2025 Annual Convening Speakers

Joyous R. Pierce (she/her) is a multi-disciplinary creative, curator, and cultural producer whose practice treats creativity as a web of interconnected ideas, histories, and possibilities. Rooted in Harlem and the Gullah Geechee Lowcountry, her work moves across sound, movement, and visual art to build non-linear narratives that surface connections in the overlaps and interspaces between mediums. Influenced by Afro-surrealism, Black Quantum Futurism, and a reverence for ancient technologies, Joyous creates immersive, story-driven environments that probe time, memory, and identity while fostering genuine connection. 

With 10+ years of experience, Joyous blends technology and tradition, drawing on archival materials, projection mapping, and immersive soundscapes, to hold conversations about cultural survival, displacement, and futurism. She has led and collaborated within BIPOC-founded arts organizations, serving as Executive Director & Curator at Harlem Arts Alliance and guiding Hi-ARTS’ transition from virtual to live engagement while launching civic initiatives. Internationally, her curatorial practice spans Tanzania, Nigeria, South Africa, and New York, with collaborations that include the African Artists’ Foundation, Nafasi Art Space, Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Burning Man. As a cultural producer, she develops multi-layered projects such as Bootstraps, a docuseries on Black towns across the U.S.—and Kina Maji, a residency bridging Gullah Geechee and East African communities to explore shared cultural legacies. As a curator, she supports artists from concept development through partnerships and fundraising, ensuring they have the scaffolding to thrive. 

A certified multidisciplinary curator and ICA Fellow, Joyous holds a BA from Muhlenberg College and an MSc in African Politics from SOAS, University of London. She has served on the boards of BLACKSPACE Urbanist Collective, New Heritage Theater Group, and Harlem Week, and is the recipient of the 2019 Renaissance Woman Award and a City of New York proclamation for “outstanding contributions to the Harlem Arts & Culture Community.” Raised by a lineage of vibrant, deeply proud Black women—including educator and Harlemite Lemoine DeLever Pierce, famed 1920s dance master Billy Pierce, and Victoria Middleton of Pineville, South Carolina—Joyous embraces culture bearing as both inheritance and responsibility. She believes community liberation is essential to true freedom and that joy is a necessity, not a privilege.