Boston's Apollo

The community collaborators are: Kadahj Bennett, Daniel Corral, Ryan Dias-Toppin, Stephen Hamilton, Allentza Michel, Fiona Phie, Destiny Polk, Valerie Stephens, Chanel Thervil, and Theo Tyson. 

The Gardner Museum community collaboration staff include: Peggy Fogelman, Norma Jean Calderwood Director; Nathaniel Silver, William and Lia Poorvu Curator of the Collection; Michelle Grohe, Esther Stiles Eastman Curator of Education; Liz Gardner, Director of Interpretation; Catherine Morris, Director of Public Programs; Rhea Vedro, Director of Community Engagement; and Molly Phelps, Academic Programs Manager.

Kadahj Bennett is an award-winning actor, educator, and performer from the Boston area. Bennett has been a Teaching Artist in the community for the past seven years. Affiliated with Company One Theater, SpeakEasy Stage, The Huntington Theater, Actors Shakespeare Project, Beyond Measure Productions, Zumix, and Harvard University, Bennett works on stage, screen, in galleries and classrooms alike. A graduate of the Boston Arts Academy and recipient of the Posse scholarship to Hamilton College, Bennett is on a mission to make you reevaluate your perspectives.

Daniel Corral is a Mexican-American artist whose work examines queer identity and spaces within their community, and utilizes the camera obscura technique to create a portal between the private lives and public agency of each individual. Their photographic work expands to include studies on immigration rights and migrant workers through street vendors and community organizers in Los Angeles, California. Corral has exhibited their work at the Distillery Gallery, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Lesley University, the Villa Victoria Center for the Arts, and at the Medal Gala Awards at the Museum of Fine Arts. They are a frequent collaborator with the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum on public programs that focus on creating queer inclusion within the Museum.

Ryan Dias-Toppin is an event producer, vocalist, performance artist, and multi-disciplinary visual artist whose work centers around creating access to spaces through events and fully engaging experiences. A convener and conduit, her work is defined by spatial, critical, and cultural praxis; providing outlets, platforms, and resources for ideas and those who wish to express them.

Stephen Hamilton is an artist and arts educator living and working in Boston, Massachusetts. Born and raised in Roxbury, Stephen graduated from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2009 with a concentration in illustration. Stephen was the 2015-2016 Arts Connect International (ACI) Artist-in-Residence. This allowed him to travel to Nigeria to study weaving, dyeing, and woodcarving at the Nike Center for Art and Culture. He has taught and mentored in the arts at College Bound Dorchester, Artists For Humanity, and he is currently an Assistant Professor at Massachusetts College of Art and Design.

Allentza Michel is a community planner, social practice artist, and writer with experience in organizing and research. She has over 17 years of diverse experience across arts administration, placemaking, economic and workforce development, education, food security, public health, and transportation. Ms. Michel is currently the Program Officer for Arts and Culture at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, where she works with a national commission on the arts conducting policy and advocacy research. She earned a Master's in Public Policy from Tufts University and has a Bachelor's in English and Social and Political Systems. She was the inaugural fellow for the Association for Community Design in 2015, and a 2016 Creative Community Fellow with National Arts Strategies. Ms. Michel has founded and co-founded several non-profit organizations and community initiatives, and has also served as a grant reviewer for the National Endowment for the Arts.  

Fiona Phie is a Boston community organizer and is currently studying Political Science at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. They are currently the Executive Director of March for Our Lives Boston and the co-founder of The Red House. Fiona has been an organizer since they were 15 years old, and uses a racial equity lens to organize around gun violence prevention, civic engagement, education, climate justice, youth empowerment, queer & gender inequities, and poverty issues.

Destiny Polk: Warrior and Healer. Tender and unbreakable. Destiny "Divine" Polk, whose name means "That which has been firmly established, God has answered, Dance," is an afro-indigenous choreographer and producer, multi-disciplinary artist, community organizer/space holder, art-educator, and founder of art-activist platform Radical Black Girl. Destiny’s work is concerned about speaking truth to a country that attempts to rewrite its own history while having actively tried to suppress African and Native American history and culture. She is also deeply passionate about advocating for the radical awakening of the authentic self to become audacious, unapologetic, and empowered. She intentionally creates spaces to support artists of color, low-income communities of color, womxn of color, and young self-identifying black girls. 

Valerie Stephens is a performing artist/arts educator with a passion for history. In addition to receiving a 2019 Brother Thomas Fellowship with an unrestricted award of $15,000, Valerie has received a 2019 Bridge Award in Arts, a 2018 Boston City Council Resolution for creating the annual event PRINCESS DAY: Celebrating Little Girls of Color, and her commitment to Nina Simone’s legacy, a 2017 New England Foundation for the Arts Creative City Grant for creating the Elder Storytelling Performance Project, the 2016 Get Konnected! Boston Legends & Pioneers Award, the 2011 NAACP Image Award, the 2007 Urban Music Award in Blues and was a nominee for the 2011 Urban Music Award in Jazz as well as Citations of Appreciation from  the Cities of Boston, New Bedford, and Springfield. 

Chanel Thervil is a Haitian-American artist and educator obsessed with all things art, community, and history. She has a BFA in Painting from Pace University, and a MA in Art Education from MassArt. Recently, she's been making a splash in Boston via her public art, mixed media portraits, and joyful collaborations with institutions like the Urbano Project, Museum of Fine of Arts, DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, and the Boston Center for the Arts. Her art has been featured by The Boston Globe, The Bay State Banner, PBS Kids, WBUR's The ARTery, and WGBH's Open Studio with Jared Bowen. To find out more about her work visit her website at www.chanelthervil.com.

Theo Tyson interrogates the sociocultural aspects of race, gender, and sexuality through the lens of fashion, its histories and theories. Her research is firmly rooted in historical and contemporary photography and the performativity of fashioning an identity. She uses fashion, art, and sociology to employ visual and material culture as an accessible, universal language to offer sartorial counter-narratives that provide unique points of entry for civil discourse. 
Tyson, who has held posts at Spelman College Museum of Fine Art and SCAD FASH Museum of Fashion + Film, is currently the Polly Thayer Starr Fellow in American Art and Culture at the Boston Athenæum, where she engages and interprets their special collections through innovative and inclusive exhibitions and presentations.