ATL Art Ecosystems Steering Committee
Anna Akpele: Independent Curator / Dashboard
Conrhonda E. Baker: Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta
Anne Archer Dennington: Executive Director, Flux Projects
Floyd Hall: Executive Director, Atlanta Contemporary
Dana Haugaard: Artist / Director, Visual Arts Program, Emory University
Jessica Helfrecht: Gallery Owner, Echo Contemporary Art
Laura Hennighausen: Metro Atlanta Arts Collaborative/Purpose Possible
Miranda Kyle: Curator of Indigenous Arts of the Americas, Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University
Jacob O’Kelley: Artistic Director, Swan Coach House Gallery / Independent Curator
Noah Reyes: Artist / Art Papers
Roshani Thakore: Artist / Atlanta Regional Commission / Cultural Forum
Anna Akpele (she/her) is a curator & arts administrator based in Atlanta, GA. In 2022, Anna conceptualized elsewhere, a curatorial practice centered around fostering a symbiotic relationship between artist and curator while challenging the concept of the white cube. Anna received her BFA in Graphic Design from Savannah College of Art and Design.
Conrhonda E. Baker’s (she/her) passion for the arts is grounded in her dance background, sparked by taking after-school classes at a county-wide recreational facility in rural northeast Georgia. She believes in holistic trust-based, regenerative, and restorative grant-making approaches. Conrhonda developed her philanthropic, fundraising, government affairs, and program development experience through work with Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts, Alabama Dance Council, Vulcan Park and Museum, Birmingham Museum of Art, Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, and South Arts. She has sat on grant panels for Cuyahoga Arts & Culture, Dance/NYC, the National Endowment for the Arts, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, and the NY Community Trust. In addition to being a Women of Color in the Arts member, she holds a Master of Arts Management from Carnegie Mellon University and a Bachelor of Arts in African American Studies with a minor in Dance Education from The University of Georgia.
Anne Archer Dennington (she/her), founding executive director, is the administrative and artistic leader of Flux Projects. Dennington has led three previous organizations and worked across the commercial, government, and nonprofit art sectors.
Under Dennington’s leadership Flux Projects has connected community through innovative public art, expanded arts accessibility to diverse audiences, presented exceptional artists, and transformed the experience of public space in Atlanta for thousands of people. Highlights include: a collection of projects in Grant Park that gave voice to its storied history and ecosystem while inviting appreciation of its natural beauty (2018); an event dedicated to sound art with interactive, immersive projects that explored historic Ponce City Market (2019); a multi-year project with Charmaine Minniefield that celebrated the African American tradition of the Ring Shout through a virtual dance performance, a global spoken word cypher, and a multimedia installation featuring a praise house in Oakland Cemetery’s African American Burial Grounds (2020, 2021); the presentation of the world premiere of FIELD by the acclaimed vertical dance company Bandaloop, which was performed on the façade of a building overlooking the Atlanta BeltLine accompanied by live music and spoken word (2021); and the multimedia installation Ghost Pools by Hannah Palmer to create a shared understanding of what happened to East Point’s Jim Crow-era swimming pools – how they were funded, designed, litigated, defunded, and ultimately abandoned (2023).
Dennington began producing public art in 2004, when she expanded Atlanta Celebrates Photography’s programs to include an annual public art project. She has served on multiple boards and committees for nonprofit and civic organizations, including Mayor Shirley Franklin’s Public Art Advisory Committee, Midtown Alliance’s Street Activation & Public Art Committee, the Metropolitan Public Art Coalition (MPAC) Board, the United Arts Front’s Steering Committee, C4 Atlanta’s Advocacy Committee, Atlanta Celebrates Photography’s Board and Advisory Council, and Emory College Center for Creativity & Arts’ Art Advisory Board. She has been part of public art selection committees for Fulton County, the City of Atlanta, and Midtown Alliance.
Floyd Hall (he/him) is a cultural producer, storyteller, writer and documentarian from Atlanta, Georgia. He currently serves as Executive Director of Atlanta Contemporary. His professional work often relates to the intersection of media and technology as platforms to bring cultures together and make the world a more fulfilling place. As an artist he is interested in the process of how we come to define and design ourselves, and is passionate about how history, culture and art blend together to construct narratives of place. He has worked across the media spectrum in a variety of roles and capacities, including strategy, research and production; his current and past work spans several industries, including Gaming, Brand Management, Nonprofit Arts, Social Change, Sporting Goods, Sports Media and Luxury Lifestyle.
Floyd is passionate about the STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts, and Mathematics) disciplines and holds a BS in Mathematics from Morehouse College, a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) and an MBA from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business.
Dana Haugaard (he/him) is an Artist and Educator investigating how our bodies remember the physicality of its own history. By playing with visual and physical sensation, Dana’s work activates the body in relationship to specific situations and sense memory triggers. Dana has been a resident in the Atlanta Contemporary’s Studio Artist Program and is a Hambidge Fellow. He represented by Whitespace Gallery and has recently been shown at the Atlanta Contemporary, Zuckerman Museum at Kennesaw State University, the Macon Museum of Arts and Science, and the Urban Institute of Contemporary Art in Grand Rapids Michigan and won the Forward Art Foundation’s 2021 Edge Award. Dana received his MFA from the University of Iowa and is currently the Director of the Visual Arts Program and an Associate Teaching Professor at Emory University.
