Portrait with Create Change alums at GATHER 2025. Pictured (from left to right): Kyra Assibey-Bonsu, Ayesha Williams, Laura Bustillos Jáquez, Salvador Muñoz. Photographed by Anthony Artis.
Dear friends and community,
As the new year takes shape, we begin anchored in care and collective strength. We recognize the weight many are carrying and the unease that continues to ripple across our communities. Even so, we move with intention, knowing, from the wisdom gifted to us by our ancestors, that how we pace ourselves matters as much as where we are headed. That grounding is especially necessary now, as the realities around us demand both clear eyes and deep care.
We are witnessing the ongoing dehumanization of people we love, care about, and are accountable to—through violent immigration enforcement, displacement, and policies that deny dignity and belonging. In moments like this, we are strengthened by the resolve of our collective community to fight for what we know is right, and by love practiced as a radical act.
At The Laundromat Project, this is our season of germination—a time to prepare the ground and plant seeds for what is to come and what will be.
We work from the knowing that artists are part of a broader ecosystem of neighbors, organizers, cultural workers, and caretakers who help us make meaning, build resilience and resistance, and imagine new ways forward together.
If we, as stewards of this organization and in relationship with our community, are committed to building a self-sustaining institution that challenges traditional models of nonprofit and cultural leadership, our artists must remain our mirror. They push us to ask deeper questions, to face what is difficult, and to stretch beyond our comfort in service of something more just. As James Baldwin reminds us, “artists are here to disturb the peace.”
Our work is only possible because of our deeply dedicated community of artist partners. Our Create Change alumni and Create & Connect communities extend our impact far beyond any single program. They have led workshops, shaped our strategic plan and investment models, advised internal practices, and helped seed transformative efforts like the Creative Sustainability Fund, our zero-interest loan program. Their partnership is foundational to everything we do.
In moments like these, culture is often treated as something secondary, or something to return to once the urgent work is done. Our experience tells us otherwise. Culture shapes how we understand ourselves, how we recognize one another’s humanity, and how we imagine what justice can look like in practice. When we invest in artists, we are investing in the conditions that make democratic life possible: the courage to imagine beyond what we are being told is inevitable.
It is from this understanding of culture and responsibility that we approach leadership and stewardship at The LP.
This season also brings an important board leadership transition we are honored to share. Together, we step into the year with Salvador Muñoz serving as The Laundromat Project’s new Board Chair.
Create Change Disrupting Racism Workshop, The New School, 2016.
Salvador’s nearly ten-year journey with The LP reflects our shared commitment to nurturing leadership and advancing artists and neighbors as change agents in their own communities. We both entered the organization in 2016, one as Director of Strategic Partnerships (Ayesha) and the other as a Create Change Fellow (Salvador). Salvador would go on to become an Artist-in-Residence in 2018 and join the Board in 2022. His path reflects what becomes possible when artists are trusted to lead within the institutions they help build.
Salvador’s leadership arrives at a moment that calls for clarity, courage, and imagination.
Looking ahead, we are energized by what this year holds. We will round out our 20-year anniversary by welcoming our 20th cohort of artists and continuing to explore hyperlocal community issues alongside them, including economic solidarity, environmental justice, anti-displacement efforts, and health equity. We’ll close the anniversary season with the return of our beloved Field Day Festival, alongside additional moments of acknowledgement and celebration in the months ahead.
Thank you for being part of this community and for growing with us. We are grateful to walk into this year together, tending what has been planted and staying present to what this moment asks of us.
With care and resolve,
Ayesha Williams
Executive Director
Salvador Muñoz
Board Chair