We work to build broader connections across our community through public participation, conversation, and co-creation. By championing exploration over expectation, we encourage program participants to pursue ideas that investigate our present and inspire a more just, equitable future for our city.
Through shared decision-making among our staff, board, community advisory group, and program participants, we put equity, accountability, and transparency into practice — modeling the broader movement we support in Omaha’s arts ecosystem.
Amplify Arts provides resources for artists, organizers, and cultural workers to incubate liberatory ideas that move our community forward.
We Work to Promote:
Community growth: We build connections between artists, organizers, and cultural workers and the broader community, inviting public participation, conversation, and co-creation that strengthens resident retention and attracts creative thinkers to our city.
Creative exploration: We champion exploration over expectation, providing resources for artists, organizers, and cultural workers to pursue liberatory ideas that investigate our present and inspire a more just, equitable future for our community.
Sustainable support: We nurture Omaha’s arts ecosystem by responding to and advocating for artists’ needs, cultivating a sustainable network of mutual support that allows them to live and thrive here.
Equity: Our commitment to shared decision-making puts equity, accountability, and transparency into practice — modeling the broader movement we support in Omaha’s arts ecosystem.
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Melissa Wurth | Operations
Melissa is a fierce advocate of arts and culture as a human right. She has championed Omaha’s creative community in her previous roles as Executive Director of Omaha Girls Rock and an educator in Westside Community Schools. She believes creative organizing that begins at the grassroots level opens pathways to collaboration and meaningful change. Her dedication to continually examining the ways in which asymmetries of power, belonging, and justice shape nonprofit operations fully informs her approach to implementing organizational policy that cultivates a human-centered work environment at Amplify. Contact Melissa: melissa@amplifyarts.org
Lauren Martin | Partnerships
Lauren has devoted her career to building, developing, and activating organizations that enhance our region. Most recently, in her role as Executive Director of Maha Festival, Lauren worked to support dynamic programming that meaningfully connected people from near and far with Omaha’s creative communities. Her role at Maha – as well as previous roles at the Omaha Community Foundation, Omaha Performing Arts, Hear Nebraska, Saddle Creek Records, and more – helped her understand the systems and structures that support our community’s cultural resources and Omaha’s potential as a place where artists can live, work, and find meaningful support. Contact Lauren: lauren@amplifyarts.org
Peter Fankhauser | Programs
Peter Fankhauser is an artist and educator who believes creative practice is a powerful conduit for community building, collaboration, and co-liberation. Before joining the Amplify team, he held posts at Hauser Wirth & Schimmel in Los Angeles, the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, and The City University of New York, where he also received an MFA in interdisciplinary studio practice. In addition to his work at Amplify, Peter teaches courses in Photography and Visual Literacy at the University of Nebraska-Omaha. His own creative research embraces interspecies kinships, queer ecologies, and unsettled histories to examine the landscape of the American Midwest and shifting notions of the rural. Contact Peter: peter@amplifyarts.org
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Community Advisory Group
Justin Alexander
Exhibit Technician, Kiewit LuminariumLaghe Andrews
Executive Producer/ Writer/ Director, LaGhe Music EntertainmentCorson Androski
Artist and ResearcherCaitlin Cass
Cartoonist & Artist, Assistant Professor at University of Nebraska OmahaKarin Campbell
Phil Willson Curator of Contemporary Art, Joslyn Art MuseumMaritza N. Estrada
PoetAbby Fogle-Erickson
Community Experience + Engagement Manger, Bemis Center for Contemporary ArtsApril Griess
Artist and ArchivistSara Jacobsen
Designer and ResearcherGabriela Hernández Medina
ArtistPenny Molesso
Artist and EducatorAlex O’Hanlon
Engagement Coordinator, One OmahaAmeen Wahba
Artist, Therapist, Omaha Integrative CareCorinne Wardian
Community Manager, CatalystCindy Weil
Artist
Board
Ang Bennett
Artist, Communications Manager, Inclusive Communities
Tess Houser
Program Manager, Front Porch InvestmentsAmanda Q. Kephart
Program Manager, Kiewit LuminariumAspen Monet Laboy
Artist, Visitor Services Coordinator, The Union for Contemporary ArtDiana Martinez
Program Associate, Weitz Family Foundation
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Artist, organizer, cultural worker
Our definition of “artist, organizer, culture worker” encompasses individuals and groups working in a wide range of practices in the visual and performing arts, at individual and organizational levels, seeking to challenge dominant systems, forge collaboration, and intentionally build community consciousness. Historically, Amplify prioritizes support for projects oriented toward collective ground level creative responses to racial, economic, and ecological injustices.
Shared decision-making
Our staff, board, community advisory group, and program participants share the power to influence the direction of our organization and programming. Through shared decision-making, we create a sense of belonging and put equity, accountability, and transparency into practice — modeling the broader movement we support in Omaha’s arts ecosystem.
Co-creation
Through shared decision-making, we are co-creating the present and future of Amplify Arts and, even further, our city. We forge avenues of mutual support for our internal operations, our participant-directed programming, and our community partnerships to cultivate resources for artists, organizers, and cultural workers.
Incubate
Rather than defining expectations for our program participants, Amplify Arts incubates ideas and supports exploration through funding, space, advocacy, and opportunities for collective learning, collaboration, and community building.
Liberatory ideas
Amplify Arts incubates liberatory ideas that challenge dominant systems that perpetuate racial, gender, economic, ecological, and other inequities. By providing resources and support to artists, organizers and cultural workers, they can investigate these inequities, co-create ideas for liberation from these systems, and inspire a more just future for our community. Internally, Amplify Arts works to uphold a human-centered environment that dissolves organizational hierarchy and centers shared decision-making.
Just and equitable future
A future in which practicing co-creation and shared decision-making helps us build coalitions, organize in creative ways, and work collectively to explore and embrace liberatory ideas. These ideas aim to repair imbalances of power, strengthen belonging, and define and uphold justice, ultimately fostering understanding and empathy to make Omaha a better place for all who live here.
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