Founded in New York City in 2000, Teaching Artist Project (TAP) has trained over 800 artists through our 8-month Signature Program, Summer Institute, and custom trainings. Teaching Artist Project (TAP) is a comprehensive training and internship program for working artists who desire to incorporate social justice and social emotional learning into their teaching practice. We are a program of Community-Word Project, based in New York City. Our workshops cover a multitude of topics relating to social justice and education, including Community Building, Curriculum Design, TA as Entrepreneur, and Creating Classroom Culture. Our core theme for the 2023-24 is Power of Voice because we believe in the power of individual and collective voice to influence our communities toward changes that benefit the whole. 

For 2023, TAP launched a competition among our alumni artists for a design that conveyed Power of Voice, one of our core values for all Community-Word Project programs. The design we thought best articulated this was from Anupama ?Anu? Annam.

Anu Annam, is an award-winning, internationally acclaimed exhibiting artist, art educator, arts administrator, and curator, working in the field for 25 years. They are faculty at numerous institutions and have won multiple teaching grants from the New York State Council on the Arts for their work with at-risk and special needs populations. Annam is the Founder and Executive Director of the arts-based organization, designed to fight stigma against mental illness, SEA of Visibility (SEA = Support Expression through the Arts),and the queer organization, BOPPI (Bisexual, Open, Pansexual, People of the Islands). These organizations provide robust arts programming, including events, performances, exhibitions, and education for marginalized people. Their Education and Mentorship program, Anu Annam Arts Education has served many members of the Long Island arts community since 2005, inclusive of students with special needs and typically developing, pre-K, K-12, college, and lifelong learners. Their organization?s education program, SEA of Visibility Integrated Arts Education, is currently contributing free, accessible, web-based programming to help the community connect and create during the lockdown and beyond, along with Suffolk County-funded, low-cost, in-person multidisciplinary arts education which supports the community while the world opens up.

Anu is a Spring 2021 graduate of the Teaching Artist Project.