University in California where I studied Political Science, Art Studio, and Dance.
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I first began organizing in 2008 in response to the extreme budget cuts strangling the CSU, UC, and community college systems and then worked at the Women's Resource Center on campus building programs such as a Single Parent's Support Group, an intersectional feminist reading group, and many others. To connect community art practice with political and pedagogical themes, I co-founded Intersections Collective which facilitates culturally-responsive and collaborative art exhibitions in Sacramento, CA. Before coming to NYU, I worked in public policy advocating for expanded resources for subsidized child care programs at the California Alternative Payment Program Association. Functioning as a practical thesis project, #PrioritizeChildCare is an initiative that focuses on changing the child care conversation from an individualized, family-specific responsibility to a community problem which affects us all. Going forward, I am interested in engaging with creative advocacy projects to illuminate public policy and expand democratic participation.