Welcome Home: AjA's First Neighborhood Open House

The HSCC Art Gallery

Family friendly, all day, open house event offering free art & wellness workshops, gallery reception, keynote address + more!

The AjA Project

We are proud to announce “Welcome Home: The AjA Project’s First Neighborhood Open House” in celebration of 20 years of youth participatory storytelling through photographic arts.“Welcome Home” will be a family friendly, all day, open house event offering free S.T.E.A.M and wellness workshops, neighborhood food vendors, gallery reception, live DJ, guest speakers, and an opportunity to learn more about AjA’s rich history and new vision for transformative youth art programming.We welcome you to join us at our City Heights home location on Saturday, December 18th, 2021 to meet our new Director, passionate teaching artists, and experience our transformative, student centered arts programming.It is our goal to provide our City Heights community with a home base and safe space for youth creativity. Stay tuned for event updates and program details.PRESS RELEASE:The AjA Project has been deeply rooted in the community for over twenty years. December 18th’s Welcome Home Open House, a first for The AjA Project, is an opportunity to reestablish those roots and celebrate with new and old neighbors and supporters. This all-day indoor and outdoor experience is open to the public and celebrates AjA’s past and present with hands-on art experiences, gallery reception, a keynote address from AjA’s new Managing Director, Rizzhel Javier, local food vendors, and a guarantee that the community is at the center of it all. The AjA Project’s Rizzhel Javier has a vested interest in this work and in this community. Javier says since was younger she saw the need for teachers and leaders who looked like her and for spaces for students and teaching artists to shine and to thrive. She adds “Today we are building that space together at AjA, side-by-side, our team, participants, site and community partners. The hope of this Open House is to reintroduce the organization, and our goals ”. Founded in 2000, The AjA Project is an acronym for the phrase Autosuficiencia Juntada con Apoyo, meaning “supporting self-sufficiency”. Welcome Home invites the community to enjoy daytime fun for the whole family with hands-on art stations led by local arts leaders and teaching artists, food from City Heights-based eateries, a live DJ, and information about AjA’s workshops, and the impact of their work as well as their plans for the future. In the early evening, AjA shares a new retrospective gallery exhibition, curated by Dinah Poellnitz, which highlights the artworks of AjA’s current team of talented and promising young teaching artists. In addition to the exhibition a Keynote address will highlight visionary moments, AjA: Then and now, presented by the org’s co-founder Alex Fattal, and ‘New Visions’, plans for the organization’s future, with AjA’s Managing Director, Rizzhel Javier. Welcome Home is presented in collaboration and with The Hill Street Country Club, a community-focused space for liberation through the arts and action. The two organizations are combining their talent and resources to expand their shared universal message and the work that AjA has innovated in the San Diego region. Rizzhel Javier continues &quot;we hope to spark a sense of curiosity and excitement, to learn something new outside the context of a formal classroom. I believe that The AjA Project offers an experimental learning space, for both youth and educators, that centers the social and emotional wellness of our community. Together we are redefining what the process of transformation and sustainability looks like to us. Visit @theajaproject and @thehillstreetcountryclub on Instagram and Facebook for more information on Welcome Home, and ways to support this organization and help expand their impact on City Heights and the World.

Welcome Home: AjA's First Neighborhood Open House

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Welcome Home: AjA's First Neighborhood Open House

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