Lessons from the BIPOC Critics Lab at Five

Why the Lab Exists

As a freelance critic of color who works in a field where Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) voices are often excluded, I wanted to build a space that disrupted traditional paths into arts journalism. In 2020, I started the BIPOC Critics Lab, a free, fully digital training program for emerging critics who meet weekly on Zoom over ten weeks for workshops on craft, ethics, experimentation, and industry advice. 

The Lab turns five this year, an anniversary that feels both monumental and precarious. It began in the midst of a global pandemic, at a time when cultural institutions were shuttered and the world felt completely uncertain. Conversations about equity and inclusion were abundant, yet many of the promises made in response to George Floyd’s murder and the subsequent social reckoning quickly disappeared once theatres reopened and organizations shifted back to “normal.” I was working as a freelance cultural critic, moving from assignment to assignment, never holding a permanent position, and experiencing the same precarity that many critics of color face.

Freelance work can be exhilarating, but it is also unstable; chasing invoices months late, struggling to make ends meet, and feeling shame for simply asking to be paid are realities that add emotional weight to an already demanding field. Yet I remain a freelancer even now, navigating the field on a project-to-project basis, which underscores both the necessity and the fragility of the Lab.

I joke that I am Mary Poppins, arriving and leaving each cohort and each hosting institution with an umbrella, guiding students while floating lightly across time zones.

The Lab was not a reaction to reopening theatres or pandemic recovery; it was a proactive effort built within the chaos of it all, to build opportunity during a time of collapse, when the arts and its critical community were largely invisible.

By making the Lab fully digital, I was able to welcome students from every United States time zone, as well as countries including Russia, Japan, the Philippines, Mexico, and more. The Lab has never been New York-centric; I wanted to dismantle the notion that legitimacy in criticism is tied to a single city. To date, sixty-nine students have completed the program. Having left the United States in 2021, I have met only four of them in person. I joke that I am Mary Poppins, arriving and leaving each cohort and each hosting institution with an umbrella, guiding students while floating lightly across time zones.

The Lab’s mission is simple: mentorship, access, and the encouragement to experiment. It provides cohort members with tools, confidence, and creative freedom to enter a field that often excludes them, while demonstrating that criticism is not limited to the written word.

Inside the Lab

The Lab takes place entirely on Zoom. Students appear from bedrooms, kitchens, shared apartments, or study spaces. The digital format has its own intimacy: We see backgrounds, personal objects, and glimpses into each other’s lives. It is a global classroom where distance is bridged by shared curiosity and a love of art and culture.

Assignments in the Lab extend far beyond traditional essays and reviews. Students submit collages, audio explorations, and works in other "unconventional" mediums. One student created a homily in response to the film Emilia Pérez, demonstrating the power of criticism to illuminate perspectives and prompt reflection on social and cultural issues. Another submitted a color palette inspired by a Netflix series, playful and precise, showing that criticism can be like a crayon box: imaginative, layered, and fun!

We also work on projects like watching Grand Theft Hamlet to explore how pandemic-era art challenges notions of access, and we occasionally integrate pop culture, such as Kylie Minogue videos, to illustrate ways media and performance intersect. For the commissions that come after they've completed the Lab, I pair students with people they admire or hope to collaborate with, creating networks that often extend well beyond the cohort itself.

Mentorship in the Lab is intense. I stay up late, walk students through drafts they cannot crack, and help them discover what they didn’t know they could do. Students attend my office hours months or years after their Lab ends. They reach out for recommendations, for advice, for eyes on a pitch. They trust the Lab to support them long-term. While invigorating, this work can be exhausting. During the first part of 2025, I faced severe burnout. A nonprofit that supports human rights defenders helped me heal and recover by spending time in Lyon, surrounded by beauty and history, allowing me to slowly regain joy and clarity.

Gratitude to Our Hosts

The Lab has been generously hosted by cultural institutions that have supported our students and the program itself. The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts gave me the incredible opportunity to work with an institution I dreamed of engaging with. My mother grew up in a neighborhood in Tegucigalpa named after John F. Kennedy, and here I was, working with one of the most important cultural institutions in the United States that shared his name. The Public Theater has been splendid at supporting our mission, helping ensure alumni are published and compensated after finishing the Lab, as well as providing opportunities to create video and audio pieces. Intermission Magazine and the Stratford Festival have offered space, resources, and belief in the students’ potential, and they showed me what is possible when the cohorts reunite in person.

I am deeply grateful to these institutions. They have been extraordinary hosts, enabling students to experiment, learn, and be seen. At the same time, I dream of a self-sustaining Lab: a permanent hub where I and a team of alumni could create opportunities independently, offer paid publications, podcasts, mentorship, and a network for critics of color without the precarity of temporary hosting.

The Labor Behind the Lab

Much of the work of running the Lab is invisible. Each Lab is hosted by an institution that pays me a short-term fee, usually the equivalent of two to three months of work, to design and teach the program. But the actual labor of the Lab spans an entire year. I prepare long before the first session, and students continue reaching out with drafts, pitches, questions, or requests for recommendations long after a cohort ends. I hold office hours months, sometimes years, later. This ongoing mentorship is the heart of the Lab, but there is currently no funding structure that supports it. The Lab cannot survive on a few months of institutional pay and one person’s sustained, unpaid labor across the rest of the year.

Similarly, many students face structural barriers. Some must work extra shifts, cannot afford devices or reliable internet, or juggle other responsibilities that make participating fully a challenge. I try to mitigate these inequities whenever possible, but it is impossible to eliminate them entirely without permanent institutional support.

Being a freelance BIPOC critic is isolating and precarious. I have chased payments from publications and institutions for months, felt shame in asking to be compensated, and witnessed the emotional toll this takes on emerging critics as well. Despite these challenges, the work is sustaining. Seeing students’ creativity, playfulness, and growth is a constant reminder that this Lab is necessary.

