Honoring The Past, Holding On To A Future

by Aaron L. McKinney

Image Description: Aaron L. McKinney, Black male pictured smiling in a black suite with a white collard shirt. Black beard and goatee neatly cut and natural curly hair.

Some work is about growth. Some work is about survival. And sometimes, survival is the most radical act available. If I don’t figure this out, people don ’t get paid.

As Executive Director of a long-standing arts organization serving Black and Brown communities, Aaron’s work is immediate. Every decision carries weight. Every gap in funding has a name, a face, a livelihood attached to it. The mission is clear: sustain a space where artists of the global majority can create, develop, and be supported.

In the face of shifting political and philanthropic landscapes, Aaron has been forced into constant recalibration; moving funds, taking pay cuts, exhausting reserves; all in an effort to ensure that the organization continues to function. That artists are paid. That staff remains supported. That the work does not stop.

This is what leadership looks like when resources disappear.

Even when resources diminish, the work expands through facilitation and administration. .

Through residencies, youth programs, and multidisciplinary support, the Hi-ARTS organization remains a site of incubation and possibility. It is not just a space for artists, but for administrators, particularly those from marginalized communities. They receive room to learn, grow, and build the skills necessary to sustain this work long-term.

Even within constraint, Aaron creates room to tell the stories of the past. A recent example: a community altar, initially built to honor Día de los Muertos, now evolving into a permanent installation. It stands as a site of memory, gratitude, and connection. It “honors the past,

present, and future” in a single, shared space. Aaron’s work reframes survival as artistic intention.

It is not passive. It is not temporary. It is a sustained act of care. Care that ensures others have the opportunity to create, to build, and to remain within spaces that too often push them out. What he maintains is more than an organization, is access, continuity, and the possibility of something lasting. In his continuity, he has upcoming residencies for Hi-ARTS, alongside a Journal to Journey program, “bringing youth poets into one night theatrical productions.

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Learn more at:  www.hi-artsnyc.org and www.thealmway.com