Joanna Pottleis a multidisciplinary professional, visual artist, educator, curator, researcher, writer, and community engagement leader based in Poland since 2019, originally from Richmond, Virginia, USA.A Fulbright Program alumna to Poland (2019–2020/21) as well as a Kościuszko Foundation and Humanity in Action (2022–2023) Fellow, she holds a BFA in Studio Art, a BA in Art History with an Art Education specialization, and an MA from Jagiellonian University, where her research examined the intersections of public art, cultural and dissonant heritage, collective memory, and democracy.
With 5+ years of experience leading international, remote, and cross-cultural programs across Europe and the US, Joanna’s expertise spans education, visual art, community engagement, writing, editing, and research, as well as project and program management within higher education, nonprofits, foundations, and civil society organizations. She focuses on developing systems, initiatives, and convenings that strengthen networks, drive collaboration, and amplify collective impact. Skilled in scaling complex initiatives, translating strategy into action, and fostering collaboration across diverse stakeholders, she approaches all her work through a relational and project-driven lens.
As International Community Engagement Manager at Humanity in Action, Inc.(2023–ongoing), Joanna designs and leads international initiatives that strengthen alumni networks, cultivate leadership, and foster collaboration across the organization’s global community. Her work emphasizes strategic outreach, program development, fundraising and capacity building, and network growth to connect and amplify the work of doers, thinkers, and changemakers worldwide.
She also writes for Contemporary Lynx Magazine (2022–ongoing), covering contemporary art, culture, and creative practices globally, and serves as an advisor and contributor to the EU Creative Europe-funded “Ukrainian Woman” (U-Woman) Project (2025–ongoing), a 36-month collaboration among Ukrainian and EU-based cultural organizations using art and digital storytelling to explore resilience, memory, and women’s perspectives in times of war.
Joanna’s visual artwork work spans various media including drawing, painting, printmaking, collage, installations, audio/visual, photo/film through topics such as practices of care, checks and balances of democracy, cultural (dissonant) heritage, belonging and identity, cross-cultural dialogue and peacebuilding, mapping, public space, and identifying visual meeting points of body, mind, and memory/cultural/sociopolitical/physical landscape through abstraction. She’s been focused on exploring concepts such as “memoryscapes” which can be defined as 1) spatial representations socially-shared memory, 2) the action of listening to located oral accounts as a way to map individual and collective stories, and 3) a way to trace both the past and present cultural landscape.
Joanna has also worked as an educator and facilitator with cultural institutions, nonprofits, and educational programssupporting professional development, language learning, and cross-cultural exchange. This includes tutoring and editing with Oxford House (2020–2023), facilitating U.S. State Department–funded programs such as TechGirls and The Global Youth Village (2017, 2020–21), with American Councils Poland, FLEX Program as a Pre-Departure Orientation (PDO) Teacher (2023), and leading humanitarian aid–focused professional development workshops with VOICE Amplified (2022–23). She also volunteers for the US-Polish Fulbright Commission as an application reviewer and orientation lead (2021-current).
Her work, spanning art, pedagogy, social practice, and community building, seeks to create meaningful intersections between interdisciplinary creative practice, research-based interventions, and collective dialogue and action.