Sachs Program awards Annenberg doctoral candidate Antoine Haywood 2022 Student Grant

The Sachs Program for Arts Innovation recently named Annenberg School for Communication doctoral candidate Antoine Haywood as one of their 2022 Student Grant recipients.

Haywood’s project, “Telling Our Stories: A Philadelphia Community Media Oral History Project," aims to archive the usage and production of public access media by BIPOC Philadelphians. 

The Sachs Program for Arts Innovation awarded 49 grants over the course of the year with a total of $288,000 in grants, according to their website. 

Through the grant, Haywood intends to amplify the individual narratives of these often unsung media producers while affirming the medium’s essential role in local and transnational storytelling networks, according to the Sachs website. 

According to Philadelphia Community Access Media, the local public production center where Haywood spent eight years, public access media can serve as an “electronic park” where individuals from all walks of life are empowered with the opportunity to share their perspectives on a spectrum of topics.

Largely built in collaboration with Haywood’s former colleagues at PhillyCAM, Haywood has started recording audio and video clips of local BIPOC storytellers for a future compilation website that chronicles their personal experiences with public access media.

Haywood's project is two-phased, with the first phase being a website featuring short videos and clips of BIPOC storytellers and the second phase being a book along with a public exhibition, according to Annenberg.

"Often, emphasis is placed on what media makers produce, and very little is known about their processes and motivations. Our project aims to shift and expand that perspective,"  Haywood told Annenberg.