Dellyssa Edinboro

The summer of 2020 was not a great time to get an internship at PS1–or anywhere. Dellyssa Edinboro, a UI graduate student, spent the summer working with the Center for Afrofuturist Studies (CAS) from her living room. It was months later, during a reprieve in the pandemic, that she finally met the people she Zoomed with all summer.

Edinboro was expecting to work on educational programming with CAS’s founder, artist and curator An Duplan. But after the murder of George Floyd, everything shifted. Edinboro was surprised by how much trust was put in her to fully participate in the conversations and decisions PS1 was making. She helped draft a statement advocating for radical and lasting racial change and affirming the importance of Black artists to use their “collective imaginations to envision a future where Black people can construct lives centered around joy, autonomy, and innovation.”

The following year, Edinboro was a central member of the team that conceived of The Oracles Project–the murals celebrating Black joy on the Burlington Street parking ramp. Although she now lives on the west coast, she remains the CAS’s education coordinator. 

“PS1 and the CAS reshaped my teaching,” says Edinboro. “Now, I emphasize that what we learn outside the classroom is as important as what we learn in it. It’s nice to know the words and how to apply them, but what are you doing in your community with your values and goals?”