Tennessee Voices, Episode 237: Yancy Villa, Kennedy Center Citizen Artist Fellow in Memphis
Building community is difficult when there is a deficit of trust or none to begin with, but common experiences can build relationships.
Art is one of those ways to help bring people together and establish a unified purpose.
Yancy Villa is a self-described "socially engaged artist" who has used art for that reason and the Memphis resident is passionate about public art, community engagement and city planning.
Villa, an immigrant from Mexico, has degrees in psychology and business. Studying abroad in the U.S. led her to take an art class and it changed the trajectory of her career path.
She was named a 2020-2021 Kennedy Center Citizen Artist Fellow — only one of seven people across the nation to receive this distinction.
On this episode of the Tennessee Voices podcast, we talked about her approach to art and building a sense of community.
She explains that her approach is not to colonize, but to engage, communities.
Art can also be used to counter negative narratives. As anti-immigrant rhetoric grew over the last five years, she used her talents to assert the dignity of herself on others who felt targeted because of their cultural heritage.
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About Tennessee Voices
The Tennessee Voices videocast is a 20-minute program, which started in March 2020 and invites leaders, thinkers and innovators who have written guest columns for a USA TODAY Network Tennessee publication to share their insights and wisdom with me and our viewers.
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David Plazas is the director of opinion and engagement for the USA TODAY Network Tennessee and an editorial board member of The Tennessean. Tweet to him at @davidplazas.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Creating public art to engage the community with Yancy Villa
