Nicole Wisler

Youth Program Coordinator, Bay Area Video Coalition

I am an artist and educator that seeks out spaces where creativity and social justice intersect. As an undergraduate film student in Washington, D.C. I developed an interest in participatory documentary storytelling as a way to amplify the voices of others rather than talking over them. I produced a film project and an interactive oral history piece in collaboration with the Anacostia Community Museum as well as SHARC- a local homeless advocacy group, respectively. After graduation, I worked as a digital story teaching fellow in Hyderabad, India with The Modern Story before resettling to the Bay Area three years ago where, as the Youth Programming Coordinator at the Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC), I continue to work with young artists/activists on a daily basis. My primary goals are to empower students realize the strength and potential of their own stories. Recently, I developed and designed a project partnership between BAVC students and the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project. Students from all three of our program tracks (audio production, video production, and web design) are spending their summer working together to create a Youth Power and Resource map of the Bay Area, telling stories about and advocating for the preservation of local businesses, institutions, green spaces, educational centers, and organizations in which they as young people, mostly low income and of color- a rapidly disenfranchised and underrepresented group in the Bay Area- feel safe and validated. In the future, I hope to continue creating opportunities for our students to engage with the larger activists community in the Bay Area and find new and innovative ways for young artists to be showcased and recognized for their work.