Elijah McKinnon
Co-Founder and Development Director - Reunion Chicago
Elijah McKinnon is the co-founder of Reunion Chicago, an exhibition space and project incubator prioritized for queer, women-identified and people of color in creative roles.
Elijah is also the Co-Founder and Executive Director of OTV - Open Television, a web TV platform for queer, trans and artists of color; co-produced and starred in Chicago's #PrEP4Love campaign; and is a curator in residence at Estudio Teorema, a culturally-charged activist gallery and production studio located in Guadalajara, Mexico. As an award-winning strategist, creative director, entrepreneur, artist and advocate, Elijah is on a mission to make “queer” an actionable verb in community, media and policy spaces. Elijah seeks to bring more understanding to queer history, queer artmaking and queer practices in Chicago.
In addition to serving as the Founder and Director of People Who Care, Inc. --- an independent consultancy that works exclusively with nonprofits and grassroots initiatives such as AIDS Foundation Chicago, Northwestern University, The Andy Warhol Foundation, Grindr for Equality, Raúl Anguiano Art Museum, Center for Disease Control and many more -- they are also deeply involved in queer, creative and philanthropic communities around the globe.
They are constantly moving and shaking in an attempt to build meaningful relationships and encourage resource sharing. Elijah’s artistic practice and advocacy work currently centers around the intersection between trauma, wellness, race, sexuality, gender, new media and storytelling. They push community and self-care to the forefront of all conversations and interactions, extolling values of healthy practices for all people to take care of themselves before they begin to guide a team or initiative.
