MéLisa The Best - Annenberg Art Gala | Creative Direction & Leadership

My Role: Committee Chair, Creative Director, content producer & editor

The Annenberg Art Competition is an exciting time that provides space for student artists to share their creative artwork and enhance the learning environment at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. It is a biennial initiative that is open to all medical student trainees—including residents and fellows—and spans in medium from photography and mixed media to music and sculpture. The competition culminates with an opening gala showcasing the newly curated in-person and digital exhibit.

This initiative usually begins with me sending out a call for new committee members to join the team. Being part of the committee is a six-month commitment to see this project through to completion, and includes marketing and communications, art selection and curation, event planning, strategic partnerships, and more.

After reviewing the art submissions and having deep conversations (and sometimes friendly debates), the committee selects the final pieces to display, determines how this collective work fits into a centralized theme, and curates them accordingly.

We decided to name the 2022 collection "Between the World and Me," as the pieces appeared to be a personal invitation from the artists to peer into worlds beyond our own.

Upon review of the artwork, we curated the submissions placing each of the pieces in the following categories: BODY, Macros & Micros, Moments in Time, Otherwordly, Shadows and Reflection, Stroll through My City, and Where the Wild Things Are.

As listed at the onset, my role in this production had quite a range.

First, as the chair of the committee, it's my primary mission to set the tone, goals, and timeline for the initiative, and guide my team along the overall creative vision. I also create and manage the roles for this undertaking and oversee the project management of the virtual production and the physical installation and curation of the art—which included coordinating prints, art drop-offs and pick-ups, as well as having the pieces framed and hung in three different locations throughout the School.

For the virtual production, we decided to mix a few live elements and pre-recorded segments to the event, which featured five guest student artists who were selected by the Strategic Partnerships sub-committee to speak about their pieces and art process. I interviewed and filmed each of the guest artists, edited their segments along with other video components for the event.

Lastly, as the executive producer of the virtual gala, I created the event timeline, wrote the script for the Master of Ceremony, oversaw the tech rehearsal and final production.

Besides brainstorming and reviewing the art submissions with my fellow committee members, my favorite part of this process was being in communication with the student artists and seeing them shed a sliver of light into their process, perspectives, and worlds. It's truly an honor.

Benji Kornbluth on "Global Language of Basketball."

James Fleming on his macro photography.

Dorothy Adu-Amankwah on "Mama's Hair—A Poem in Honor of My Grandmother."

Iya Prytkova on "The Moon."

Minhaz Sarker, MD on "Sanctuary" and "Thor's Well."

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I invite you to press play below to watch the "Between the World and Me" gala presentation to see how it all comes together.