CV/ Recent Works

Recess Art: 2022-current, "Youth + Community Organizer" Leading and directing the Assembly program, offering system-impacted young people aged 18-26 an inroad to art and connections to working artists, while serving as an alternative to incarceration and its intersecting systems of oppression. Using community safety, somatic practice, and arts based storytelling and performance to redefine criminality. 

Community Series: 2024- current "Paint for Peace", Lead Curator + Co-Director. Embedded in Community Safety, KT partnered with SOS Brooklyn to create a bi-monthly painting series to educate community members on creative expression and community safety against gun violence. 

Community Event: 2024 "Acts of Rest-istance: Best Practices for Artists at Rest, Joy, and Play" Co-curator + Featured Artist. Partnering with Arts Education Round Table, KT co-curated a salon that combined community-driven performance pieces, art installations, and art-making to create an environment that celebrates rest, joy, and play.

Article: 2023, New York Times discussing “The Toll of Police Violence on Black People’s Mental Health”. Featured educator and artist, discussing symptoms of safety and responses to community safety

NYU Exhibition: 2023 "I Tried to Save Myself", Co-Curator and Featured Artist. The exhibition, a collaboration between Recess Assembly and the Galleries, features work that creates a space of hope and shared humanity, all while exposing the deep impact of the trauma associated with being incarcerated. “This work is a remarkably effective model for challenging the carceral state’s way of processing people,” said Gallatin faculty member and curator of The Gallatin Galleries, Keith Miller.

POC Queer Poetry Series: 2023-current, "Sweet Circuit" Co-curator and Featured Artist. A bi-monthly series created in collaboration with poet Liz Chestang and musician ADAIR that celebrates, uplifts, and provides a stage for emerging queer, GNC, Black, Brown, and Indigenous poets and song-writers to exchange their practice in a safe and creative space. 

Recess Art Exhibition: 2023 "Gallery Noir", Lead Curator, Co-producer and Featured Artist. Community talk + artist showcase centering and celebrating over 15 Black queer safety through joy and dance partnered with The Lay Out and Pray Tell Agency.

Broadway Advocacy Collation: 2022, 2023, "BAC Festival" Activation Committee Member and Featured Artist. Working with BAC’s committee to build the capacity of individuals, organizations, and communities to dismantle the systems that perpetuate racism through the power of storytelling and the leadership of people directly affected.   

WORKSHOP HIGHLIGHT

KT partnered with TeensPACT, a youth-driven health education program that believes everyone has the right to accurate, non-judgmental information on all health & body matters. KT’s TeensPACT session’s theme was art activism, protest art, and the role of creativity and artists within social justice movements. A virtual group of youth and teens created protest signs, and sketched large imagined mural designs for our varying home communities. As the 13 guiding principles of Black Lives Matter teaches us, the revolution must be intergenerational. Here’s to creating creative spaces where youth can participate and feel connected and engaged within this movement! @teenspact

YOUTH WORKSHOPS

KT’s youth classes and workshops are dynamic, engaging, empowering and always have a self-reflective creative component to them. KT’s art rehabilitation practice includes art-history through liberation & movements, afro-futurism exploration for Black adults & youth, figure drawing, painting, mixed media surrealist collaging, art activism + social change art, watercolor, color theory & mixing, healing through Imagination, animation & digital drawing, and so much more. KT also facilitates and creates LGBTQIA+ and QPOC youth community events and resources such as art classes, art clubs, events, and online creative sessions.

ADULT ART WORKSHOPS

Adult art workshops with KT incorporate different mediums, warm ups, and a free create exploring figure drawing, watercolor, oil pastels, Afro-futuristic collaging, mixed media projects, various representation of self, and much more. KT’s adult classes aim to introduce visual art mediums, artistic techniques, as well as provide an empowered creative space where folks can freely use visual expression as a tool for healing and liberation.

EVENTS

Here are various events designed, facilitated & hosted by KT Kennedy. Events from affirming queer POC art figure drawing classes, to drop in art classes, to queer kickbacks that celebrate the beauty of us, KT facilitates a large range of workshop based in art education and social transformation.,

PRESENTATION & WORKSHOP Visiting Artist Workshop, Emerson School 

A presentation and workshop on "self-taught" artists to 5th-8th graders- discussing the importance of self-expression followed by a hand-on art activity. 

 "On Monday, students were treated to a visit from special guest artist and proud Emerson alum KT Kennedy. They learned about their artwork and how her involvement in art activism connected to identity and expression of self. Then, KT helped 5th and 6th graders explore their own identity though an art project using mixed media materials. THANK YOU KT!" Themes: Art, Art Rehabilitation, Self-expression, Art Activism

Link: https://www.facebook.com/pg/theemersonschool/photos/?tab=album&album_id=10156406130404207

PAST WORKSHOPS + EVENTS

WORKSHOPS with Allied Media Conference:

2018, 2021, Allied Media Conference

KT co-hosted and designed a gathering for Black Queer + Trans folks who are sober curious, sober, or practicing harm reduction. We fed on our spirits, swap recovery wisdoms & built connections that resonated through AMC and beyond.

PRESENTATION with BTGNC Resource:

2019, 2020, Gender Queer Conference

A presentation and workshop with Trans youth on being Black Non-Binary and Trans in America.

PRESENTATION on Organizing and Activism: 

2018, Emerson School  

Provided a presentation on Activism: discussing my own personal experiences as a student activist, community-organizer, and grassroots organizer. Delivered to 85 students: grades 3rd, 4th, and 5th. 

Themes: Activism, Self-expression, Social Justice, Movement History

PANELIST: MILLENNIAL CONVERSATIONS: FROM REBELLION TO GENTRIFICATION (2018)

"Millennial Conversations: From Rebellion to Gentrification" featuring Humanity in Action Detroit Fellows | Wednesday, May 8, 2018 | General Motors Theater at The Charles H. Wright, Detroit M. At this panel, KT spoke as a panelist representing millennials active in the city of Detroit seeking social change. The conversation surrounded both the history of the Detroit Rebellion, Gentrification, and how these themes intercept.

PRESENTATION surrounding the 1967 Detroit Rebellion: 

2016, Semester in Detroit Showcase  

A presentation titled: "What happens to a Dream Deferred?: The history of Rebellions and Black Civil Rights surrounding the 1967 Detroit Rebellion." 

PRESENTATION & DISCUSSION Curriculum Advisor:

2017, Emerson School

Presented to 150+ teachers on the importance of diversity and representation in learning environments; as well as discussing tools to better support students of color and other marginalized identities both inside and outside the classroom. 

Themes: Creating Diverse Curriculum, Privilege, Identity, Representation, Race, Ethnicity, and Diversity   

PRESENTATION on Art Activism: 

2017, Humanity in Action Detroit Fellowship 

A presentation and discussion on the history of Art Activism; and how Black American Artists have used Art as a tool for Black Liberation throughout history. Themes: Black Art History, Art activism

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