Photo by Kai Jullian Photography
Culture Notes
Culture Notes is a collection of notes, conversations, and musings on life and dope art—expressed through culture, art, and soul.
Biography
Khayla Deans is multi-hyphenate creative who amplifies stories through various mediums as a curator, writer, creative director, image maker, and communications strategist. As a storyteller and cultural activist, she believes that media, art, and culture can be used as powerful tools for empowerment when used in the right hands. At The Beautiful Project, an arts collective for Black women & gender expansive youth, Khayla leads the vision and strategy for the organization’s storytelling and curatorial pursuits. She is also owner of Culture Notes by Khayla, an online publication of published reviews, critiques, & explorations of cultural works.
Professional Experience
Skills include project management, copywriting, editing via Adobe Creative Suite, video editing, photography, budgeting, and strategic planning.
Co-Executive Director, January 2022-PRESENT
Lead the organization's overall strategic direction, representation, program, resources, operations and communication.
Advance the work of The Beautiful Project in terms of outreach and strategic liaising with the public, media and other organizations as required.
Seek opportunities to elevate the voices within The Beautiful Project collective as thought-leaders in transformative social justice work.
Manage and conceptualize the artistic outputs of a project or program during all stages of production.
Creative Director, 2020-2022
Creative Producer, 2018-2020
Lead the creative vision and strategy of organization.
Lead Curator: Memory is Ritual: A Remembrance of Ourselves; North Carolina Museum of Art; Raleigh, NC, 2021-2022
Co- Curator: Pen, Lens, & Soul: The Story of The Beautiful Project; The Metropolitan Museum of Art; New York, NY, 2019-2020
Co Curator: The Wonder of You-Photos & Words by Black Girls and Women; Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University; Durham, NC, 2018
Independent Cultural Writer, 2013 - PRESENT
Owner of Culture Notes by Khayla, an online publication & archive of published reviews, critiques, and explorations of cultural works.
Contributing writer to online publications such as Indy Week, Scalawag Magazine, Soul Bounce, OkayAfrica.
Independent Communications Strategist & Impact Producer 2015 - PRESENT
Direct creative vision as producer for various multimedia storytelling projects. Responsibilities included: directing a team of writers, photographers, designers, and videographers, 2015-Present
Served as NYU Tisch Hear Us Panelist and Mentor, 2022-2023
Served as Impact Strategist for Little Sallie Walker Documentary Strategy Summit hosted by Filmmaker Marta Effinger-Crichlow and Working Films, 2020
Served as Impact & Engagement Strategist and Juror for Hayti Heritage Film Festival, 2019-2020
Served Panelist for Southern Documentary Film Grant, 2018
Provide strategic communications consulting support, tactical implementation and assessment services for Forward Promise initiative, a client of MitchRich Communications, 2017-2018
Served as Good Pitch Local Outreach Coordinator by Doc Society, 2017
Consultant | May 2013-December 2018
Managed multiple projects to achieve the company’s profit, quality, and social impact goals. Included defining work-plan, budget, managing teams, providing creative strategy for projects from $5k-$1.6M.
Managed Frontline’s Communications team, including developing the firm's branding and communication strategy, managing digital media copywriting and engagement across social media platforms.
Produced various multimedia storytelling projects for clients such as Advancement Project, Schott Foundation, and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Producer responsibilities include: directing a team of writers, photographers, designers, and videographers to create short video and written profiles on nonprofits.
Directed Frontline’s Hilliard P. Jenkins (HPJ) Fellowship by designing and implementing summer fellowship program, overseeing recruitment, applications, and recruiting process, providing management and leadership development of fellows.
EDUCATION
The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill — B.A. Public Policy & African American Studies, 2013
Press
Note: This website does not claim the rights to any of the images posted, unless noted otherwise.