Salamishah Tillet Named Emerson Collective Fellow for Work Exploring Art as Vehicle for Change in Newark
March 20, 2025
Pulitzer prize-winning professor Salamishah Tillet has joined the newest cohort of Emerson Collective Fellows, called Local Leaders. The Emerson Collective Fellowship believes that thriving communities start with strong local leadership and the fellowship aims to encourage people of exceptional talent to advance bold new projects in education, immigration, the environment, social justice, media, and health.
Fellows are chosen based on an established track record of excellence and originality; a deep engagement in education, immigration, social justice, the environment, and health; and the potential to pursue vital new work with the support of a fellowship. Tillet is one of eleven fellows in the 2025 cohort, who come from varied fields and include a chef, landscape architects, a museum director and more. Each of them is taking on a hyperlocal project to help their community come together and solve hard problems.
As an Emerson Collective Fellow, Tillet will curate an exhibition and series of events featuring works by artists born, based in, or visiting Newark, from 1975 through the present, to explore how art can confront and counter a city’s challenges.