Team

Jen Delos Reyes is a creative laborer, educator, writer, radical community arts organizer, and author of countless emails. She is the director and founder of Open Engagement. Delos Reyes currently lives and works in Chicago, IL where she is the Associate Director of the School of Art & Art History at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Crystal Baxley started working on Open Engagement when she was 22 years old; in January she turned 30. In addition to her work with OE, she pays her bills by providing administrative assistance and grant writing for artists and arts non-profits. She is currently seeking opportunities to make a living wage, write for television, spend time in nature, travel, drink natural wine, and collaboratively work to dismantle white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy.

Lauren Meranda is a Chicago-based designer and educator specializing in projects for cultural institutions, social activism, civic engagement, and public memory. She runs a small design studio (laurenmeranda.com), teaches, and serves on the board of AIGA Chicago.

Andrés Alejandro Chavez
Designer

Andrés is a radical leftist Venezuelan designer residing in Chicago. Creative, curious, and collaborative, he is always looking to learn new things and start new projects. He is a big fan of good typography, Emma Goldman, and minimalist graphic design.

Jade Thacker is an independent curator and creative producer with a focus on site-specific performances, installations, and events exploring the sensorial, relational aesthetics, and social justice. She currently resides in New York City where she operates an independent creative production house and serves as Artistic Director to art-house perfumery, Folie AÌ€ Plusieurs. www.jadethacker.org

[email protected]

Danny Orendorff is an independent curator, writer, teacher, and activist whose work explores the intersections
of DIY and/or craft-oriented cultural production, histories of grassroots social-justice activism, and theories of gender and sexuality. Formerly, Orendorff worked as Curator of Public Programs for the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City and has organized exhibitions, programs, and publications for museums and galleries nationwide. DanDannyDaniel.com

[email protected]

Kyra lived in Kansas City and uses painting and social intervention as a means to analyze how people view themselves, others, and their communities from an anthropological point of view. She is the first woman to graduate from college in her family and hopes she is doing this whole living thing right. She is excited to be joining the team at Open Engagement this year.

Max Gottlieb is an urban planner and arts laborer from New York City, completing a Masters in City & Regional Planning at the Pratt Institute. He has held previous positions in arts education and administration at MoMA PS1, Socrates Sculpture Park and Printed Matter, Inc. He currently is a Graduate Fellow with the NYC Environmental Justice Alliance and researcher with the Urban Design Forum.