About us

What’s Your Elephant™ – Empowering Change Through Art and Dialogue

Welcome to What’s Your Elephant™, a transformative 501(c)(3) charitable arts and educational organization dedicated to catalyzing awareness and fostering vital dialogue around under-addressed topics. We believe in the power of the arts as a safe space to address all that is unspoken, paving the way for healing, connection, and social change.

What’s Your Elephant™ as in ‘the elephant in the room’ is a metaphorical idiom for an obvious truth that is either being ignored or going unaddressed. The idiomatic expression also applies to an obvious problem or risk no one wants to discuss. It is based on the idea that an elephant in a room would be impossible to overlook; thus, people in the room who pretend the elephant is not there have chosen to avoid dealing with the looming big issue.

Mission:

At What’s Your Elephant™, we utilize a dynamic combination of art exhibits, interactive installations, talks, and workshops to provoke awareness and facilitate discussions on pressing issues, including gender, LGBTQ matters, social justice, placemaking, discrimination, and abuse. Through cultural programming, community engagement, and collaborations, we aim to create an inclusive environment where voices are heard, stories are shared, and healing begins.

Our mission also extends to destigmatizing mental health and embracing its significance in our journey of transformation. We firmly believe in the power of the arts to heal, inspire, and transform lives, serving as a catalyst for mental well-being.

Join us as we harness the transformative power of the arts to address the unaddressed, amplify silenced voices, and create a brighter, more inclusive future. At What’s Your Elephant™, we embrace the potential of each individual’s story and seek to cultivate a community that thrives on empathy, compassion, and artistic expression.

Uncover your voice, share your stories, and be part of the change with What’s Your Elephant™, where art, dialogue, and mental health come together to create a more empowered and compassionate world.

About the Founder:

Meet Niki Lopez, the visionary Afro-Latina, lesbian interdisciplinary visual artist, curator, and social practitioner behind the movement. Her vibrant color palette, avant-garde exhibitions, and transformative artworks dealing with traumas and healing have inspired the creation of What’s Your Elephant®. Through the arts, Niki addresses the unspoken, guiding others on a journey of Afrocentric spirituality, self-discovery, reflection, restoration, and social justice.

Niki’s contributions to the arts and community have garnered recognition, including a 2021 Kennedy Center Citizen Artist Fellow nomination and the 2020 Broward County’s Arts & Culture Visionaries Award by ArtServe. Lopez is the 2004 recipient of the Louis E. Peters Memorial Service Award. (Highest civilian humanitarian award), 2023 Women’s History Month Honorees by the Broward County Commission on the Status of Women and the 2023 South Florida Women in Community Branch Pioneer of the Year Presented by BLACC and SPARK.

Her advocacy includes the arts, social justice, diversity in aquatics and mental health.

Join the Movement:

At What’s Your Elephant™, we extend an open invitation to everyone to join this empowering movement. Engage with us through interactive exhibitions, talks, workshops, and partnerships as we create a platform to address the unaddressed and ignite positive change. Together, we can paint a future where silenced truths find a voice, and art becomes a catalyst for healing, understanding, and transformation.

Uncover your voice, share your stories, and be part of the change with What’s Your Elephant™.

#whatsyourelephant

What’s Your Elephant™ collaborates with community groups, artists, non-profits, and corporate organizations.

Types of programming include:

• Small and large art exhibitions
• Signature What’s Your Elephant™ workshops (An artistic background is not a requirement. Youths under the 18 must have parental consent.)
• Artists’ Talks and Panel discussions
• Video Series
• Interactive installations
• Provocative cultural programming
• Video presentations & talks
• What’s Your Elephant™ social media campaigns

For events dates & booking contact us

Show your support for this movement with this great vintage t-shirt!
Proceeds go towards creating #whatsyourelephant workshop & programming.

Share YOUR elephant by logging onto:
whatsyourelephant.tumblr.com
instagram.com/whatsyourelephant
or projects@nikiartstudio.com
Look for us on the web via #whatsyourelephant