Conversation: Leah Thomas, Cami Thomas, and Jayvn Solomon
Date and Time
Location
International Institute of St. Louis
3401 Arsenal St
About the Event
Coyote Time Convening: Climate Futures and Infrastructural Imaginaries
Environmentalist Leah Thomas, filmmaker Cami Cruz Thomas, and designer and creative strategist Jayvn Solomon discuss what it means to have a hopeful, intersectional ecological vision for the future. As worldbuilders and storytellers, the conversation will focus on community-centered practices and creating the worlds we hope to live in.
Jayvn Solomon is an interdisciplinary designer and founder of Loutopia. Through Loutopia and a newly appointed position as the Creative Strategist for the City of St. Louis, Solomon focuses on placemaking and creative community organization.
Cami Thomas is a filmmaker and community organizer whose work explores community, identity, and social change. She is the founder of My Friends and I, a midwestern arthouse and production company creating visual work for community, global brands and aligned organizations. Her practice extends beyond the screen, using art and storytelling as tools for connection, organizing, and measurable community impact.
Leah Thomas is a celebrated environmentalist based in Los Angeles, CA. Coining the term ‘eco-communicator’ to describe her style of environmental activism, Leah uses her passion for writing and creativity to explore and advocate for the critical yet often overlooked relationship between social justice and environmentalism.
This event is part of Counterpublic 2026: Coyote Time and our three-day Climate Convening, which brings together artists, writers, organizers, designers, scientists, cultural leaders, and community practitioners to explore climate as a lived reality and exhibitions as opportunities for worldbuilding.
For questions, reach out to Kristin Fleischmann Brewer at kfbrewer@counterpublic.org.
Register
Coyote Time Convening Registration
Space is limited and registration is required. We hope you’ll join us for this focused conversation and opportunity to learn alongside peers working to build more sustainable, responsive, and resilient cultural institutions.
Convening Support
The Coyote Time Convening is supported by the Frankenthaler Climate Initiative, established by the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation.
The Climate Forward Institutions Workshop directly supports Counterpublic’s Climate Impact Plan. Learn more here.
This year, the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation awarded The Luminary, G-CADD: Granite City Art + Design District, The Griot Museum of Black History, and the National Building Arts Center funds to lower their carbon impacts across their campuses. In addition, the Foundation awarded Counterpublic a grant to support our work with Laura Lupton of LHL Consulting to implement our climate action plan with a long-term vision toward mitigation, adaptation, and resilience and creating a model for biennials, triennials and other large-scale exhibitions to account for their climate impacts.
The Frankenthaler Climate Initiative is the first nationwide program to support energy efficiency and clean energy use for the visual arts and the largest private national grantmaking program to address climate action through cultural institutions. The ongoing initiative provides critical support to visual arts organizations in the United States seeking to assess their impact on the environment and to lower ongoing energy costs. The Foundation has conferred more than $21.8 million since its launch in 2021, with 401 unique grants given for energy efficiency and clean energy projects at 295 institutions across 42 states and Puerto Rico.