I am humbled and elated to receive the Pérez Prize in Public Art & Civic Design. I salute my colleagues who also applied. On behalf of the people who live on the margins, I promise to leverage this platform to continue to pursue equity in community development and the arts, and go farther in this work designing just spaces beyond aesthetics. Civic Design is a young field of work, a hybrid of many before, and evolving—more rapidly now than ever. In this time where justice and injustice are of equal probability, we need the creative minds, the social architects, the civic designers to help us shape an inclusive future. A future where culture, art and the built environment are brought together with human-centered application, for all.

—Allentza Michel

Biography

Allentza Michel is an artist, urban planner, policy advocate, and researcher with a background in community organizing and human service. She has 19 years of diverse experience across community & economic development, education, food security, public health, and transportation in local, national, and international settings. Her experiences, both professional and societal, inform her current work in civic design, community and organizational development, and social equity.   

Growing up and working in underserved communities in Boston led Allentza to coalition building and community planning, with a particular focus on mobility and neighborhood revitalization. She is the founder and creative director of Powerful Pathways, a social practice and consultancy that works in urban planning, policy, and placekeeping using arts, technology, and design thinking methods with a racial justice approach. She currently serves as Program Officer for Arts and Culture with the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, where she is working with a national arts commission supporting research to promote arts education and the creative workforce development policy.

Allentza has held several volunteer community leadership roles, including founding and co-founding nonprofit organizations and civic initiatives. She has served on many boards, civic groups, and coalitions including the Network of Arts Administrators of Color Boston and BAMS Fest, Boston’s premier music, arts, and soul festival. Allentza received a Master’s in Public Policy at Tufts University’s Department of Urban & Environmental Planning and Policy and studied Civic Media and Art Practice at Emerson College. She has BA degrees in English and Social and Political Systems from Pine Manor College and holds a graduate certificate in Nonprofit Management from Boston University’s Questrom School of Business.

Projects