Jun
182025
11:00 am - 12:30 pm
A candid discussion about the best way to handle grants, requests for proposals, and how to frame the stories that matter most to you and your audience.
Speakers: Arturo Mendez-Reyes Emma Raynes Laura Roumanos
Moderators: Tailyr Irvine
Location: Online
Presented by:
Supported by:
Photoville and Diversify Photo present The 2025 Toolkit, a series of professional development workshops supported by Leica Camera! We are here to talk about best practices for photographers in the current political climate. These panel discussions will cover the intricacies of applying for funding, strategies for maintaining digital safety, and the best systems and tools for archiving your work.
Arturo Méndez is a cultural producer, curator, visual artist, musician, and community organizer, advancing cultural equity in SF. Founder of community empowering projects, including Arts.Co.Lab, La Diáspora Festival, and Urban Prophets Illustrated and producer for the Mission Arts and Performance Project (MAPP) since 2016.
He has curated shows for the Exploratorium, Harvard and Cornell University, and the United Nations, recipient of the CALI Catalyst Grant from CCI, the Cultural Equity Initiatives Grant by the SFAC, and fellowships with the Intercultural Leadership Institute ‘22, and the Emerging Arts Professionals SF/BA ‘19.
His work strives to create generative narratives to empower people through arts and culture for collective joy and liberation and to advocate for institutional policies and practices that center the voices of people from the most vulnerable communities.
“Culture is an essential tool to pursue dignity for all people.”
Emma Raynes is the Director of Programs at the Magnum Foundation, a non-profit organization that supports creativity and diversity in documentary photography and encourages experimentation with new models for storytelling. Her current research and curatorial interests focus on augmented reality, spatial narrative, and interactivity. Emma was Lewis Hine Documentary Initiative Fellow at Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies, a Van Lier scholar at the International Center of Photography, and resident curator at UnionDocs. She completed her M.A. in Anthropology at the New School for Social Research and her B.A. in Art History at Bowdoin College.
Laura Roumanos (she/her/hers) is a Lebanese Creative Producer hailing from Australia, serving as the co-Founder of Photoville, a non-profit organization devoted to cultivating a wide, diverse audience for visual storytelling by producing a free annual photo festival in NYC, activating public spaces, and connecting artists to a worldwide audience through educational programming and community events. Laura graduated from the prestigious National Institute of Dramatic Arts in Sydney, Australia and worked as a Theatrical and Events Producer before making the big move to NYC 18 years ago. Since then, Laura has worked in New York for the Manhattan Theatre Club, St. Ann’s Warehouse, Creative Time, The Future of StoryTelling, and the World Science Festival, in general management and senior producing roles respectively. Laura has also produced several large scale theatrical shows for creatives such as Karen O, Bryce Dessner, Richard Reed Parry, Spike Jonze, Opening Ceremony and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus. For the past 10 years, Laura has co-produced the New York Photography Portfolio Reviews with the New York Times and also continues to consult, manage, and produce numerous theatrical shows, events and public programs, in addition to teaching the Business of Art course at the NYU Tisch School. She is currently the Creative Producer at Meta producing Instagram’s @design. Laura has built a reputation in the New York Arts scene as someone to go to for consultation and advice regarding public art and multi-disciplinary projects and events across all mediums.
Tailyr Irvine is a Salish and Kootenai photojournalist based in Montana and Florida. She was born and raised on the Flathead Reservation in Montana, where she noticed a lack of meaningful media coverage in her community.
The prevalent Native American stereotypes in mainstream media led Tailyr to pursue a career in journalism. Tailyr is working on multiple projects in Indian Country, and she hopes to spend the rest of her career telling stories of Indigenous communities, featuring the complex and diverse Native experience.
Tailyr graduated from the University of Montana with a degree in journalism. When she is not actively working on projects in Indian Country, Tailyr enjoys sports photography, and pursues other editorial projects unrelated to her race.
Founded in 2011 in Brooklyn, NY, Photoville was built on the principles of addressing cultural equity and inclusion, which we are always striving for, by ensuring that the artists we exhibit are diverse in gender, class, and race.
In pursuit of its mission, Photoville produces an annual, city-wide open air photography festival in New York City, a wide range of free educational community initiatives, and a nationwide program of public art exhibitions.
By activating public spaces, amplifying visual storytellers, and creating unique and highly innovative exhibition and programming environments, we join the cause of nurturing a new lens of representation.
Through creative partnerships with festivals, city agencies, and other nonprofit organizations, Photoville offers visual storytellers, educators, and students financial support, mentorship, and promotional & production resources, on a range of exhibition opportunities.
For more information about Photoville visit, www.photoville.com
Diversify Photo is a community of BIPOC and non-Western photographers, editors, and visual producers working to break with the predominantly colonial and patriarchal eye through which history and the media have recorded the images of our time.
This website was made possible thanks to the generous support and partnership of 