Cecilia (Ceci) Méndez-Ortiz (she/her) is a Latin@ artist and educator whose creative voice and community building practices advance cultures of belonging, justice, and joy. Ceci is the Executive Director of the Center for Art and Community Partnerships (CACP) at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, where she collaborates with a team to partner with people and communities within and beyond MassArt to radically expand access to transformative creative experiences. She is also Co-director of the Radical Imagination for Racial Justice regranting program in Boston, designed to support BIPoC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) artists in imagining and creating justice in collaboration with their community/ies.

Ceci is a Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts “Next 50” Honoree, one of fifty leaders that, through sustained excellence of artistic, educational, athletic, or multi-disciplinary work are “lighting the way forward, and moving us toward a more inspired, inclusive, and compassionate world.” Ceci leads with love and makes possible learning, growing, and working cultures that supports everyone to be their best selves in building relationships, activating networks, experimenting through programs, and nurturing the transformative power of reciprocal, respectful collaborations. Throughout her career she has worked in myriad roles - museum educator, curator, instructor, artist, board member - igniting art and design as the core element of innovative partnerships.

Ceci received a BA with Honors in Art from Brown University, and an MFA from the University of Michigan School of Art and Design. Living at the heart of where art, education, and community connect, her installations, prints, drawings, and bilingual animations (Spanish/English) have been exhibited and screened in Mexico, Japan, and across the U.S.