Neyda Martinez Sierra
Tell us about you and your work.
Hi, AfroTaíno community! My name is Neyda Martinez, and presently I am an associate professor in The School of Media Studies and co-director of the Impact Entrepreneurship Initiative at The New School. I’m also a producer and strategic consultant with 20+ years of experience. As a long-time cultural worker for organizations and projects such as the Chicago International Art Expo, El Museo del Barrio, the Public Theater, and the Creative Justice Initiative, I am consistently exploring how we can dream the impossible; how we can build and support inclusive and equitable communities while centering arts and culture.
Some examples of my work inspired by these values are the music and humanities project I created, HABANA/HARLEM®, as well as The New Audience Project, an initiative co-created with A.J. Muhammad, to develop and train Latina cultural ambassadors in support of Latino arts institutions through arts immersion, workforce development, and micro-entrepreneurism. The New Audience Project received a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation Cultural Innovation Industry Fund. With A.J., we hope to launch a second phase with a new cultural partner in 2021.
What inspires you?
Everything my late parents, Delia Sierra and Luis Martinez, taught me. They believed in humanity, dignity, social justice, and fairness. They also had a bold and fierce aesthetic and had a deep appreciation for the role of arts and culture in our lives.
What does community mean to you?
At a time when the social fabric of the country is frayed, we need to bolster our resilience through trust, mutual aid, people-to-people support, and community solidarity. There is no substitute for grassroots organizing and the spirit of engagement. Our society needs people of all colors and ethnicities working together, in common cause, to make radical, loving change and to fight for justice. The great civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer noted that “nobody’s free until everybody’s free.” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. put it this way: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality.” As a society, we can do better, and we must do better. We must honor the earth and one another. These are critical times!
Favorite film
Oh my gosh... too many to name! Can I say humbly that I very much like the films that I have helped bring forth, like LUCKY and Decade of Fire. The films that I can watch over and over again are THE RED VIOLIN; BEFORE NIGHT FALLS; MOONLIGHT, and LA HAINE, to name a few.
Favorite song
Oh wow! An impossible task. I love everything from Beethoven and Bach to Bad Bunny. Music means so much because of its vibrational power to heal and how it helps us connect back to ourselves and with one another. I especially love the Blues of my hometown, Chicago; the African American spirituals (also called Negro Spirituals); as well as the ancient Lukumí sung prayers; soul; jazz; R&B; folk; country, and rock. Basically everything from Thelonius Monk to Motown, Jimi Hendrix, Fela Kuti, FANIA, and more. I'm also very excited about rising star, Linda Diaz, too!
Through my project HABANA/HARLEM®, I helped co-produce Michele Rosewoman's 30th and 35th anniversary albums including New Yor-Uba titles, in particular, her interpretation of the classic, PERDON featuring “maestros” Roman Diaz and Pedrito Martinez on percussion with Nina Rodriguez on vocals; as well as Earth Secrets/Babalú Ayé built around a traditional sequence of songs for the deity Babalú Ayé. Michele's entire oeuvre, to me, is incredibly special! I dream that Michele gains national recognition for her work and vision... MacArthur folks... are you listening?!
Favorite place(s)
Bike riding along Chicago's lakefront. The carnivals and dancing in Santiago de Cuba and Loíza, Puerto Rico! Growing up in the proverbial concrete jungle, I crave waterfronts and natural environments like El Yunque in Puerto Rico and upstate New York. Oh, the majesty of upstate New York! I learned of a particular region through the work of artists belonging to the Hudson River School. Thomas Cole, one of the major 19th-century American painters is regarded as the founder. I was thrilled to learn that the school counted among them the African American painter Robert S. Duncanson. Edward Mitchell Bannister credited to have been heavily influenced by the Hudson River School, is one of the few African American painters of the 19th-century to have earned significant recognition in his lifetime.