This panel discussion and workshop will explore how Museums can foster authentic, sustained, intentional, and reciprocal partnerships with communities. 

How are these partnerships started and maintained? What responsibilities do Museums have in centering community voices? Participants will leave this program with tools and strategies for engaging communities long-term, uniting intention with action. 

Priya Das, Co-founder and Chief Programming Officer of Mosaic America

Priya is co-founder and Chief Programming Officer of Mosaic America. She is the creator of Mosaic’s inspired programming-methodology for social cohesion using the Arts and drives engagement strategies, Place activation, artist & community relations. The Mosaic Festival won the City of San Jose's Cornerstone Award for Creative Impact under her co-stewardship. Priya is a change-maker at heart, having come to the United States to pursue a dream of innovating business and industry through a career in hi-tech startups. She now applies this intense transformative mindset to innovate the societal fabric by creating brave spaces for community to gather at the intersection of history, identity, culture, and Place. Priya holds degrees in Business and Computer Science, is an arts critic and columnist, a classical Indian Bharatanatyam artist for over 20 years, and is trained in Carnatic vocal and the Hawaiian/Slide Guitar. She is an alumna of Multicultural Arts Leadership Institute (MALI) and SVCreates’ MindShare program

Patty Pforte, Senior Manager of Marketing and Engagement, California Institute of Integral Studies

Patty Pforte (she/her) is Senior Manager of Marketing and Engagement for CIIS Public Programs, a department of California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) located on Yelamu, unceded Ramaytush Ohlone land (currently called San Francisco). She is also the Chair of CIIS’ Beyond Land Acknowledgement Task Force. Prior to working at CIIS she managed public programs for six years at the California Historical Society.

Patty has a Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology and Africana Studies from Bard College and a Master’s degree in Museum Studies from New York University. She is originally from the land of the Massachusett tribe (currently called Cambridge, Massachusetts) and lives in Huchiun, unceded Federated Villages of Lisjan Territory (currently called Alameda, California). When she is not working she is taking care of her plants, watching horror movies, and sending out a weekly pop culture newsletter to her friends and family.

Solitaire M.

Solitaire M. (saw-lu-tair em, she/they), is an educator by day and multidisciplinary artist by night, on Ramaytush Ohlone land (San Francisco) since 2003. Named after the rare, sparkly diamond by itself, they grew up a latchkey-Neurodivergent-Genderfluid-Filipinx-Samoan-only-child on O’ahū, Hawai’i in the early 1990’s. She was a full-time Preschool Teacher serving a range of racially and socioeconomically diverse families from the Tenderloin, Mission and Bayview/Hunter’s Point for 14 years. Transitioning in 2021 to her current role as a K-5th grade School Programs Education Specialist at the California Academy of Sciences, she is actively engaged in her mission to create and hold space for science and museum equity, accessibility and decolonization. Their academic and artistic work values an anti-bias, culturally-responsive, IDEAL (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, Liberation), social-emotional, neurobiological/trauma-informed, STEM/STEAM, and inquiry-based lens. In addition to being a museum educator, Solitaire produces a lo-fi, grassroots, community-centered and experimental Public Access TV Show, ALL IN TV, which continues to air on San Francisco Ch. 29 since 2020.