Jessica Helfrecht (she/her) is Studio Manager for Guardian Studios at Echo Street West and owner of Echo Contemporary Art. For four years, she was Executive Artistic Director for MINT—a nonprofit art organization that promotes and nurture’s Atlanta’s emerging artists. Previously, as MINT’s Program Manager, she was responsible for the exhibition, Leap Year, and studio artists programs. Helfrecht has more than 25 years of experience as a curator, arts administrator, event planner, festival coordinator, and gallery manager for non-profit organizations and retail galleries.
Laura Hennighausen (she/her) is dedicated to enhancing communities by empowering organizations to fulfill their missions. As the Director of Strategic Philanthropy at Purpose Possible, Laura excels in guiding corporate, private, individual, and intermediary funders towards establishing and evaluating equitable and impactful charitable practices.
Since January 2024, Laura has directed the Metro Atlanta Arts Collaborative, where she brings together nonprofit arts administrators and funders to explore innovative strategies for bolstering nonprofit support across the eleven-county metro region. Her leadership in this collaborative effort reflects her commitment to fostering creativity and sustainability in the arts.
Laura’s extensive experience includes pivotal roles at several notable nonprofit organizations in Atlanta. Her influence extends to her board positions, where she serves as the Board Chair of Soul Food Cypher, Board Co-Chair of MODA, and Chair of the Georgia Grant Professionals Association’s Equity in Grantmaking Roundtable. Laura holds a master’s degree in arts administration from SCAD.
Miranda Kyle (she/her) (Cherokee descendant/European-American) is the Curator of Indigenous Arts of the Americas at the Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University. She is a scholar on the intersection of Indigenous Land rights, sovereignty, contemporary art, and monuments. She is a sociocultural activist and advocate. She lectures and curates around the importance of preserving and promoting place-based knowledges and culture, public spaces, and human-informed design.
From 2017-2024 she served as the Arts & Culture Program Manager and Chief Curator for Atlanta BeltLine, Inc. managing, cultivating, and growing the largest public art exhibition in the American South. In this role she represented the organization at all levels of government, cultivated partnerships and donors, expanded representation of Black, Indigenous, and Queer artists along the region’s largest infrastructure project and one of the country’s flagship rails to trails projects.
Recently she was invited to the 2022 Berlin Biennial at the behest of the Berlin Wall Foundation to present on Monuments and Cultural Memory, in 2021 she was named an Emory University Arts & Social Justice Fellow, that same year she was also a GA Trend 40 under 40 awardee for her work in preserving artist’s livelihoods during the pandemic. She received numerous grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, Lee Kimche McGrath Fellowship for Arts & Sciences, and was awarded the StarSeed Fellowship to research the intersection of Public Art, Performance and Space in Riga and Pedvale, Latvia.
Kyle has curated exhibitions locally and internationally over the last twelve years, ranging in disciplines from performance to public art. She has served on the Americans for the Arts Public Art Network Advisory Council, is a founding member of Public Art Exchange, served on Arts ATL’s Advisory Council, and is a board member of Mid-South Sculpture Alliance. When not consumed by everything art, she is working to dismantle problematic monuments with groups like Stone Mountain Action Coalition and Toppled Monuments Archive. Kyle holds an MFA the Savannah College of Art and Design, and an MA from Edinburgh College of Arts.
Jacob O’Kelley (he/him) is an Atlanta-based arts and cultural worker. His interests and ambitions lie in uplifting artists, primarily in the Southern United States. He focuses on the development of artists by dedicating time and energy to finding space for experimentation, exploratory research, and community and being adaptable to artists’ needs. Since 2022, he has served as the Artistic Director at Swan Coach House Gallery and the EDGE Award Manager for the Forward Arts Foundation.
In 2018, he co-founded ShowerHaus, a curatorial project most notable for its experiential, guerilla-style programming and The High Rise Show. He is also a contributor to Burnaway and Art Papers. He received his BFA in Drawing and Painting from Georgia State University in 2016.
Noah Reyes (they/them) lives and works in Atlanta, GA. Reyes is an artist taking steps in many different directions, resulting in an awkward dance between curating, writing, and artmaking. Their work plays with words and symbols to craft a slippage of meaning about where they come from and where they are. Touching upon a history we are a part of, but cannot fully define, Noah aims to bridge connections between people and cultures to shape a more empathetic and nurturing future. They received their BFA in Painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2017.
Outside of art they are currently pursuing interests in weightlifting, biking, and cooking. They work for Art Papers, serve as a board member for Lostintheletters, and co-founded Eso Tilin Projects. Sometimes they write for ArtsATL, ART PAPERS, and Burnaway.
Roshani Thakore (she/her) is a socially-engaged artist and Head of Community Engagement Culture at the Atlanta Regional Commission. She leads all culture initiatives including the integration of arts and culture into long-range planning efforts, the Culture and Community Design Program, and designs innovative and inclusive engagement practices that center under-represented voices in planning. In her art practice, she uses art to broaden an understanding of place, uncover histories, elevate voices, and expand a sense of belonging, with the hope of reconstructing power. She is the founder of the Museum of Socially Engaged Art, an experimental museum in Tucker set within an occupied house.
