Jen White-Johnson ’10 (Graphic Design MFA) says it’s liberating not fitting into a box. An Afro-Latina artist with an autoimmune disorder and ADHD, she uses her unique creative skills and personal experience to pursue art as activism. Calling her work "heart-centered," White-Johnson combines a variety of media to create powerful, dynamic works that seek to uplift disability justice narratives in today’s visual culture — specifically, her goal is to educate, bridge divergent worlds, and build a future that mirrors her Autistic son’s experience.

It was the diagnosis of her son, Knox, with Autism that led her to explore the erasure of Black disabled children in digital and literary media, which she does through an advocacy photo zine called KnoxRoxs. Receiving wide recognition, the zine is permanently archived in the libraries and special collections of museums from The Metropolitan Museum of Art to the Smithsonian National African American Museum of History and Culture.

This past summer, White-Johnson collaborated with her son on the exhibition, Autistic Joy, at the Photoville Festival in Brooklyn. The show’s goal was to continue to give visibility to children of color in neurodiverse communities.

White-Johnsons’s activist and advocacy work has been featured in AfroPunk, the New York Times, Teen Vogue, and Latina.com. In addition, she has entered collaborations with corporate giants including Nike, Converse, Adobe, Target, Amazon, Starbucks, Apple, and Google Stories. And as faculty at MICA, she shares her skills and experience with young Baltimore City students in the College's Art and Design College Accelerator program.