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Joanna Pottle is the Community Engagement Manager for Humanity in Action (HIA Inc). She is a Senior Fellow of HIA’s Mapping Inequities Fellowship (2022-23), which she executed in tandem with a fellowship through the Kosciuszko Foundation in Poland, with affiliation at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts Academy.
She is an American artist, educator, researcher and cross-cultural exchange program facilitator based in Kraków, Poland. Born and raised in Richmond, Virginia, she is a recent U.S. Fulbright Program alumnae to Poland (2019-2020/21), cooperating with Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow (MOCAK) to execute a combination of artistic projects, academic research and curatorial work, and educational programming.
Joanna earned a BFA in Studio Art, BA in Art History with an Art Education Track at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and more recently earned an MA in European Studies Programme, Central and Eastern European Studies: Research Track at the Jagiellonian University (2020-2022). Her professional work and expertise spans the interdisciplinary intersection of disciplines including fine arts, education, academia, community building and activism initiatives with focuses on cross-cultural educational exchange and dialogue, visual arts, museum studies, cultural and dissonant heritage, democracy and pluralism, collective memory and identity, and public space.
Joanna has led and participated in numerous grant projects, residencies, workshops, and exhibitions internationally including executing a US Embassy in Poland grant project in 2020-2021 to virtually connect those in the cultural sector based in the US and Poland during the first year of COVID-19 pandemic and with Citizen Action Diplomacy Fund (CDAF) in 2023, a grant fund for U.S. alumni of a U.S. Department of State programs, to facilitate integration of migrants and non-migrants in Poland through art and discussion workshops and subsequent in-person and virtual exhibitions alongside local organizations serving these communities.
Outside work, Joanna loves biking, language learning, traveling and is involved in various support systems and local efforts for the growing Ukrainian community in Poland.
Updated July 2023