Erin Cooney, Assistant Adjunct Professor in the Department of European Languages and Transcultural Studies (ELTS), has been awarded a 2025–2026 Barbra Streisand Environmental Justice Fellowship from the UCLA Center for the Study of Women|Barbra Streisand Center (CSW|Streisand Center) to support her project, “East Yard Community Event and Public Video Art Projection with Aire Libre.”
The project centers on her film Aire Libre, a multimedia project documenting the environmental injustices faced by the predominantly Black and Latino communities along the I-710 corridor who bear a disproportionate burden of pollution from ports, freeways, warehouses, and industrial sites. Professor Cooney will partner with East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice and CONTRA-TIEMPO Activist Dance Company to bring this work back to the community through a public event at Riverfront Park in Maywood, featuring outdoor large-scale video projections onto the nearby industrial landscapes.
The event is designed as both a celebration and a form of cultural reclamation, inviting residents to share their stories and engage with environmental health resources. The project also aims to build long-term capacity for East Yard to use public projection as a tool for advocacy and community storytelling.
Professor Cooney’s research and teaching comprise arts-based explorations of ecological crisis, colonialism, environmental injustice, and food studies. She previously served as Associate Director of UCLA’s Counterforce Lab and has taught food and environmental justice courses at Rice University.