Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Melissa Messulam. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Melissa, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.
I have to say that my most meaningful project thus far has been co-founding alongside Neher Jaqueline Briceño our non-profit, Conecta Miami Arts. Conecta is a multi-disciplinary arts organization that produces and presents socially-engaged artistic experiences for the general public. Our vision for Conecta is to develop the next generation of culturally sensitive artists, audiences, philanthropists and arts officers of Miami by producing and presenting contemporary and relevant performances of high artistic excellence.
We decided to start Conecta for a very simple reason – so that meaningful connections can be forged through artistic experiences. Since our inception we have principally focused on producing performances that empower emerging Latinx artists to create their own stories by providing them with the tools to develop and self-manage their own projects. By providing access to the arts at an early age, Conecta contributes to the development of a generation who will hopefully engage the arts with purpose and will in turn mold the future cultural landscape of Miami. Along with our desire to shape a culturally sensitive generation, we also have the goal of connecting the different communities of Miami through our artistic and educational activities. Such connections are carried out for and with a number of key community entities such as arts and community centers, non-profits, and other artistic partners of our Magic City.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I was born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela, and moved to Miami when I was 12 years old. I got in the arts industry by chance, as an intern while I was in my last year of College, and just fell in love with working with artists in the performing arts sector! I now have over fifteen years of experience working with significant cultural entities in Miami and abroad. I have worked exclusively in the non-commercial, non-profit artistic sector, and started my career as part of the opening team for the Adrienne Arsht Center of Miami-Dade County. Since then I have worked with entities such as the award-winning International Hispanic Theatre Festival of Miami; Teatro Prometeo, the nation’s only Spanish-language conservatory-style theatre training program in Spanish; and programmed the multi-disciplinary performing arts programs for the Miami Book Fair. Overseas, I was the General Manager of Powerhouse Youth Theatre, the only professionally led youth theatre company in Western Sydney, Australia. In addition to being the Executive Director of Conecta Miami Arts, I am currently the General Manager of the Koubek Center, a cultural arts center in Little Havana, Miami that presents year-round bilingual multi-disciplinary cultural/artistic performances.
In terms of the work I do, I am most proud of celebrating Hispanic culture by empowering Latinx emerging artists to not only find their voices, but to celebrate these voices by using them when developing their professional paths. It is truly a privilege to be able to provide a space for young artists to present their work and allow us as a community to acknowledge their efforts, achievements and vicissitudes in the daily struggle towards the attainment of their goals.
A fundamental aspect of the work that we do through Conecta is to address that representation matters on stages. A 2016 study conducted by the Media, Diversity and Social Change Initiative of the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism found Latinos are among the least represented speaking roles in film and TV, even though they make up about 17.4 percent of the U.S. Population. And despite awareness of this glaring lack of representation being more prevalent than before, we are not seeing in Miami-Dade County, where there are 4.01 times more Hispanic residents (1.8M) than any other race or ethnicity, the same progress we are seeing in cities such as New York and LA.
I am proud to say that the work we are doing with Conecta directly tackles the enormous disparity that exists when it comes to representation in the media, entertainment and the performing arts sectors of our Hispanic community. Providing the next generation of actors the ability to generate their own stories will hopefully help shift the narrative around the lack of proper representation of Hispanics living in the United States.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
The goal driving my creative journey is quite simple – to build community through the arts.
Conecta has the potential to provide a new model for placemaking using the arts to disrupt negative cycles and reframe the immigrant experience in Miami. In the spirit of collaboration, Conecta generates connections with groups of people from different cultures, emphasizing our commitment to our community, and nurturing an enduring sense of place for people. We want to create a sense of ownership and community empowerment through long-term sustainability strengthened by diversity and improved social relations. We continue to create new programs driven by an ethos of inclusion, collaboration, and a genuine desire to support emerging and established local artists.
Working with young and emerging Latinx artists is at the core of my creative journey with Conecta. As a multidisciplinary creative hub we hope to offer opportunities for engagement, idea generation and exposure to alternative experiences, fostering a sense of belonging and inclusion in the cultural life of Miami. Central to this notion is the ability to connect and generate dialogue between emerging and established artists. I believe this is crucial for building unity among members of the same artistic and cultural community that belong to different generations and who can, in turn, learn from one another.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.
Understanding that as arts officers and artists we are often forced to self-produce projects so as not to stop our creative work has forced us as an industry to develop an array of skills far beyond our expertises. As the Executive Director of a very small organization, I basically have to wear every hat. Luckily, I have the most extraordinary business partner and co-founder who spearheads the majority of our artistic decisions, but as an ED my hands are in absolutely every aspect of our organization, whether I have the skillset or not.
This makes it is very challenging for anyone leading an arts organization for we are constantly reacting as opposed to being proactive in order to effectively manage all aspects of our organization. We often have a really hard time being able to properly dedicate our time and energy to drastically different aspects of the job – the creative and the business side, and more often than not, we feel like we are coming short on both. Working at a pace that is too fast for too long leads to burnout. Stress is a part of everyday life, but when we feel like we are never caught up, we lose our problem-solving ability, and we have no time to think. This is a struggle that I guarantee every leader of an arts non-profit organization constantly battles with. Unfortunately, a lot (if not most) young non-profits organizations, like Conecta, do not have the financial capacity to support full-time jobs, and this makes it extremely difficult to try and explain to non-creatives why continual growth and performance assessment, in my opinion, is much more challenging for arts non-profits than other businesses. There is no universal measure by which very different nonprofits can be compared.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.conectamiamiarts.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conectamiamiarts
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/conectamiamiarts/
Image Credits
All photos by Humberto Ochoa