Fanon Hill

Director

 

Filmmaker, waterfront festival founder, Arts administrator, and East Cleveland

native, Fanon Hill is no stranger to community transformation through strategically engaged artivism. Hill serves as Executive Director and co-founder of the Youth Resiliency Institute- a social benefit organization that provides culturally responsive arts-based programming in East Cleveland, Ohio and Baltimore, Maryland.

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Hill has served as a consultant for the National Guild for Community Arts Education, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation, and a multitude of school districts and organizations throughout the United States and Canada.

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In 2016, Hill produced and directed the documentary Lom Nava Love, the unflinching story of Black families in public housing in Baltimore, Maryland harnessing the power of art to challenge the systems and institutions that would

dictate their realities. The accompanying award winning Lom Nava Love

soundtrack, was produced and composed by Hill.

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As a musician, arranger, and producer, Hill utilizes vintage recording equipment

wherever possible. His original songwriting compositions like ‘Operation 666

Poverty,’ ‘It’s Still About Freedom,’ and ‘Love Journey’ work to expand the rim of

freedom for those struggling under the weight of oppressive inequities.

 

In 2014, Hill presented at the White House and the U.S. Department of Education on the power of the cultural arts in Black communities with high rates of poverty.

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Hill has received a Congressional Citation from the U.S. House of Representatives for his work as a cultural arts organizer dedicated to the application of Resilience Theory in disinvested communities. 

 

Hill is a Case Western Reserve University Treu-Mart Youth Development Fellow and an Aspen Institute Executive Leadership Seminar cohort member.

 

Hill currently serves on the boards of Cleveland Rocks: Past, Present and Future and The Maryland Restorative Justice Initiative.

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