((( a work in progress )))

Mirror Bridge
co-creating a peaceful commons
through the language of art



MISSION
Mirror Bridge co-creates a peaceful commons through the language of art, the closest means we have to universal exchange. We share art, in all its forms, as inquiry, medicine, connection, and restorative action. We honor art as a balm that soothes the wounds and affirms the awe we all experience as living beings. 

VISION
Mirror Bridge is organized by artists, healers, educators, cultural workers, and community organizers, for anyone to engage and everyone to explore. We weave spaces of nourishment, make experiences of wonder, spark individual imaginations, and alight collective consciousness. Together—by offering public programs, free libraries, independent creative practices, in-person gatherings, bespoke services, and more—we build and participate in a reality that reveres all beings and cares for all cultures. 

PUBLIC PROGRAMS
Our forthcoming pilot programs will be anchored by a free public Living Arts Library, to launch with quarterly volumes, seasonal radio hours, and a series of special events. These openly accessible multimedia portals will offer curated art/works, approaches to healing, and interdisciplinary creative expressions, primarily through dynamic web-based and in-person platforms. Hopefully, a kind of borderless sanctuary for shared reflection and regeneration, inside and out.

BESPOKE SERVICES
Our foundational bespoke services include program design, curatorial design, event design, cooperative strategic planning, and holistic arts and cultural consulting. We specialize in custom-tailored, culture-forward, and community-centered approaches. Whether on a shortterm basis or a longterm contract, we engage each project as a creative thought partnership and a mutualistic opportunity to translate ideals into experiences, concepts into realities.

PROCESS
Every contributor who makes Mirror Bridge, our programs, and our services is supported for their participation. Cooperatively, we grow sustainable shared resources, including time, space, funding, and fellowship. Our fuller concept paper / experimental framework imagines how we may evolve and expand. Mirror Bridge will remain a work in progress. 

STRUCTURE
A social benefit hybrid, Mirror Bridge operates as an independent LLC and with a nonprofit fiscal sponsorship via Fractured Atlas. Mirror Bridge is founded and guided by Julia Munroe Mandeville and co-created with Maria Manuela, Khalil Ekulona, and a circle of makers, councilors, and ambassadors. We are based in New Mexico and collaborating beyond borders.

STATUS
Mirror Bridge is in the research, development, and pilot phase for our public programs, as well as actively engaged in our inaugural bespoke services contracts. We are inviting insights and securing funding to support this process, as well as our forthcoming projects and capstone initiatives. Our immediate next steps are:

  • engage in ongoing discovery dialogues

  • invite further core collaborators

  • co-refine program and architecture

  • secure seed resources to proceed with the library

  • open a call for makers interested in joining us as featured contributors


((( share your insights )))

  • Julia Munroe Mandeville

    FOUNDER, DIRECTOR & CO-CREATOR

    Julia Munroe Mandeville is an award-winning cultural worker, curator, writer, civic artist, and grassroots organizer. With the dream that we can make a joyous, just, and peaceful future by and for all, Julia builds open public programs for lifelong learning, creative expression, self discovery, and collective impact. With decades of field experience, Julia holds/held leadership roles at Harwood Art Center, SOMOS ABQ, Creative ABQ, Tricklock Theatre Company, Albuquerque Poet Laureate Program, and more. She’s a 2024-25 Women’s Impact Alliance Catalyst Fellow, 2025 Hambidge Center for the Arts & Sciences Creative Residency Fellow, and 2025 City of Albuquerque Creative Bravos Award Recipient. Previous honors include the National Philanthropy Day New Mexico Outstanding Young Nonprofit Professional of the Year Award, Americans for the Arts Emerging Leaders Scholarship Award, and ABQ Business First 40 Under 40 Award. At home where the Sandias and Manzanos meet, she lives and makes in Albuquerque, on Tiwa Lands, with her beloveds James and Iris. In 2023. after years of imagining, she officially established Mirror Bridge.

  • Maria Manuela

    CO-CREATOR

    Maria Manuela is a writer, curator, and model based in Santa Fe, where she carries the legacy of a family who has lived there for tens of generations. Motivated by stories, she seeks words that convey the human experience, and all the ways that magic manifests. Maria has been writing about artists and their work for nearly a decade, and it's been her lifelong dream to write about fashion too. Maria’s essays have appeared in publications including Hyperallergic, Fashionista, Wild Sam, New Mexico Magazine, UNUM Magazine, Edible NM, Good Mood, THE Magazine, Southwest Contemporary, and more. Currently, she’s also working on a collection of magical realism folk tales based on New Mexico history. On any given evening, she can be found gazing at the sunset with pups Ham and Pea, and partner Joel, being grateful for the small moments that are the sweetest juice in this life. In 2024, she joined Mirror Bridge as the first lead co-creator.

  • Khalil Ekulona

    CO-CREATOR

    Khalil Ekulona is an award-winning host, journalist, and producer whose career spans public radio, television, and digital media. He has interviewed thousands of people on issues shaping our present, stories from our past, and visions for the future. In 1997 he moved to Los Angeles and became one of the founding members of the hip hop group, Fresh Air. Between 2001 and 2007 they released an EP and several singles. Khalil continues to produce and make hip hop music under the name Pope Yesyesyall. For over three years, Khalil hosted This Is Nashville, the daily live show on Nashville’s NPR affiliate WPLN. Previously, he created and hosted No More Normal for Albuquerque’s NPR affiliate KUNM, served as a correspondent for PBS affiliate KNME, and co-hosted Good Day New Mexico on NBC affiliate KOB4. Known for his authenticity, curiosity, and humor, Khalil brings compassion and candor to every conversation—turning interviews into memorable, meaningful experiences for both guests and audiences. In 2025, he joined Mirror Bridge as co-producer and -host of the forthcoming Mirror Bridge Radio Hour.