Johanna Taylor is dedicated to theory and practice, working to connect research with artists, organizations, civic leaders and other practitioners in collaboration. Her research trajectories intersect with socially engaged art projects, government agencies, and organizations. These explorations also take public forms through organized public programs and exhibitions that unite scholars, artists, and practitioners in conversation about pressing issues. Select collaborations and related publications are detailed here.
CAIR Lab (Cross-sector Artists in Residence Lab) is a creative agency supporting artists and designers working in collaboration with other sectors to instigate civic transformation. We support the development of artists-in-residence in government programs, conduct applied research, facilitate engagement, and are public speakers. The project is a collaboration uniting Mallory Rukhsana Nezam, Amanda Lovelee, and Johanna Taylor – an interdisciplinary team with professional experience as artists, researchers, arts managers, and government administrators.
- (2024) Transportation Artists in Residence: A Landscape of an Emerging Field, Smart Growth America
- This report was produced as a part of a National Endowment for the Arts Our Town Grant supporting launching the Transportation Artists in Residence Network.
- Nezam, M. R., and Taylor, J. (2021). A New Tool to Advance Art and Equity: Artists in Residence in Government. Local Government Review. ICMA.
- Lovelee, A., Nezam, M. R., and Taylor, J. (2021). How Artists Help Build Equitable, Empathetic Infrastructure. Next City.
- CAIR Lab on Instagram
Senior Cultural Policy Fellow, National Assembly of State Arts Agencies
Working with NASAA and other national leaders on cultural policy futures that interconnect arts and design with other critical civic issues in collaboration with other sectors. Served as a Senior Cultural Policy Fellow along with CAIR Lab collaborators Amanda Lovelee and Mallory Rukhsana Nezam as well as communications strategist Milly Hawk Daniel. The fellowship was supported by the Mellon Foundation.
The co-fellows produced a series of three policy briefs meant to be conversation starters about the opportunities to connect arts within infrastructure opportunities in health and transportation among other areas. The work was launched in January 2024 at the Healing, Bridging, Thriving summit in Washington DC co-hosted by the National Endowment for the Arts and the White House Domestic Policy Council.
Johanna Taylor is an advisor for borderless, a global platform connecting audiences and cultural producers through civicly engaged pop culture. She is collaborating on a cultural mapping project which connects local artists, cultural producers, activists, and residents through cultural, social, and political exchange. This work is underway in Karachi with projects in development in Thailand, New Zealand, and South Africa.
Taylor has been an embedded researcher in Future IDs, a socially engaged art project that translates advocacy and reform efforts into a visual language to reframe the narrative of reentry. A year-long partnership at Alcatraz became a project, exhibition, and series of community programs about justice reform and second chances after incarceration.
- Sale, G., Taylor, J. and Garcia, L. (2020). Relationships as Material for an Arts Practice: Reflecting on Future IDs at Alcatraz (2018-2019). Art Practical. (written with Future IDs core collaborators)
Institute for Humanities Research, Arizona State University
As a Faculty Fellow at the Institute for Humanities Research in 2018-19, Johanna worked with co-fellows to organize a two-day symposium. Challenging Power in Place explored deeper conceptions of place beyond limited binaries such as (sub)urban/rural, nation/state, local/global which privilege the stories of men, elites, majorities and the wealthy in a process that renders certain places visible and invisible.
The symposium opened with Spatializing Experience, a walking exploration of the layered histories at Steele Indian School Park that challenged conventional narratives of spatial experiences in this site. This walk was co-organized with the Museum of Walking.
Vera List Center for Art and Politics
From 2011 to 2016 Johanna Taylor worked to develop programs, collaborate with faculty across The New School, and implement the Vera List Center Prize for Art and Politics. She co-organized, with Carin Kuoni, Abounaddara. The Right to the Image a three-day conference exploring the themes of filmmaking, revolution, and politics grounded in the work of anonymous Syrian film collective Abounaddara.
Art and Social Justice Working Group
A group of artists, scholars, and arts practitioners are gathering over 18 months to examine core conflicts that compel, enrich, and complicate artistic ideas that assume agency to enact social change. Johanna Taylor organized this group in collaboration with the Vera List Center and A Blade of Grass. Supported by the Warhol Foundation.
Imagining America’s national Publicly Active Graduate Education program connects graduate students in the humanities and social sciences dedicated to public scholarship and social justice. Johanna Taylor was a co-director from 2013 to 2016.
Johanna K. Taylor 