The Lang Center for Civic & Social Responsibility is pleased to announce the 2025-2026 cohort of Engaged Humanities Studio Fellows: Paloma Checa-Gismero, Dahlia Li, Isabel Llosa, Joanna Hong, and Neria Spence.

In close collaboration with community partners, each fellow will embark on a 12- to 18-month project that addresses a contemporary issue through the arts and humanities. Read more about the Engaged Humanities Studio, spearheaded by Lang Center Director of Community Engaged Learning and Special Projects Katie Price.

Here are snapshots of the fellows and their projects.

Crafting Kin: A Year of Socially Engaged Art

Paloma Checa-Gismero, assistant professor of Art History; Daniel Tucker, Philadelphia-based artist and curator; and socially engaged artists 

By inviting social practice artists for a series of workshops and programming, Crafting Kin: A Year of Socially Engaged Art will foster a culture of dialogue and mutual aid among students and the Swarthmore community. Learning from others, the project invites us to think creatively and collectively about how to resist difficult historical times.

Reparative Media Lab

Dahlia Li, visiting assistant professor and post-doctoral fellow of Gender & Sexuality Studies; Jemma Desai, independent curator & cultural worker; Amal Khalaf, independent curator & cultural worker; and Samia Labidi, independent curator & cultural worker 

Four scholar-practitioners will come together to explore the meaning of repair and media through conversations rooted in somatics and diasporic/global south feminist cultural practices. They will create a free digital workbook that de-installs media from its traditional colonial framing and conceptually re-installs it within quotidian environs and embodied acts of creation. 

Bonding Forms: An Intercommunity Ceramics Exploration

Isabel Llosa ’20, sustainability and engaged scholarship fellow at the Lang Center, artist, and art educator; Devon Walls, artist and community developer; and Samara Weaver, artist 

Bonding Forms: An Intercommunity Ceramics Exploration will strengthen relationships between the Chester, Swarthmore, and Wilmington artistic communities through a collaborative ceramic workshop series. As a form of active meditation, working with clay relaxes the mind and opens space for creative connections and collective healing. The project will culminate with exhibitions in Chester and Swarthmore. 

A Multilingual Story: A Devised Performance By and About International Students

Joanna Hong ’27; Tyler Debrowski, artistic director, Philadelphia Theatre Company; Team Sunshine Performance

This project explores the challenges faced by international students at Swarthmore — from the visa process to financial strain and racism. Through collaboratively devising a performance, it aims to create a platform for international students to share their stories in their own languages, while also fostering connection and support in the current political climate.

Connecting Through Art: A Restorative Justice-Centered Mentorship Program

Neria Spence ’28 and the Youth Art Self-empowerment Project

Connecting Through Art: A Restorative Justice-Centered Mentorship Program will connect Philadelphia-based socially engaged artists with young artists from the Youth Art and Self- empowerment Project (YASP) to create collaborative works and conversations that center on the power of socially engaged art as a vehicle of abolition and transformative justice.