Full Bio and CV Emily (Ema) Elizabeth Hassell 1976 is a British- born Canadian American Creator, professional sculptor, awarded multidisciplinary social artist and Cultural Producer, with 31 years international experience in community and Sociocultural Development, with a diverse background she is also a Certified Nurses Assistant, Equine Assisted therapist, Landscape Garden and Designer. She is a Philanthropist, Environmental activist, Human Rights Defender since a young age, she is a Process Facilitator endorsed by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization UNESCO for her committed development work, building sustainable equitable social and cultural community-led initiatives in Guatemala. She has worked extensively with diverse vulnerable communities, ecological, health, rehabilitation, and cultural institutions, local, national, and international authorities, associations, organizations, and municipal governments. Since childhood Hassell has carried a core belief in human dignity and equality. Ahead of her times, by age 16 she left academia to begin what would become a lifelong career dedicated to advocacy, philanthropy, and humanitarian work. She has worked in the Care field in service of vulnerable population and communities including people in situation of homeless, special needs, substance addictions, the elderly, single mothers, children, and youth; in the United States, England, Ireland, and Guatemala Care field Starting when she was 16, Emily has acquired over over 10 years experience working directly with special needs communities, private and public Nursing, Elder and end of life Care, addictions Rehabilitation Clinics, and people in situation of homelessness. From 1992-94 volunteer in the Camphill Larchfield and Ringwood communities for special needs children and adults, attended the Foundation Year Course in Curative Education at the Sheiling School Ringwood, Certified Nurses Assistant Columbia Memorial Hospital Long Term Care Devision Catskill NY, Private client end of life home Care 1998-99, Fairview Nursing and Rehabilitation 1994-05, Certified Home Health Aide Camphill Ghent 2010-13. In conjunction with the Municipality of Antigua Guatemala she served as an independent consultant developing potential housing programs for people in situation of Homelessness, while she herself and a local MD teamed up directly attending to the medical care of those in especially critical situations, with mental illness, and the elderly 2017-19. Social Initiatives Development Born and raised in intentional community settings such as Forest Row UK, the Fellowship in Spring Valley and the Hawthorne Valley Association in NY, her early orientation of community initiatives served as a foundation basis to go on to partake, found, co found, and assist start up other up successful socially inclusive intentional community initiatives. She has pioneered with professional teams to set up the likes of KCAT Arts Center, Callan Ireland 1999-2000 a successful model social and cultural initiative during the initial planning stages, Holistica la Montana Guatemala 2003-06 where she developed and ran two of their programs. From 2010-13 she served as a primary team member to initiate and launch Camphill Ghent Elders in Community in Chatham NY from early phase facilities preparation and organization to full community capacity providing independent and assisted living including end of life care. Philanthropy Endorsed by UNESCO, in 2017 Hassell is the Founder and Director of the non for profit Charity The Alliance for Development of Environmental & Cultural, with 501(c)3 fiscal sponsorship in Guatemala. Her organization focuses on fortifying alliance partners ships, increasing coordination between stakeholders, strengthening internal systems to effectively address and resolve root issues such as marginalization, violence, poverty, and migration. She is a Process Facilitator, mediator, and development advisor assisting communities in consensus building, decision making, strategic direction community planning, developing and setting in place appropriate corresponding nationally owned community- driven needs based solutions, projects, and initiatives; that increase livelihoods, infrastructure, and sustainable systems. Landscape Architecture, Gardening, Design & Ecology The majority of her childhood was spent in upstate NY surrounded by nature and the Hawthorne Valley Farm Association a biodynamic organic farm, that cultivated her lifelong appreciation and concern for the living world. She has personally planted over 1,200 trees in BC Canada, and is an environmental activist with 10 years experience in organic horticulture, landscape architecture, gardening, and design. She worked for 2 years in the UK 1992-94 in organic vegetable and dried flower Gardens that sustained the Camphill Larchfield Community of 80 residents, spent a summer planting over 1,200 trees in the mountains of BC Canada, and has 8 years experience working under native plant specialist Ruth Dufault of Bittersweet Gardens in nature based landscaping architecture, gardening and design between 2006-2016. Equine Assisted Riding Therapy Emily has over 20 years experience working with horses. She mentored and trained under Suzanne Reilly from 1985-92 Ghent NY, then went on to study and serve as an assistant teacher in therapeutic horseback riding at the Shieling School for special needs children in Ringwood UK 1992 -94. She has started and directed her own therapeutic riding programs in Guatemala at Holistica la Montana for addictions Rehabilitation Clinic working with patients and special needs children from 2003-06, has taken courses in the Epona Method and natural horsemanship, and worked at High and Mighty therapeutic riding Stables in Ghent NY with director Laura Corsun from 