NewStories is proud to announces a new partnership to illuminate the process of change through participatory storytelling, creative convening, and reflection.
NewStories is thrilled to welcome jesikah maria ross as its first Artist-in-Resonance, a new role designed to support community-rooted practitioners who explore how meaningful change happens—through art, storytelling, and shared inquiry.
NewStories is a nonprofit that accompanies people, organizations, and communities as they Re-Story themselves and build the life-affirming systems and futures they desire.
This collaboration emerges at a time when communities face escalating challenges— loneliness, polarization, natural disasters, and the unraveling of public institutions. NewStories believes this moment calls not just for better outcomes, but for better processes: ways of seeing, gathering, imagining, and co-creating that deepen people’s connection to one another and to the places they call home.
ross’ work centers on the creative process of convening—artfully crafting experiences where people connect on the things that matter to them, building understanding, belonging, healing, and solidarity. During her residency, jesikah will design and host a series of community-rooted events that utilize story sharing as a regenerative force.
Elevating the Art of Convening
NewStories new residency highlights the often-invisible labor of hosts and facilitators—those who tend the relational spaces in which communities connect and build their power. It reflects NewStories’ deep commitment to process artistry: the practice of designing, facilitating, and reflecting on the lived experience of change.
As Artist-in-Resonance, jesikah maria ross will engage in three core practices:
- Participate in place-based experiments that nurture regenerative futures;
- Inquire through participatory research and lived learning;
- Reflect through public storytelling—illuminating not only what is learned, but how communities learn and grow together.
“Often, we hear about the positive outcomes of community efforts without understanding the challenges navigated or the strategies used to bring those efforts to life,” notes NewStories Co-Director Z Johnson. “jesikah’s unique gift as a storyteller and process artist enables her to reveal the often-messy, rarely-discussed realities of group process. That clarity and honesty make her a perfect fit for this new role.”
A Spark for Connection
ross will launch her residency with three projects grounded in community convenings:
- Story Circles: Collaborating with an interdisciplinary group of storytellers in Romania to adapt and apply story circle methodologies for community resilience.
- Hope Cafés: Working with a library in rural California to pilot events that blend music, poetry, and community conversations to cultivate civic health.
- Care Collaboratory: Partnering with News Futures to produce a collective publication on “care-full convening design” that curates community wisdom and strategies emerging from a series of interactive workshops.
“What these projects all have in common is a focus on social connection and community well-being,” ross reflects. “They explore how civic storytelling and meaningmaking can be catalysts for community change efforts.”
A NewStories Partnership Rooted in Resonance
NewStories created the Artist-in-Resonance role to support independent practitioners already embodying principles of regenerative change—and to amplify the insights emerging from their work. In partnering with jesikah maria ross, NewStories is investing in the power of process to seed transformation.
Follow ross’ journey on the NewStories LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook channels or subscribe to our Newsletter here.
About jesikah maria ross
jesikah maria ross is a nationally recognized process artist and participatory mediamaker. She works with newsrooms, museums, universities and non-profit groups around the globe on place-based storytelling initiatives that help community members connect, belong, heal and problem solve. Learn more at jesikahmariaross.com and follow her on LinkedIn.
