Santa Fe, NM
TOPICS
Activism
Education
Race
Academia
Visual Storytelling
Mi’Jan Celie Tho-Biaz, Ed.D., is a cultural leader, oral historian and documentarian who shares narratives of personal transformation and community change. As the founder and Director of the New Mexico Women of Color Nonprofit Leadership Initiative at the Santa Fe Community Foundation, she works with communities across the themes of sovereignty, transformation, healing and equity.
To say this historian’s own history is distinguished is an understatement: Mi’Jan curated and hosted Unfinished Network’s first 2022 public salon on the theme of multiracial democracy, with CNN’s Van Jones and MSNBC’s Maria Teresa Kumar. She also designed and led the Gloria Steinem Initiative’s public policy digital storytelling pilot at Smith College, and served as a New Mexico Humanities Council Scholar. Mi’Jan has held Visiting Scholar appointments at Columbia University and New York University and served as faculty in the Cultural Leadership program at The Banff Centre in Canada. Currently Mi’Jan serves as faculty with Omega Institute, co-host for the National Art Education Association’s podcast, as well as principal oral historian and public art curator for Policy Link’s California BIPOC Liberation Stories’ Project.
Mi’Jan is best known for connecting with audiences through her visionary, story-rich talks at a range of institutions, from Carnegie Hall to the Institute of American Indian Arts to SXSW. Her goal? To make the historical contemporary and personal, while surfacing the marginalized stories that need to be heard.
An incredibly skillful moderator and knowledgeable, experienced cultural worker, Tho-Biaz guided (seemingly effortlessly) the conversation, weaving ideas about dance, process, indigeneity, performance, and cultural and political change seamlessly. We are beyond grateful for her participation in the program, which was one of the most well-received events that we have hosted.
I'm just catching these snapshots and snippets of the ways that we live, love, and labor for positive change across time.