WE ENGAGE
GOVERNMENT AS A MEDIUM FOR JUSTICE + JOY®
Justice + Joy® is a purpose-driven arts and culture strategy consultancy that creates a more equitable public realm through art and cultural production. Our team is experienced in community-centered arts and culture work from the local to the national level.
APPROACH
Justice + Joy® is a purpose-driven arts and culture strategy consultancy.
Our team is experienced in community-centered arts and culture work from the local to the national level, including bringing arts and culture strategies into the public sector. Justice + Joy facilitates cross-sector collaboration amongst urban planning teams, government agencies, designers, community engagement specialists, artists and other sector leaders, to integrate traditionally siloed methods in order to create more just and joyful civic processes and places.
We’ve worked with government agencies like Atlanta Regional Commission, San Francisco Arts Commission, Mariposa County, CA, City of Tempe, AZ, City of Alameda, CA, City of Somerville, MA, and the City of Sacramento on building arts and culture capacities, from monuments and memorials policies to cultural plans to artist residencies in government. We’ve partnered with policy, advocacy and public sector organizations like Smart Growth America, Transportation for America, NeighborWorks America, Great Rivers Greenway, National Alliance of Community Economic Development Associations, Engaging Local Government Leaders, PolicyLink, International City/County Management Association, and Stoss Landscape Urbanism to integrate arts and culture into advancing public sector solutions, like an arts and culture-approach to designing a greenway, or developing a coaching program to train executives in creative community development. We also work closely with arts organizations on strategy, training and DEI development, like National Arts Strategies, Grantmakers in the Arts, Creative Arkansas Community Hub & Exchange, Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis, Kranzberg Arts Foundation, Forecast Public Art and more.
TEAM
(she/hers) |
Mallory Rukhsana Nezam is a cross-sector culture-maker who loves cities and believes that we have the tools to make them more just and joyful. She specializes in public art, equitable creative placemaking, facilitation, strategy and the public domain. Through her cross-sector practice, Justice + Joy®, she engages stakeholders across sectors to de-silo the way we run cities and build new models of creative, interdisciplinary collaboration. She has helped build inaugural arts & culture teams in non-arts organizations at the Metropolitan Area Planning Council of Boston, Transportation for America and PolicyLink, and is the co-founder of the Civic Artist in Residence Lab (CAIR Lab). Raised in St. Louis, MO, she served as the Founding Director of St. Louis Improv Anywhere, and co-founder of the St. Louis Artivists. Through her art practice she disarms and disrupts public space norms using play and participatory performance. She holds a Master of Design from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design where she began research on artists residencies in government and eventually co-founded CAIR Lab, a lab building a community of practice around embedding artists in government. She was a 2020 Monument Lab Transnational Fellow, a 2019-2020 inaugural Practices for Change Fellow at Arizona State University’s Herberger Institute of Design & the Arts and is currently the Curator of Partnerships and Programs for FORWARD, a publication by Forecast Public Art. She was a 2023-2024 Regents’ Lecturer at UCLA's Luskin School of Public Affairs. She seeks to be in every room she’s not supposed to be in.
RESOURCES
In progress..
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This graphic is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
This graphic breaks down the 3 Phases of Artists Residencies in Government. Each phase lasts for roughly 1/3 of the residency, though for longer residencies, the lengths may differ. Each phase builds on the other, allowing for an iterative process during which a focal point to emerges, rather than being pre-determined. This allows for the artist and agency to get to know each other (Discovery), for the artist to become curious about the agency's challenges and opportunities (R & D), and for the two to work together to implement a creative response, often in the form of a project (Implementation). These phases are driven by the artist but proceed in partnership with the agency.
For use, credit Justice + Joy, LLC and include copyright and logo when sharing the image.
CLIENTS + COLLABORATORS
Justice + Joy has worked with a variety of clients and collaborators across the public and non-profit sector.
Who we've worked with
Who we've partnered with
Smart Growth America
Transportation for America
Atlanta Regional Commission
City of Sacramento
The City of Alameda
San Francisco Arts Commission
Mariposa County, California
Forecast Public Art
NeighborWorks America
The Pulitzer Arts Foundation
The Levitt Foundation
PolicyLink
Great Rivers Greenway
National Arts Strategies
The City of Tempe
Third Way Creative
Lamar Johnson Collaborative
Grantmakers in the Arts
National Alliance of Community Economic Development Associations
Minnesota Water Alliance
St. Louis Volunteer Lawyers and Accountants for the Arts
The City of Boston Arts and Culture
ArtPlace America
Creative Arkansas Community Hub & Exchange
Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis
City of Somerville, MA
Free the Deeds
Compton Foundation
Californians for the Arts
ACLU of Northern California
Engaging Local Government Leaders
Kranzberg Arts Foundation
Stoss Landscape Urbanism
Hyperallergic
PBS POV
Urban Land Institute
Friends of the Highline
Stoss Landscape Urbanism
Enterprise Community Partners
City of Napa, CA
Arizona State University
Harvard University
The U.S. Water Alliance
University of Virginia
Washington University, St. Louis
Harvard University
STL Art Place Initiative
Minnesota Department of National Resources
Metropolitan Council Metropolitan Regional Parks
Greater Minnesota Regional Parks and Trails Commission
Equivolve
Forecast Public Art
Transportation for America
Solomon Office
City of Ottawa
Third Way Creative
Lamar Johnson Collaborative
Californians for the Arts
Monument Lab
Engaging Local Government Leaders
Public Health Equity Accessibility and Leadership (PHEAL)
Center for Arts in Medicine at the University of Florida
International City/County Management Association
National Endowment for the Arts
Creatives Rebuild New York
Damon Davis
De Nichols