Who Pays? Arts Investment in the Rustbelt: A Community Conversation

Shanthi Elizabeth Senthe is an Assistant Professor at Windsor Law. She teaches Business Associations, Secured Transactions, Sports Law and is the Director of the Transnational Entertainment and Art Law Clinic. Dr. Senthe is also a faculty member with the Dual-JD program, in which she teaches the Business Association module.  Dr. Senthe’s professional experience include the practice of law in multiple jurisdiction and judicial clerkships in the United States. She  is admitted to practice law in Ontario, Florida, North Carolina and the District of Columbia. Dr. Senthe’s research interests include corporate, commercial, banking and finance law, sports law and creative entrepreneurship. She is currently leading a research study involving Black commercialization and financialization in the creative economy in the Detroit area.  Prior to completing her LLM & PhD at Osgoode Hall Law School, Dr. Senthe earned her JD at the College of Law Florida State University. 

Kim Theus is the Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Canfield Consortium, a community development corporation based in Detroit, MI, with a mission to revitalize the East Canfield Village neighborhood. Using art as a tool to address community issues with creativity and preserve the neighborhood’s culture, Kim has emerged as a central figure in propelling the community’s revitalization. Through the creative utilization of art, she has steered the neighborhood’s evolution into a dynamic, culturally rich, and resilient environment. 

Prior to this role, Kim served as the Coordinator for the Arts & Culture Office for the City of Detroit and previously served as the Executive Assistant to the President and CEO of Bloomberg Associates in New York City. Kim is not only an art collector but also a passionate supporter of the arts, with a primary focus on showcasing Detroit based artists across various mediums. She currently serves as the curator of the East Canfield Art Park which proudly features artwork by talented artists like Austen Brantley and BRYCE Detroit. 

Alejandro Tamayo is an artist, writer, and arts administrator originally from Colombia. Alejandro is the director of the Arts Council Windsor and Region. Prior to joining ACWR in Feb. 2021, Alejandro was on the board of directors for Hamilton Artists Inc., and was the artist in residence at McMaster University’s Studio Art program. Alejandro completed a practice-based doctorate in Visual Arts at York University in 2018 with a dissertation that explored experiential notions of time and space through sculpture, drawing and installation. His work has been exhibited individually and collectively in Canada and abroad. 

Teajai Travis is an art educator with Arts Can Teach, the Founder and Director of The Bloomfield House, he is the current chair of The Windsor Youth Centre, a board member with The Friends of the Court and Literary Arts Windsor and he is currently working on a collection of poetry titled Born Enslaved: A Freedom Story, as well a play and a collection of short stories of the same name. The work shares his Ancestors heroic journey from slavery to freedom. He often describes his creative style as “lyrical hood spit” a reflection of his humble upbringing in one of Windsor’s public housing communities – he proudly claims, “Westside for Life”. In the anthology By the River, published by Urban Farmhouse Press, he continues to describe his style as “channeling the desperate melodies of a pawn shop saxophone, praying abstract jazz to the whispers of a misunderstood Harlem Renaissance; black”. Inspired by the works of Nikki Giovanni, Dick Gregory, James Baldwin, Afua Cooper and Sal Williams, Teajai uses a poetic language to share the complexities of struggle and triumph from his unique lens.