History

Hemi came into existence 20 years ago with an innovative vision: to bring together scholars, artists, and activists from throughout the Americas to think and create collaboratively across borders, languages, and disciplines. Founded by NYU Professor Diana Taylor with colleagues from Brazil, Mexico, and Peru, Hemi forged diverse spaces for dialogue, creativity, and exchange—from face-to-face gatherings, workshops, and forums, to online team-taught courses, digital archives, and publications.

Hemi sought to intervene in the often-siloed worlds of artistic practice, scholarly thinking, and political engagement. Practice and inquiry, knowing and acting—we insisted—are always critical and always creative. We sought to harness the combined power of ideas and practices to address some of the most pressing issues of our times, from human rights and migration to the violence of racial, economic, and gender inequalities. Hemi developed an anti-colonial model for engagement between ‘north’ and ‘south’ by promoting multi-sited, multilingual collaborations where all participants are recognized as producers of knowledge.

Sponsors

Hemi has received support from the Ford, Henry Luce, Andrew W. Mellon, Nathan Cummings, Rockefeller, Rockefeller Brothers, and Open Society Foundations, as well as the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, among others. At NYU, it became a Provostial Institute in 2007, establishing an endowment to sustain its creative inquiry and critical practice into the future.

Land Acknowledgement

The Hemispheric Institute at New York University acknowledges with respect the Lenape nation, whose traditional homelands NYU now occupies. We recognize the longstanding significance of these territories for Lenape nations past and present. We acknowledge that we work in a city with the largest urban Native population in the United States. Even as we work to increase the historical awareness of Indigenous exclusion and erasure, we acknowledge the effect of that legacy in educational institutions, at NYU, and across the hemisphere. We are committed to work revealing Indigenous history and life-worlds and to the inclusion of Indigenous voices and participation, in allyship with Indigenous makers and communities across the Americas.

About Us

The Hemispheric Institute gathers artists, scholars, writers, learners, and activists from across the Americas. We focus on social justice and research politically engaged culture and performance. We share this work in digital archives and amplify it through dialogues and public scholarship, residencies, publications, and gatherings. Our dynamic, multilingual network traverses disciplines and borders and is grounded in the fundamental belief that artistic practice and critical reflection can spark lasting cultural change.