2006-10. Cultural Development She has organized performances, events, Curated exhibitions, Founded and Co- founded ephemerial spaces, collectives, Arts & cultural initiatives in Ireland, NY and Guatemala. Hassell was a founding member of la Casa Bizarra 1995-97 an avant-garde group of post war generation artists including Jose Osorio founder of Caja Ludica and Festival del Centro Historico, Giovanni Pinzon of Bohemia Suburbana, Pancho Toralla and among others impulsing the birth of Contemporary, street, and public social art in Guatemala City. As Creative Director and Founder she privately sponsored and initiated The House at 0-27 from 2000-03 working with over 20 artists including 2001 Venice Biennale Young Creator Award winner Anibal Lopez A-153167 represented by Ida Pissani, Promoteo Gallery Italy, in residence he produced the works “Se Vende”, “Se Aquila”,“ Se Presta” “ Se Regala” and “Esto Texto no tiene ningun significado”. The originator, Co- Founder, and member of The Experimental Artists Collective/ Gallery 345 Hudson NY 2006-09 Hassell co curated and co directed the collective artists gallery exhibition that showing the work of over 30 local, national, and international artists including Mark Moffit, ex assistant to Elseworth Kelly, with the likes of the acclaimed NYC Gallerist John Webber visiting the space . She Curated and produced a widely seen accessible to all public outdoor Digital Projections of fine art, archival and contemporary photography in the city of Antigua in 2018-20 with artists including Daniel Chauche, Jorge Chavarria, Manuel Morillo, Jorge Cuyun, Gg, Michael Plyler, Rae Leeth, Pablo Swezey, and more; in conjunction with Antigua Viva, Nimpalow, city municipal authorities, the church, City Conservation boards and Commissions. From 2017- 2021 Hassell worked intensively with local authorities, municipal governance, conservation commissions, cultural institutions, galleries, museums, organizations, associations, and artists in Antigua Guatemala. With a major deficit of representation of Contemporary and accessible Arts in the city, Hassells focus was on creating a unified Public arts and culture sector, developing, promoting, and designing accessible to all offerings. She engaged in cultural and social urban development projects within the upper municipal circles. She also served as an independent advisor orienting numerous budding initiatives to establish greater working alignment within the framework of a city that it is both the countries number one destination and a highly regulated Unesco World Heritage Site. She has been an active participant in large scale social and cultural change, in the strategic positioning of municipalities and cities, including Guatemala City 1995-2003, and Antigua Guatemala 2016-2021. She is currently living and working in the remote north of Guatemala in an extremely vulnerable agrarian Mayan indigenous village that is situated in an ecologically fragile at risk strip of land which is a buffer zone between the frontline border of the Tikal National Park Biosphere and Lake Peten Itza. She is working with her local community and authorities addressing the devastating level of poverty, establishing the development of sustainable green systems, indigenous owned start ups, and managed community land trusts that have the ability to provoke a broader regional movement. Hassell is working closely with the villages first on site Mayan indigenous social assistance and ecological community organization the Association of Integral Peasant and Environmental Development of Peten, helping to establish and secure major holdings of at risk land for the purposes of shared use, living and working sustainably, regenerative agriculture, rejuvenation, and permanent natural tropical forest habitat conservation. She is Co- Developing an intentional community with the Association centered on social assistance, culture, and ecology; fostering the arts, regeneration, sustainable organic agriculture, permaculture practices, reforestation, restoration of forests under tenured land trusts for permanent conservation. Hassell is Co Producing a film a Documentary about the avant-garde post War generation artists movement that brought about the rise of Contemporary Art in Guatemala during 1995-2005 with her daughter Alexandra Eleazar and a group of leading Belgian Film Producers and Directors, Erik Van Berendoncks, Dave Heuten, Frans Steenhoudt. She is also Founding a new community arts center and Barro Itza TM Traditional and Contemporary Ceramics, a Mayan indigenous women-led ceramics Cooperative in San Pedro, San Jose, Peten. Art Hassell is a self taught sculptor, and social artist. Hassell moves between mediums, working in clay and ceramics, drawing, sculpture, found object, assemblage art, mixed media, poetry, and photography. Hasells works are figurative, conceptual, and often identified as Arte Povera, with a consistent signature trait of using materials , collecting what she find in her immediate surroundings. Based on extensive research to find their core meaning, she uses repurposed objects and materials conceptually, contextually and metaphorically, allowing them to create stories infused with historical, sociological, and current issues. Drawing from a great affinity for all life, the natural world, native cultures , metaphysics, quantum physics, minimalism, architecture, & design. Although her work has been exhibited in many private galleries and museums Hassell is known for independently producing large-scale exhibitions in accessible to all alternative spaces such as warehouses, houses, and public spaces where four of her eight completed bodies of art work have been shown. The vast majority of the work she has produced and been commissioned has gone directly into collections around the world.