Judith Sloan
Queens, New York, New York
How is your Hero working to make the world a better place?
Judith Sloan is a tremendously engaged artist-citizen who transforms New York for the better through the alchemy of her work. In "Transforming Trauma into Art," her youth theater program, Judith gives immigrant youth tools to grapple with their displacement and the challenges of building new lives. She trains professional artists to work with kids from war-zones and conflict-zones. The processes and themes of these workshops are also reflected in her more personal work, such as Yo Miss! which reveals her years of teaching in multi-ethnic, multi-racial communities and negotiating the complex world of cross-religious dialogues, while bringing her Jewish family history and sense of justice to the stage. Her theatre work is directly related to the human rights and educational work she does with youth. She uses the art projects to raise money to support programs for vulnerable populations. Sloan is co-founder of EarSay, an artist-driven non-profit organization bridging art and human rights in documentary and expressive forms, on stage, in exhibitions, books, radio, public dialogues and workshops. Her collaborative Crossing the BLVD multimedia project intimately portrays the lives of new immigrants and shines a light on the changing face of America. Crossing the BLVD won the Brendan Gill Prize, given by the Municipal Art Society to one art work per year that best captures the spirit of New York City. In all of Sloan's work, she breaks down assumptions that divide residents of a polygot city who live in close proximity but come from conflicting worlds.
How has your Hero impacted your life and inspired you?
After having Judith as a professor of Oral History and Art, I felt blessed to have had the opportunity learn from her. She spent hours helping me develop my work, discovering the stories of my family's past, informing my cultural identity. Her show "Yo Miss!" is a passionate exploration of how she overcame struggles in her life that offered me strength to persevere through my own. Judith is a powerful role model who inspired me to make art that is truthful, to tutor children, and to embrace myself as a woman. Her work touches students and community members of all ages, and ethnicities.