I dream of a Lab publication where students’ work is compensated and reaches a larger audience. This is part of creating equity and ensuring BIPOC voices are seen and heard.

Lessons Learned After Six Labs 

1. Criticism is imaginative and empathetic.
   Students’ work proves that criticism should illuminate, not just react. The homily based on Emilia Pérez is a perfect example: the student used empathy to show new perspectives about a work that was being discussed through the limited lens of awards season, demonstrating how criticism can invite reflection rather than just reaction to the zeitgeist.
2. Transparency is absolutely vital.
   I am honest about fees, how much publications pay, and the economic realities of the field. This honesty builds trust and helps students navigate precarity themselves.
3. Emotional labor is real.
   Last summer, I faced online harassment and death threats that made me shut down all my social media. The summer before that, the Lab and some of my students were targeted in Canada. Supporting students through these moments is absolutely necessary, but it is also draining, frightening, and time consuming. Sustainable, institution-backed support matters here because when attacks happen, I am the only line of defense. There is no communications team, no mental health support, no administrative staff, no crisis plan. It's just me, a freelancer, trying to protect students while also protecting myself. With institutional backing, there would be shared responsibility, clearer protocols, and a safety net so that students and I are not left to weather this alone.
4. Creativity thrives in experimentation.
   Whether it's collages, crayon palettes, audio explorations, or poetic essays, giving students freedom to play, to fail, and to try new things is fundamental. It's usually a joy for me to encounter a work that defies anything else I've seen before, like when a student submitted a tarot spread as a review.
5. Visibility matters.
   I often wish more of the world could see the Lab students’ projects. Instead, they stay within our sessions. I dream of a Lab publication where students’ work is compensated and reaches a larger audience. This is part of creating equity and ensuring BIPOC voices are seen and heard.
6. Sustained mentorship is crucial.
   Students contact me years after their cohort ends. Yearlong funding, permanent infrastructure, and alumni networks would make this mentorship sustainable and more equitable and help create a sturdier Lab.
7. Joy sustains the spirit.
   Despite my own exhaustion, watching students’ sparks of insight, seeing them experiment, and celebrating their discoveries (sometimes win awards for their work) gives me life. It reminds me why the Lab matters, even as it demands so much of me.

Takeaways for Individuals, Artists, and Theatre Practitioners

The Lab has taught me that sustainability isn't only built by institutions; it's also shaped by individuals who opt to make their corners of the field more humane and inclusive. You don't need a budget line or a board vote to make this work possible. Here are a few things individuals, artists, administrators, educators, writers, can do right now.

1. Publicly champion emerging critics.
   Whenever you read something from a new critic that moves you, share it. Recommend them. Invite them on panels. Visibility is currency, and you never know what door a small gesture might open.
2. Pay people on time.
   It sounds simple, but in this industry it's radical. Delayed payments destabilize freelance critics more than most people realize. When we pay quickly, we signal that their labor has value.
3. Leave space to experiment.
   If you're assigning, editing, or curating, leave room for forms that don't fit the traditional review. Critics should be allowed to be playful and daring. Let someone turn in a collage, a video essay, or an audio meditation. Criticism should be as playful as the arts it covers.
4. Be generous in the sharing of information.
   Whether about fees, opportunities, or contacts, transparency protects us. Inequity reproduces itself by hoarding information.
5. Care for individuals as holistic human beings.
   We work within an industry that normalizes exhaustion. Sometimes, all someone needs is a check-in, an extension on a deadline, or even just recognition that they have outside circumstances.

Anyone can foster a more generous critical ecosystem. You don't have to run a Lab, you just need to decide that kindness, transparency, and accessibility are part of your practice.

An Undeniable Global Perspective

The Lab exists within a world of rising xenophobia, authoritarian governments, and shrinking support for equity initiatives. Cuts to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), for instance, have affected work my family supports in Honduras, including programs my mother is involved in to prevent trafficking of Indigenous women. Equity and inclusion remain vital but are increasingly contested. “Equity” itself can be a dangerous word, drawing hate from groups who see inclusion as a threat.

The Lab celebrates diversity in identity, culture, and geography. Cohorts have included trans and non-binary students, and one recent cohort was entirely LGBTQ. Multilingual Labs are also a dream for the future: a Spanish-language cohort, global collaboration, and opportunities for critics in all corners of the world.

The BIPOC Critics Lab has taught me that criticism is communal, imaginative, and deeply connected with life.

How Institutions Can Help

Institutions can play a vital role in sustaining and expanding the Lab. They can:

• Provide yearlong funding for instructors and alumni, not just the weeks of a cohort.
• Host multiple Labs at once, across languages, cities, and countries. I have run multiple simultaneous cohorts before, and the creative energy that emerges is truly extraordinary.
• Support alumni publications and podcasts, creating opportunities for visibility and compensation.
• Connect Labs internationally for mentorship, collaboration, and creative exchange.
• Ensure students’ labor is respected and compensated, creating structures that do not rely solely on precarious instructors.

Scaling this model is essential. Multiple Labs operating concurrently around the globe could create an ecosystem for BIPOC criticism that is sustainable, joyful, and equitable.

The Umbrella Factory

The BIPOC Critics Lab has taught me that criticism is communal, imaginative, and deeply connected with life. It thrives when students are empowered, visible, and paid. It is fragile when reliant on a single person’s labor or precarious freelance income. I dream of a network of Labs: permanent hubs, alumni-led initiatives, publications, podcasts, and mentorship programs. An umbrella factory: not one Mary Poppins but a world where each graduate carries their own umbrella into the world, multiplying support, creativity, and visibility. These voices matter more than ever.