Lisa Lee

NATIONAL PUBLIC HOUSING MUSEUM | CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

“Knowing ‌ that even through the hardest and most difficult times there are others working in solidarity and with ingenuity and grace, is so affirming for me as a leader of color.”

The National Public Housing Museum.

Dr. Lisa Yun Lee.

Source: nphm.org

THE CATALYST COLLECTIVE PROGRAM has been capacious and nurturing. This space has made the phrase, “We are the ones we have been waiting for,” much more visceral and palpable to me. There is always so much critical care, radical generosity, and R-E-S-P-E-C-T in the room! Knowing that even through the hardest and most difficult times there are others working in solidarity and with ingenuity and grace, is so affirming for me as a leader of color.

There is a growing understanding of the great Civil Rights leader Ella Baker’s notion: “If you have strong people, you don’t need strong leaders.” Movement building, addressing root problems, reciprocity, and connecting arts, culture and public policy empower people and communities to realize their freedom dreams. Seeing this in action in our leaders of tomorrow gives me hope and excitement for the future of nonprofit leadership.

Jane Addams said it best, “Social advance depends as much upon the process through which it is secured as upon the result itself.” We are working to create a more just equitable world, and even if the outcomes are not yet secured or visible, know that every choice, gesture, program, and decision we make is an intentional act and effort to secure a more just world for all of us. And that’s what I push philanthropy forward to commit to, to commit to intention and financially securing a just world for our future.

Invitation, project with Artist as Instigator In Residence, Jen Delos Reyes. Poem fragments by June Jordan and Mary Oliver.

above Invitation, project with Artist as Instigator In Residence, Jen Delos Reyes. Poem fragments by June Jordan and Mary Oliver.

ABOUT

Lisa Yun Lee is a cultural activist and the Executive Director of the National Public Housing Museum. She is also an Associate Professor in Art History and Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago, teaching faculty with the Prison Neighborhood Art Project, and a member of the Chicago Torture Justice Memorials. Lisa has published books and articles about aesthetics and politics, public art, and the potential of museums as radical sites of resistance, and for participatory democracy.