AJ Nunes-Zaller will focus his Co-Creation Studio Fellowship on co-creating a documentary with New Image Youth Center (NIYC) and Unión Popular de Vendedores Ambulantes (UPVA).
Community is more than people bound by location or identity; it is an evolving network of knowledge, relationships, and support that drives collective action toward justice and liberation. NIYC is one of Parramore’s longest-serving youth centers using collective wisdom to co-create programs dedicated to education, crisis intervention, and justice. Nineteen hundred miles away, in Puebla, Mexico, UPVA street vendors and marketers organized with local university students to form a union/collective for vendors in the marketplace. This co-created documentary will use a global perspective, exploring how two distinct community-based organizations in different countries apply diverse methodologies to work toward a shared commitment of self-determination, justice, and liberation. The project will be grounded in co-creation and integrate participatory action research, analog and digital storytelling, archival footage, interactive experiences, and the civic design framework. He asks how do communities organize and struggle for self-determination and justice?