If you’re looking for a resume/CV, go here! This page is the long, fun story…
Hadassah Damien is, professionally: a coach, strategist, experience designer, facilitator, community technologist, teacher, and self-organizing workplace maker
What does that mean?
I guide processes so that people can make meaningful decisions around priorities, services, and products.
I design and conduct research, analyze and evaluate – and, combined with human needs, co-create information, often in the forms of: service blueprints, experience journeys, user stories, product roadmaps, taxonomies, matrixes, and of course insights and informed recommendations.
For me, I love that technology can help organize and support our lives. BUT I know it is NOT neutral. So I use design techniques that center people impacted by decisions.
Read my Medium case studies // Check out my CV
With technology, I:
- design services and digital interfaces to be efficient and inclusive.
- support secure systems and autonomous use of the internet, in particular digital security for vulnerable communities.
- develop interfaces, software, and workflows that are accessibly optimized for humans and driven by need.
- architect data schemas and open-source software systems for efficient, transparent use.
- build digital catalogs and archives for cultural creators and institutions.
- Organize and document the ever-loving crap out of everything I touch!
Hadassah Damien is also an artist, community organizer, vintage fashion enthusiast and queer femme who’s committed to liberation and democratic access to tech for marginalized communities.
Other Projects
Ride Free Fearless Money, 2016-now: Financial self-determination workshops and coaching
QUILTBAG++, 2014-2015: LGBTQ Technology networking group
Producer & Curator, NYC / USA / Canada, 2004-2015
Curate, book, promote and coordinate logistics and volunteers for multi-person annual tour; financial management [fundraising, budget and payment]; coordinate venues, artists, tech; produce promotions [website, videos, press kits and handbills, press releases]; coordinate and archive documentation. Recent projects include:
- 2010-2016: Co-director of an art troupe producing an annual national tour, monthly art salon, anthology; Curator, Opentoe Peepshow; Co-producer, Glitter Roadshow;
- 2015, Co-editor Glitter & Grit Anthology, Lambda Literary Award Nominee
- 2015, Curator, Spark to a Flame, Dixon Place
As a community organizer who also implements technology to help activists succeed, and a multimedia artist who also builds digital archives, my work intersects functionality with agility, practicality, and the democratic politics of open-source cultures. I have collaborated on digital collection sites for John Jay library, The Interference Archive, and more. I earned a Master’s Degree in American Studies from the CUNY Graduate Center.
I’m curious and adventurous in life and design.
In 1987 my grandmother taught me how to sew, and my mother taught me pattern-making and fabric-based crafts; I went on to costume design school and professional production in new and vintage fabrics as well as leather.
In 1994 I began working in print by making zines and went on to edit a university newspaper and Art Direct a magazine along with making posters and flyers for events, book interiors, press kits, CD covers…
In 2000 I began staging photo shoots and digitally editing the images for creative collages; now I’ve styled product and portrait shoots for fine art, editorial print, and web uses.
In 2004 I formed a performance troupe and we realized that the a web presence was the best way to promote ourselves, so I taught myself HTML to make our site; now I’ve built or maintained over a dozen beautiful sites.
In 2005 I decided to begin recording audio, and in 2008 video – and now I teach a DIY audio course and have had my short videos play all over the US, Canada and the EU.
I’m passionate about supporting social justice, free speech, individuals’ self- representations, and the hard work put in by small business owners and working artists to realize their dreams.
My education has been broad, both formal and self-driven, and is lifelong. I care about the work I do and the projects I take on, because they must reflect my vision of a DIY/C [that last “c” is for collectively!] world.
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I spent many years building the back end of websites; creating content and visual design for web and print; and consulting on digital strategy and marketing. That informs my work now – I’ve built it, I know the struggle, and I know what’s different today.
Cross-genre creative production is close to the fabric of my life, and I’m thrilled to work with others to share my skills. I used to offer communication design in web, print, styling and multimedia platforms, but now I focus on working teams to facilitate self-organizing and human-centered decisions.
Selected Speaking and Teaching:
- Control The Room, facilitator conference keynote presentation, Austin TX 2022 [read it here]
- Eth at the Edge, facilitated multi-stakeholder workshop, DevCon Osaka 2019
- From Publishing City Data to Solving Problems, SXSW panel, Mar 2018
- Hacking Capitalism: Divesting and Ethical Money workshop, multiple iterations 2017-18, incl. Allied Media Conference
- “Tech Tools for Digital Engagement”, International Observatory on Participatory Democracy Conference, Montreal, Workshop, June 2017
- “Open Minds & Open Data” Smart Cities, NYC, Panel, May 2017
- “The Ethics of Algorithms” Ethical Tech, Thoughtworks NYC, Panel, December 2016
- Metaphors for the Web, Meta/Hacking The Internet, University of Pennsylvania, December 3 2015.
- Open Source Digital Cataloging and Archiving, Eyebeam Center for Art and Technology, March & December 2014.
- Disruptive Archiving, Radical Archives Conference, NYU, April 11 2014.
- Out of the Archives and Into the Libraries, Queer Internet Studies Conference, NYU, April 4 2014.
- Femme: Power, Vulnerability, and Revolution, IVYQ 2013, Yale University, February 8 2013.
- Out of Networks & Into the Streets: Technology for Social Movement Groups, Allied Media Conference, July 2012.
- Web Design for Social Movements, US Social Forum, June 2010.