Photograph by Luvia Lazio
Sheetal Prajapati joins The Flaherty as Interim Executive Director through July 2024
We are delighted to announce that Sheetal Prajapati will be joining The Flaherty as the Interim Executive Director through July 2024, while Executive Director Samara Chadwick is on maternity leave. We look forward to welcoming Samara back in May to transition back into her role and be part of the upcoming Seminar, To Commune (June 27 - July 2, 2024).
Sheetal has been working with Samara and the Board as a strategic consultant since January 2023, focusing on long-term planning and the articulation of the organization’s values, mission, and vision. We are thrilled she will bring this knowledge and experience to this interim role. During her term, Sheetal will work with The Flaherty Board, staff, partners, and artists to produce the 69th Flaherty Seminar in Thailand and maintain organizational operations.
Sheetal comes to The Flaherty with two decades of experience as an arts administrator, educator, artist, and advisor working across the fields of art and public engagement. Through her agency Lohar Projects, she offers advising and consulting services for artists, arts professionals, and cultural organizations to grow, change, and most importantly, thrive in communities. Concurrent with her consulting practice, Sheetal served as the Executive Director of Common Field from 2020-2022, overseeing its final two national artist convenings and stewarding an intentional sunsetting process as it closed. Previous to founding Lohar Projects in 2019, Sheetal served in leadership and engagement roles at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn, The Museum of Modern Art, the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.
Board Member Dessane Lopez Cassell facilitates a group discussion with filmmaker Sharlene Bamboat during the 68th Flaherty Film Seminar, Queer World-Mending, June 2023
Board Member Dessane Lopez Cassell elected Vice-President
The Flaherty Board of Directors has voted unanimously to appoint Dessane Lopez Cassell to the Executive Committee of the Board, in the role of Vice-President. Dessane, who joined The Flaherty Board in 2023, is a New York-based editor, writer, and curator who focuses on film and visual art concerned with race, gender, labor, and decoloniality. Dessane’s writing has been published in the Los Angeles Times, Film Comment, Hyperallergic, and in books and catalogs from The Studio Museum, The Museum of Modern Art, and The Whitney Museum, among others. Additionally, Dessane has curated exhibitions and screenings at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Metrograph, the Studio Museum, Anthology Film Archives, and the Black Women’s Film Conference. Previously, she was Editor-in-Chief of Blackstar’s journal, Seen, and served on the programming team for their film festival from 2018 to 2023. Dessane is also an alumni of The Flaherty both as a team member for the 2019, 2021, and 2022 Seminars, as a Fellow for the 2018 Seminar, and as a programmer for the Fall 2018 Flaherty NYC.
““Dessane brings a unique perspective and insight that will be invaluable to the organization in the coming years. We all see her as a key stakeholder and partner in stewarding the Flaherty through some of the exciting evolution we’ll go through over the next years.” ”
The 69th Flaherty Film Seminar in Thailand
““ Our curatorial approach seeks to explore the tensions and the sparks of efforts to commune. Not to gather to recognize an identity or a common concern, but to make relations on grounds of radical differentiation. “ ”
The 69th Flaherty Film Seminar: To Commune, programmed by May Adadol Ingawanij and Julian Ross, will be presented at the Thai Film Archive in Salaya, Thailand June 27–July 2, 2024. We look forward to welcoming an expanded international audience to Thailand to gather, watch, and learn together.
In February we’ll be sharing more information about the Seminar experience in Thailand with registration and fellowship applications opening soon after!
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