Daniela Fifi is a professional arts educator who graduated from Teachers College, Columbia University with a doctorate in Education focused on Art and Art Education in May of 2020.
Born and raised in the Caribbean, in the past, Daniela has spent time working at the National Museum and the Art Gallery of Trinidad and Tobago as a Cultural and Heritage Assistant, and then as a Curatorial Specialist specifically within the art collection. Her specialty was public and educational programming and assisting with arranging art exhibitions. The role was very research-intensive but it also focused on creating and innovating educational programs. In Daniela’s time there, she found that a lot of the artists represented by the collection were not well-known, even within educational institutions. She also discovered there was a low representation of Caribbean artists within the art collection itself, and she soon developed an interest in making such artists more widely appreciated.
While working at the National Museum, Daniela was introduced to Geoffrey Holder, a visual artist hailing from Trinidad and Tobago. Captivated by his paintings, she was surprised to find that he was also a choreographer, director, and a genuine all-around renaissance artist. After looking into his background, Daniela made the disappointing discovery that somehow Holder hadn’t yet received the type of international acclaim that his work deserved. He positioned himself as a global artist, viewing the greater Caribbean region as a crossroads of the world and of countless different cultures. In fact, Trinidad and Tobago is a melting pot, home to people who can trace their roots back to East India, Africa, Syria, Lebanon, and China, as well as many other places. The stunning array of artwork produced by Trinidadians and Tobagonians in general and Geoffrey Holder in particular is, in many ways, a manifestation and a reflection of that cultural diversity. Daniela was so impressed with his work, that she wrote a historical narrative on Holder and developed a program around his art and his views of what Caribbean art could become in the framework of an interdisciplinary, global perspective.
Recently, Daniela received a generous grant from the Andrew Mellon Foundation to create a book from her research and various writings on Geoffrey Holder. The grant also allows for her to develop programs on these subjects for cultural and educational spaces.
Earlier in her career, Daniela Fifi taught at the University of the Bahamas. Since moving to New York City to finish her doctorate, she has taught at City College of New York and New Jersey City University, lecturing on the art of certain selected cultures and how it has influenced Western art over time. She has been invited to give some talks on Caribbean art in the fall semester of 2021 by the Theater and Art Department of MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She has also been involved with teaching and creating programs for K-12 levels as an educational consultant, providing a more expansive view on art, including the works of notable Caribbean artists.
In addition to all this, Daniela is also the founder of Scarlett Project, a nonprofit organization focused on promoting Caribbean art in global discourse.
What do you love most about the industry you are in?
I really love teaching youth. Young minds are very open to new information, especially when it comes to art and creativity. There are these ideas about how something should look or what you should see or think about visual art or a creative process, and as we get older these ideas become really embedded in us and it’s hard to move around that as an educator. It becomes a bit more challenging to change perspectives. With younger audiences, introducing new ideas about creativity, new perspectives on life, and different modes of making art is exciting. It’s something that I really love doing, and I love doing it in different institutional spaces.
What keeps you motivated?
I’m really dedicated to the idea of cultural exchange. It’s something that motivates me and it’s at the heart of what I do. I see it as part of who I am, because of how I grew up and the different spaces I’ve worked in. The idea of a global cultural exchange keeps me interested in doing different types of projects and I generally drift into that direction in the course of my work.
How do you motivate others?
I motivate others through conversations with my colleagues or those on my team or my students. I try to find out what drives them, what their patterns are, and what they are most interested in. Tapping into all of that, I try to encourage them to grow by building upon their innate strengths and creativity. I don’t really believe in a top-down approach. It is far better to draw out the pre-existing interests of a student or a colleague and build upon that in order to foster motivation.
How has your company grown from its early days to now?
Scarlett Project began by producing plays in the Caribbean. I was working at the museum at the time and we used it as a space to develop the initial plans. It was launched by featuring classical Caribbean plays but directed with contemporary sensibilities for modern day audiences. Alongside each theatrical production, Scarlett Project would host a series of art education workshops. The outcomes were really beautiful. Scarlett Project’s plays and workshops were such a success that we obtained corporate sponsorship support from companies such as British Petroleum (BP). Now, with moving the organization to the US, we are bringing our work to different spaces and to different audiences through curriculum development. It has evolved into a cultural conversation. Now it has become about making these ideas—which may seem myopic coming from one particular place—into something relatable to a much broader global audience. It’s easy to translate such material to an audience that is already familiar with it, but how do you do that to audiences, students, and administrators that are unfamiliar? Asking questions like that has definitely helped my business, my consultancy, and my teaching career to grow. I’ve been invited as a guest to Harvard University and to MIT to conduct lectures. As time has passed, the level of interest in Scarlett Project has grown, and the institutions that are interested in engaging with us have grown more prestigious. But for me, it’s ultimately about the ability to communicate these ideas to people from different backgrounds.
Where do you get your inspiration from?
One major source of inspiration for me is Geoffrey Holder, who was the source of a lot of my research and the subject of a book that I’m writing. I have been so fascinated by him as an artist because he really preserved a sense of who he was at all times, unapologetically moving through the world, advancing in his career, and achieving international awards. Although I didn’t get to know him very well personally because he died shortly after we met, I feel like I do know him through the process of looking through his archives and looking at his art and reading his letters and correspondence. I have been so moved by him and inspired by his art. He definitely is an inspiration in the way that I think about being genuine and true to who you are when moving through my career.
Who has been a role model to you and why?
It would have to be my parents. My mother is an entrepreneur from Venezuela. She moved to the Caribbean, learned English, and started a successful business. That has served as an inspiration for me in developing my own sense of independence as a woman and in pursuing my career. My father is also a businessperson and very successful at what he does, as well. He is highly invested in education because education has played a key role in his professional development. I think that influenced me on the importance of education from an early age. My parents are both good role models and mentors for me. I certainly go to them for advice and guidance.
How do you maintain a solid work life balance?
That has been very challenging. I can’t say that I have perfected it at all, so I’m not going to pretend otherwise. I am working on that now. My plan, in understanding the importance of really taking care of myself and my personal life alongside all of these other amazing things that I want to do in my professional life, is to think of it in stages moving forward. I think the pandemic has really brought to the forefront the importance of taking care of my physical health, my mental health, and my spirituality. That is now more evident to me than before. So my idea is to take it in stages and not try to do everything at once. I’ve always had the approach of fitting in as much as I could, teaching during the day while researching and writing in the evening. I think over the next three years I’ll focus on my writing.
What traits do you possess that make a successful leader?
I’m a very good listener, and I think that that has led me to lead people well.
What is your biggest accomplishment?
I was awarded the New York State Assembly Caribbean Life Award for Caribbean-Americans or Caribbean people living in the United States that have impacted their community. Somebody nominated me, and I received the award for my work in arts education.
Outside of work, what defines you as a person?
I really love being in nature. I find relaxation, respite, and time to reflect when I am nature, particularly near the ocean or the sea, or even by a lake. When I travel, it tends to be to places where I can really feel nature around me. I want to see all of the wonders of nature.
Where do you see you and your company in 5 years?
In five years, I expect to be working on various publications. I also expect to have finished some of the publications I’m currently working on, such as the Geoffrey Holder book. I am also working on some more educational journals and publications right now, such as museum catalogues and publications about visual arts featuring Caribbean artists. I see those things moving forward and my writing being recognized in near future.
I am also considering a role as the art director of a school, and I’m currently in conversations about that opportunity. I could definitely see myself working for a school as the head of art programming and activities, including curriculum development. I have a goal to develop a series of books for students and young people on the visual arts, as well.